timorl @timorl@qoto.org

And the first post... ah, just reading him again makes me very emotional. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/still-alive

And everything in the world is suddenly back on track. Well, at least it feels this way to me, in practice this might be _slightly_ exaggerated.

AAAA, SCOTT IS BACK!!! https://astralcodexten.substack.com/

On second look, if I'm understanding the UI correctly it generated captions already, but they are _empty_. There is a warning it might not generate proper captions if there are multiple people speaking, so maybe that's a problem. That would make the results inconclusive again. Oh well, I can wait just to make sure before declaring that.

# Test 1

Let's document this one properly.

## Preparation

Downloaded the video using `youtube-dl`.
Extracted the relevant part of the sound, from the moment it becomes clear (IMO) to when the video cuts to another part of the crowd.

```
ffmpeg -i Rioters\ chant\ \'hang\ Mike\ Pence\'\ as\ they\ breach\ Capitol-ba0UR7gITrU.mp4 -vn -acodec copy chant.aac
```

Created a video out of the sound file with a irrelevant name and the least political picture I could find on short notice (a drawing of a mathematical pun in Polish).

```
ffmpeg -loop 1 -y -i ../kurakLematowskiegoZorna.jpg -i chant.aac -shortest -acodec copy -vcodec libx264 sillyTestVideo.avi
```

Uploaded the result to YT, as of now there are no auto-generated captions present, but the instructions suggest this might take a while.

# Test 0

No captions on the original video. Not a huge disappointment, it wouldn't have been strong evidence anyway.

Before I get to Test 1, I wanted to point out that if it correctly reconstructs the given name present in the chant this would be _weaker_ evidence of whatever gets recognized, because it might suggest the captioning system recognized the chant and assigned known captions to it (I don't know whether anything like that actually happens). Something like "Hang my pants!" (which is actually what I heard before I corrected for context) would be stronger evidence. Thankfully this won't be an issue in Test 2.

@FailForward Not really, the courts might decide whether there was enough evidence for crimes, perhaps the evidence would even include chants with death threats. However, I believe this might not even be neccessary to establish intent, so I highly doubt they will investigate this video/chant in much detail.

And you are right to an extent, as far as the original discussion purpose goes establishing intent would be crucial to support my argument. What I am trying to do now though, is not continuing that discussion, but investigating how heavily my senses are distorted by my biases. Since the courts likely won't investigate the specific chant for which I have reasons to believe such distortion exists, they won't help me in this matter.

@pettter I am definitely familiar with the general phenomenon (thus point 3 being an option; I was referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress), although I was not familiar with the specific name for the auditory one. Thanks!

So yesterday I ended up in a situation whereI was in disagreement about what I thought I could clearly hear in a video. Since it sounded perfectly clear to me, and the topic of the related discussion was politically charged, _and_ I have no reason to doubt the other participants honesty about what they say they are hearing, this is pretty concerning. I see three options:

1. I am so influenced by propaganda my basic senses are broken.
2. The above, but for the other participant.
3. This specific video is an auditory case of blue/black vs white/gold dress.

I think the odds are about 5/80/15. I kind of hope it's 3 though, it would mean the propaganda is not strong enough to wrap the minds of intelligent people that badly. If it is 1, I obviously need to at least make a drastic change in the media I am consuming, and probably re-evaluate a lot of stuff.

This toot is mostly a pre-commitment, so that I follow up on my attempt to settle this. My plan is as follows, mostly in order of effort needed:

0. Look at the auto-generated captions on the YT video. If this confirms what I hear this would be _extremely weak_ evidence against 1. There might not even be auto-captions enabled for the video and I am not sure if manual captions can be distinguished from automatic ones.
1. Extract the crucial part of the sound from the video and re-upload it to YT with no real visuals attached and no suggestive title. Check the auto-captions there. This could be weak to moderate evidence for any of the above.
2. Same but with a different system than YT. I'll probably pick a couple options from this page: https://fosspost.org/open-source-speech-recognition/ . They all would be weak to moderate evidence for any of the above, in aggregate they are strong if in agreement.
3. Use Mechanical Turk to ask people about what they hear. **If anyone knows a reasonable non-amazon alternative, let me know.** This would be strong evidence towards something, with the possibility of bias due to people being familiar with the content.
4. Same as above, but cut the audio into separate words to limit bias.

If too many of the steps fail (producing no reasonable output) I can fall back on using the single words to ask friends who are hopefully unfamiliar with the context, but this would be kind of weak. I might skip some later steps if previous steps produce sufficient agreement or if they turn out to be too expensive (I don't really know the rates on mturk...).

Crucially, what my specific claims about what I clearly hear are (which are incompatible with what the other person hears), in order of how confident I am of them:
1. The second word starts with an 'm', not a 'w'.
2. The first word ends with a consonant, most likely an 'ng' sound.
3. The first word starts with 'ha'.
4. The second word starts with a 'my' sound.

