Having spent 2020 telling covid denalists that they were overly optimistic about the pandemic, I now look forward to spending 2021 telling covid maximalists that they are overly pessimistic about the end of the pandemic.

If a critical mass of people on twitter generate enough Section 230 hot takes, all that energy fuses to create renewed interest in the #FairnessDoctrine.

I wrote a book on the FD so let me walk you through why reviving it would be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

First, the Fairness Doctrine was responsible for the most successful episode of government censorship of the past half century. While the Fairness Doctrine was technically created to encourage fair and balanced coverage of “controversial issues of public importance"...

...in the 1960s the Kennedy administration weaponized it to punish conservative radio critics. You see, fairness is in the eye of the beholder--which is the FCC--and the person who appoints the commissioners--the president--gets a say in what looks fair or foul.

(JFK also launched targeted IRS audits of his right-wing radio antagonists; the power to tax is the power to destroy, after all.) Stations responded to the secretly government-organized pressure by dropping conservative broadcasters in order to avoid Fairness Doctrine complaints.

And lest you think this Fairness Doctrine stuff is just conservative bellyaching, bear in mind that the Nixon administration used the threat of Fairness Doctrine enforcement to help bring television network heads to heel.

The New York Times article about SlateStarCodex is finally out and it is...bad. There's a lot I could parse, but let me just walk you through one paragraph that is so misleading as to be

Take the first sentence of this paragraph. Now, technically the clause--"who proposed a link between race and IQ"--could simply modify "Murray" and have nothing to do w/ SSC.

But 99% of readers are going to assume that the clause actually defines SSC's alignment with Murray. In other words, the author is strongly implying that SSC shares Murray's racist beliefs.

And that would be big(!)...if it were at all true. It is not. Indeed, if you go to the hyperlink, you'll find that SSC's purported "alignment" has nothing to do with Murray's "Bell Curve."

What SSC & Murray agree about is that poverty is partly hereditable and thus very sticky, so much so that the proposition job retraining programs will meaningfully address mass economic disruption is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.

I wrote a book about the Fairness Doctrine and how it was responsible for one of the worst episodes of government censorship in US history.

So I am somewhat alarmed at the calls percolating on Twitter for a new, internet Fairness Doctrine. This is a thread about why that is.

Let's start with what most people think when they hear "Fairness Doctrine." They imagine a time at an indeterminate point in the past when mass media was reasonable, balanced, equitable, and fair. It was a veritable golden age of mass media and the Fairness Doctrine was to thank.

Back then, radio & tv stations couldn't just air their opinions, spreading unchecked misinformation. No, they had to let the other side of any given issue have a say, giving the good guys a chance to check the bad guys when they told bald lies.

However, the problem with this narrative is that it is almost entirely a myth. In actuality, the Fairness Doctrine was a tool wielded by political interests in order to suppress dissident speech & prevent activists (from both Left & Right) from exposing the lies of the powerful.

But telling that story requires going back before the first major test of the Fairness Doctrine in 1963, before the rules were created in 1949, all the way back to the first meaningful attempt at federal regulation of radio in 1927.

Based on the latest info I could find, here's why what happened on Jan. 6th was worse than we thought.

It was coordinated. This was not merely a crowd of protestors accidentally incited to storm the Capitol by the intemperance of the President & other speakers at the rally.

Security experts are combing through the online chatter leading up to the rally and have found extremist groups planning violence. People came w/ malice aforethought, thus armored insurrectionists pushing to the front of the crowd, pipe bombs, & so

But it gets worse. The feds seem to be investigating several Republican members of Congress for connections to the organizers of the rally. (The FBI has warned lawmakers in closed door hearings that they may be shocked with what comes out.)

Indeed, at least one member of Congress, Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) alleges that these GOP members gave some of the insurrectionists tours of the Capitol building on January 5th, the day before.

The implication is that these GOP congressmen used the walkthroughs to familiarize the insurrectionists with the building layout so that they could push into the building and confront their colleagues who were opposed to overturning the electoral ballot count.

Nearly a year ago, the Tablighi Jamaat controversy took over India’s media. Around 3,500 foreign nationals had visited India to attend the Tablighi Jamaat event at the Nizamuddin Markaz Mosque in Delhi.

With the lockdown being announced on March 24, 2020, several attendees had moved to different parts of the country to attend smaller gatherings in local mosques.

Around 960 foreign nationals were held at quarantine and in states like UP, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc. were sent straight to prison.

There was an outpour of Anti-Muslim bigotry in much of Indian news media with this event where it ramped up its demonisation of the community.

For weeks, the attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event were named the “super-spreaders” of COVID and in several cases, Maulana Mohammad Saad was called a terrorist and “the maulana of death”.

There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.

The Sentinelese are often described as “uncontacted,” but this not strictly true. They had a very significant contact in 1880 with Commander Portman.

Portman, the black sheep third son of some minor noble, was assigned by the English Royal Navy to administer and pacify the Andaman Islands, a job he pursued from 1880-1900 with the full measure of his own perversity.

Portman was erotically obsessed with the Andamanese, and he indulged his passion for photography by kidnapping members of various tribes and posing them in mock-Greek homoerotic compositions.

During his 20 years in a sexualized heart of darkness, Portman measured and cataloged every inch of his prisoner’s bodies, with an obsessive focus on genitals.

For those traveling to DC on Jan. 6th, I'm a native to the area and I would like to share with you what I will be doing this time and what I have done for the last two rallies...1/

Thread: This is a long thread about my wife's grand-father: Vinayak Apte.
Born, brought up & lived in Pune. Aptewada, Sadashiv Peth. Qualified as an engineer in 1920s or so. Married around same time.
I promise you this is worth reading, so settle down with your cup of tea....1/n

Around 1921, young Vinayak writes to Mahatma Gandhi expressing his desire to join Bapu & work for freedom struggle.
Bapu writes back saying sending money for the ticket (₹5) & get your backside up here (not exactly these words, but you know what I mean!).
Bapu adds a PS...2/n

"If you change your mind, please return the ₹5 by money order to Sabarmati Ashram" Typical Bapu, you might say! Careful with money.
Vinayak quits his job & decides to go to Sabarmati. Entire extended Apte clan is horrified. Joining that fakir? Giving up your job? Ostracised.

Vinayak goes to Sabarmati with young wife & 2-3 yr old daughter. Wifey not impressed at all, bcoz on arriving there they are assigned to separate living quarters (men & women), celibacy & every1 (incl her, a Brahmin woman) was expected to clean toilets! Horror of horrors..3/n

Wife never forgave Vinayak & Bapu. She had married a engineer & was looking forward to a prosperous life. Life on other hand, was full of austerity. Everyone had to work & was paid a pittance. 5 am wake up.Cook. Clean. Khadi sarees (which btw weigh a ton!) & evening prayers...4/n