sojournTime @sojournTime@qoto.org

Remember: When someone tells you democracy needs to be replaced, they're not making a political argument.

They're pitching a regime.

Because in the end, that's what gives them away. They don't want to end democracy to save society. They want to end it because, in their minds, they're already sitting on the throne.

Watch what happens when you suggest someone else might lead their proposed new system.

Watch how quickly their enthusiasm dims.

This isn't about ideology. It's not about left or right. It's about individuals so consumed by their own certainty, so convinced of their own superiority, that they see the fundamental equality of democracy as an obstacle to be overcome.

They don't hate democracy because it's inefficient. They hate it because it constrains them. Because it forces them to persuade rather than command. Because it treats their voice as equal to, not greater than, everyone else's.

It's base megalomania, encompassing the desire for power, and the absolute conviction that they alone deserve it.

In their minds, they're always the protagonist of the story they're selling. They're the ones who will sweep away the messiness, who will make the trains run on time, who will finally set things right.

Because they never finish that sentence with "...if we just gave power to someone else."

They'll speak with absolute certainty about democracy's failures. They'll point to its inefficiencies, its compromises, its endless debates. "Look how broken it all is," they'll say. "Look how much better things would be if we just..."

And right there - that's the tell.

There's a simple way to spot a wannabe tyrant.

Listen for anyone who says democracy is the problem. Not a problem to solve within democracy. Not a system to improve. A fundamental flaw that needs to be replaced.

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New Calculator template brings interactivity to Wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2025-01-15/Technology_report

The template basically allows the creation of small forms that allow readers to specify some numbers as input and use a formula to generate an output. It's even possible to simulate some simple algorithms step-by-step and expand the form after each step: see for instance an example of this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_algorithm#Procedure

Today, @ddosecrets published 212GB of chat logs and recordings from paramilitary/militia groups, including Three Percent and Oath Keepers, available for everyone to download https://ddosecrets.com/article/paramilitary-leaks

More about the leak from @ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/ap3-oath-keepers-militia-mole

Lynn Conway, electricial engineer and computer scientist, co-architect of the VLSI design revolution, and transgender activist, was born #OTD in 1938.

She invented Dynamic Instruction Scheduling at IBM, but IBM fired her when they learned she was transitioning.

Photo: Lynn Conway

I'm fully aware that this is a total waste of my time, but given today's news about an Apple settlement relating to Siri audio recordings I wrote this blog post about why I still don't think that companies are spying on us through our phone's microphones: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/2/they-spy-on-you-but-not-like-that/

#MardiPatisserie