Exactly what I was thinking of. Their misunderstanding of something like the different data types and epocs for time values is crazy.

Any time I get a weird date/time value the first thing I check is what the epoc and smallest unit of time is as it’s far more likely I’ve done some bad math than something that old actually being valid.

Edit: spelling

I would have been surprised if they weren’t using COBOL especially when it comes to the Treasury.

A lot of them don’t even seem to have any IT/software muscle. I keep reading that they basically have zero experience with a lot of the languages (COBOL), databases, or software that is used in the government. So these people get into the servers and start digging around in code and data that they don’t even have a fundamental understanding of and are essentially making shit up about their findings.

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about that. Thanks for reminding me!

They should probably move that information to the top so it at least primes readers ahead of time. Either way, I still feel like this system they are defining has to have some sort of centralized verification agency/group and I don’t really know how you can do that and not potentially be open for abuse or corruption. Alternatively, I also don’t know how you can verifiy an individual is who they say they are and aren’t creating fake/bot accounts in a decentralized manner either, these are very hard problems to solve and I don’t know if this paper touches on any ideas as to how to solve them, but it would be interesting to hear from the author on those topics.

Again, interesting read and thanks for sharing it, I think it’s important for people to be thinking about how to approach problems like this in a digital age sooner rather than later.

Maybe it’s because I couldn’t get through reading all of this, but my initial skimming leads me to believe this would be hard to fully protect against abuse. It also feels like that at least in the beginning there would be a lot of centralized power and that doesn’t feel great to me.

There are also a lot of grammar mistakes that made it hard for me to read, I’m admittedly not a great writer, but it was causing me to stumble while reading and made me question if this paper had even been edited or proofread by anyone.

All that said, it’s definitely an interesting thought experiment.

Calling the office of the Attorney General in your state would be a good place to start. Also contacting the people in your state’s houses of Congress as well as the ones at the federal level.

They are at least signaling some sort of action now, so as you said I think it’s a good move as well.

Hoping to see my state added to the list, they’ve been filling suits on a lot of other issues as well, but sometimes seem to be a little delayed.

I’m really on the fence with this one, she’s not a politician but it is still a pretty public position in the government. I do, however, think that we need to some how figure out how to dissuade people from making death threats, they have become far too normalized at this point, but I suppose with 300 million people in this country you’re going to have a large number of the population (even if it’s a small percentage) that take things to the extreme and I don’t know how you fix that. Like, how do you teach empathy to people who clearly don’t have any?

I get it, this is one major reason why I’m not interested in getting into politics myself, but I think if you’re willing to take on this role in government then you should be willing to stand up for it. Pretty easy of me to say sitting behind this screen though.

That I understand and is also why I want these people to actually make Trump take an action that is legally challengeable in court. Although Trump is already defying court orders so I don’t know how much will come of it, but I figure if we keep seeing the pile of tangible illegal actions that courts are going on record to state they are illegal then maybe we’ll get enough sway back away from the far right.

I hope so. Also, I feel like saying things like this only make more people fall into the defeatist attitude which tends lead to lower voter turn out. I get where you’re coming from, but we have to at least try.

Fully agree, I’m getting really tired of people in positions like this just bowing out and not forcing the other side to follow through on their threats.

Stop using king to refer to what Trump is trying to become and use accurate terms like fascist dictator. I guarantee that Trump loves being referred to as a king and all you’re doing is boosting his already massively overinflated ego.

We’ll probably find out in 2 years when seats of Congress are up for election again.

Can we stop referring to him as becoming a king? Let’s call it what it truly is that he’s trying to become, a dictator.

Exactly what I had in mind when I wrote my original comment.

It’s like mob tactics, once you pay for protection they’ll just keep coming back asking for more until you’re bled dry, then they’ll dispose of you.

I agree, unless he ends up in jail, then I hope he grows very old.