This might take a couple of days...

@FailForward
(Removing Dr. F to respect his wishes, I think you should too, he clearly stated he was tired of the conversation.)

I think we actually both focused on the important question whether this was a coup, which I think you quite well explained why it would be bad. But the original question was whether Trump is enough of a danger to democracy to never be worthy of support above any other politican that is not such a danger. And to argue that you _also_ have to argue that his actions lead to the coup -- I believe the fact that people predicted in advance (always quite a feat) that these actions were likely to lead to a coup is a very good argument for the latter statement.

And if it wasn't a coup attempt (or however you want to call it, but attempt to change power undemocratically), then the whole point would be moot. So focusing on that question in the discussion is reasonable.

@2ck @antigravman

@freemo

Sorry about bringing this up again then, but really, watch the video. No idea why the transcript says that, maybe it's some shitty automation, but the video is extremely clear. And from now on I will not write any more about this to you, unless you explicitly ask me to. Sorry again.

@2ck @antigravman

@freemo You seem to have missed a picture (?) in this toot, or I am experiencing a qoto bug.

@freemo

"We want Pence"? Did you watch the video on your phone, or something with terrible sound quality? I re-watched it twice and it's not even that unclear, especially as the person recording enters the doorway -- they are **very clearly** chanting "Hang Mike Pence". I suggest you rewatch it in better sound quality or something?

Well done though, you made me doubt reality, I re-watched it a third time just to be sure. Still very clearly "Hang Mike Pence".

(Once again this made me wonder if you are trolling, because if you are, you are being amazingly successful.)

As far as I understand the policemen were not the only people behind that door (and why would they be, no sense in guarding an empty chamber). So I was referring to the congresspeople who were still there. Unless you have reason to believe the mob that chanted "Hang Mike Pence" would be more forgiving of members of congress, especially the better known D ones, then my description is accurate.

I was clearly wrong about the original claim concerning the Texas video -- I originally watched the surround video, though to myself this was terryfying and was appaled when Trump tweeted his support. Somewhere along the way I fell for the echo chamber claim that they were also pushing the bus off the road, and that was clearly a mistake I have to be careful about in the future. But I already learned from that, I looked for the "Hang Mike Pence" video and watched it _very carefully_ to make sure I'm not falling for some propaganda. And this time, I wasn't. So yeah, I'm trying not to repeat my mistakes, even being a bit paranoid about that -- that's why I rewatched it more times, as mentioned above.

This should also cover the "parroting" argument. I often try to double check accusations against Trump, especially the more outlandish ones, and they are correct a surprizing proportion of times. But since he was doing _so many_ terrible things it would be a full-time job to double-check all of them. Now I'll at least double-check the ones I use as arguments, sorry for being late about that.

* The first point is incorrect, they were chanting "Hang Mike Pence" and I was referring to the congresspeople in the room as being threatened.
* Here I was wrong about important details, but Trump sending signals that putting his political enemies in danger is not only acceptable, but laudable is still enough to support my argument.
* The policeman being hit with a flag-pole (or at least some long object; yes you made me rewatch that video too) is a counterexample to these people not being violent. Most of the non-violent moments are when they are not meeting any opposition, as I mentioned previously.
* They made absurd threats, right, no way they could ever get inside a government building while an election certification is happening, how silly of me for thinking there was any danger. To be more serious, clearly a significant portion of the people there was just riled up and without a plan, although very useful in helping everyone get inside. And there were clearly people in that group that had more dangerous plans, most obviously the zip handcuff guy, but I also don't know about all the people chanting "Hang Mike Pence".
* Yeah, the previous point covers this.

I hope I convinced you that I am trying quite hard to be very honest and precise. So far I have been clearly wrong in one point during this conversation, surely that shouldn't be enough to dismiss everything I am saying. Although, obviously, you are welcome to disengage from the discussion, I don't want to be an unnecessary drain on your mental resources. I only want for more people (including me! so thanks for correcting my impression about the Texas video!) to be less wrong about the world, that's why I partake in such conversations.

@2ck @antigravman

@freemo

My bad, you are right, in this video https://youtu.be/ba0UR7gITrU they probably just finished their laundry and a politely asking for their pants to be hanged. Definitely not calling for the death of a public official who just refused a request of his superior to throw out the results of an election, and who is present in the building they are attempting to enter.

You might have missed the flagpole being swung at the policeman on the ground.

And you appear to be unaware of one of the basic tenets of law enforcement philosophy on which the concept of police in most democratic countries is built. Police are given a state-sanctioned monopoly (or at least permission, depending on the laws regarding defending one's property and such) on using violence to enforce laws and protect people. That includes stopping burglaries from happening, or more broadly stopping people from entering buildings they are not allowed to enter. This is especially clear when the people attempting to enter are an angry mob that intends to interrupt part of the democratic process. There are obviously considerations concerning how much violence exactly they are allowed to use, and in general what the proportional response should be. And preferably they should be sufficiently prepared to minimize the violence, but that was not the case here.

