should probably identify some things that I feel are plausible risks right now

i dont have any idea how large these risks are

going to focus on first order risks because most of them have tons of knock-on effects

1. per a now-deleted thread, anything happening to supreme court justices
2. right wingers doing something really stupid
3. democrats massively overreaching and causing a hostile rupture with establishment republicans
4. Congressional Republicans doing something really stupid as a body. I specifically mean House republicans, I think it is unlikely the Senators will be stupid
just generally the short term risk is anything that results in dramatic political escalation

country is a tinderbox after Wednesday

trump getting media purged is very bad for the medium to long term but i am personally most worried about the next month
(2) and (3) seem like the most likely things to happen.

i have more trust in the bulk of the senate and the biden admin to keep their heads. anything with the court is a tail risk. house members seem relatively powerless in practice.
some stabilizing factors:

1. the business establishment is acting independently and forcefully to exert political pressure for stability. this is potentially destabilizing in the longer term but predominantly helpful in the short term
2. the supreme court will probably perform admirably if needed, and will probably given the current makeup at least mitigate if not wholly overturn some of the excesses of democrats that are likely to ensue.

. . . eventually
3. a significant portion of the republican establishment just fucking hates trump, and deeply resents being driven out of the capitol by a mob
continuing this thought and making it explicit, this probably reduces their sense of loyal in some sense to their party and redirects it toward institutions

i am genuinely grateful for mcconnell and pence holding the offices they do
4. none of the republican state legislatures or governors (of which I believe they are the majority) did anything obviously stupid on Wednesday, and they seem unlikely to do so
5. the military doesnt want any part of this shit and its officers especially at the higher ranks seem to hate trump

this is important because in spite of mixed views in lower ranks and among the enlisted it is very difficult to coordinate below the colonelcy
idk this is where my head is. please do not take this as gospel, God knows things are hard to predict even in good times and I am a humble speculator

overall i think we are likely to muddle through

im gonna lose again in AV and go to bed

gn, pls remember to maintain sangfroid

More from Legal

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In light of this serious cyber attack and this being the second in a row that I've heard in the past few weeks, I'd like to take this moment to talk about the cyber attack known as #phishing so that others do not fall prey to it and stay safe online.

Thread starts:


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Phishing is usually a means of contacting you by impersonation to gather data, oversimplifying it. This can happen in several ways:
1. URL similarities: Usually when people visit a webpage, most people never check the URL (Uniform Resource Locator). For example, a fake URL of


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https://t.co/x0brAMyKgF would be https://t.co/HrdE9hklv1. Seem the same, right? No. I've replaced one single character of "L" in @Google with "I". Therefore, your entire data would be redirected to the server that is hosting GOOGIE, instead of GOOGLE. This is commonly

4/

hackers perform cyber attacks. However this is only one of many.
Many people might forward you genuine links with small "add-ons" which enter your system like a Trojan Horse. A beautiful meme of keyboard cat on the outside but a vicious data-mining link on the inside.
Plus


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There's also other means of doing this. And you might think "But dude, who's stupid enough to fall for it?"
LOTS of UNINFORMED people are.
2020 was a record breaking year for phishing websites and attacks as per @techradar. It's not just through

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