So let's assume the woman was unarmed, and the police were fully convinced of that fact (not sure why they would be, since this is a strange assumption to make about someone crawling through a barricade, but alright). What were they supposed to do? Wait for all the people to enter, fill the room, one of them to grab a flagpole and start hitting one of the people originally inside? Or maybe watch them build a noose, politely ask for somene to step on a chair, put the noose on their neck, and then, as soon as the chair was kicked from under them spring to action? These scenarios are obviously ridiculous, but in none of them violence happens earlier than when it's already too late. Before that there is only implied threat of violence, which is also clearly present when climbing through a barricade. And to be perfectly clear, I would obviously have preferred that they did not shoot her, her death is a tragedy. But I also don't know enough about what else the policeman could have done in the situation to stop it from deteriorating into something even more terrible – if you know I would be grateful if you shared.

They did call for support, eventually, and processing the request through bureaucracy took way too long. This obviously needs to be investigated, including the fact that the national guard was not pre-approved to defend the buildings despite clear signals of what was coming, and it appears that it will be. In the meantime, the policemen still had the duty to protect the people and democratic process inside. As for details as to why the use of violence was justified in this situation see two paragraphs above.

Hyperbole is claiming something was happening for 4 years, when it was actually happening for at most half a year, to strengthen the argument. I am stating facts and pretty straightforward interpretations of them. You can disagree with either, but calling it hyperbole is just wrong.

So when did Biden endorse violence? I tried looking for "Biden supports CHAZ", "Biden endorses violence" or things like that, but the only results that came up were him answering a question about *condemning* violence affirmatively. But maybe I just missed it?

Things like accepting the election results when they are not favourable, he hinted at only acepting results when he wins, multiple times. Also talking about Lugenpresse, when the media are reporting unfavourable facts about him. There are probably other things, I can try making a comprehensive list on request, but it kind of doesn't matter for the argument – liberals and the left warned about mutiple things he was doing ending up in anti-democratic consequences, and it could have been debatable at the time, but now **after the consequences happened** it is clear. In this case the left and liberals clearly had a better model of reality than you.

He didn't accept the result of the election, he never admitted he lost. He admitted that he will be leaving the White House and a new administration will be sworn in, but he still has not accepted the results explicitly, he did not say "Biden won" or "I lost" or anything else to that effect. He only accepted that he does not have enough support to stop the change in power, and even that was after the coup attempt. At best this may be seen as a win for US democratic institutions, which were strong enough to force out a president who refuses to accept election results. Also note that even if he actually admitted he lost _after_ the coup attempt, this would not invalidate the reasoning that lead people to believe that him refusing to accept the loss could lead to a coup attempt. Oh, and this distinction between accepting the results and accepting the change in power is important, because now his supporters will still believe the election was "stolen" from them, which will increase anti-democratic sentiment and lead to even worse things happening next time. Yes, this is another one of these predictions that so far seem to be scarily coming true.

(Side note, please don't get offended: you are you not trolling me and actually believe the stuff you are writing, right? I normally wouldn''t ask, because in general you always gave me the impression of someone who treats these things seriously, but the "left without a peep" phrase was so ridiculously outlandish that the surreal feeling it gave me made me consider the possibility. Sorry if it was just a turn of phrase, and you did not notice how strange it sounded in the context of an enormous rally against the election results.)

It was a coup attempt, pathetic and clearly unsuccessful, but an attempt nonetheless. If there were more and better organized people the coup could have been successful – at least as far as getting to the people certifying the election, likely the US democratic institutions would be strong enough to stop Trump from actually assuming power. It came scarily close to a successsful attempt, considering how easily these people got inside and how close they were to apprehending congresspeople and the vice-president. If you wait for a sucessful attempt to call it a coup attempt, then you likely won't be able to call it that for long...

It's not the strongest piece, that is the fact that all this is happening after warnings from the center and the left (and also, to be fair, parts of the right before Trump won the primary and they fell in line) that it would happen due to what Trump was doing. And creating dangerous, life-threteaning situations might not be literal violence, but it is so close that I'm not sure it matters. If it continues, there might even be a coup attempt by supporters who see this as permission to pursue undemocratic ways of obtaining power... Oh wait.

@2ck @antigravman

"Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?" is such a lovely piece of blatant propaganda I'm surprized it's not subsidized by the Japaneese government.

Not that I recommend it, unless you can get enjoyment from admiring propaganda for what it is.

@pettter
Interesting, I haven't heard about that one, I'll read up on it too.
@rysiek

@pettter
That's my main worry about PoS cryptos. I had some thoughts on designing the economy of those in ways that would avoid that, but implementing such a design would be much less profitable that a more natural one, so I feel it's mostly hopeless.
@rysiek