Could an Algorithm Predict the Next Insurrection Like Jan. 6? | Hacker News Reader

Could an Algorithm Predict the Next Insurrection Like Jan. 6?

gizmodo.com

2 pointsrbanffy9 comments

Next Insurrection

Someone please correct me if I am wrong but nobody has been charged with treason, sedition or terrorism. AFAIK some disturbed attention seeking individuals trespassed, vandalized and destroyed some government property. I believe one person had ill intent that guy with the zip-ties. Did I miss a big part of the story? Not at all excusing those clowns, but has anyone been charged with a more serious crime? Is there an archived manifesto?

The PowerPoint deck found lately had the title “Options for Jan 6”. It proves that a ring of politicians were preparing to make some lemonade if enough chaos could prevent the expected transition of power. Their coordinated use of burner phones has proven they meant business.

Some of them joined media celebrities and relatives in a military command-style tent outfitted with transmitters. Venturing out of this hut, they lied to the clowns about accompanying them into the capital.

Some of the rioters were willing to die to breach parts of the building. We all know that, on a different day, some single disturbed individual trying to breach security is treated as a threat and maybe later described as disturbed. 2000 organized disturbed people.

Some of them are called Oath Keepers. You don’t get to call yourself an Oath Keeper without some manifesto.

And I’m sure in the aftermath many of the 10,000 or so would rather we not use the word manifesto. But, another word for manifesto is creed and the footage of bus rides on way shows more comfort with the word creed.

So, what was it? Well, when facing judgment the rioters say things like “I was listening to the President”. Maybe they also say “I’m sorry” but they definitely invoke one person they still think has power.

They don’t need a particularly long and flowery manifesto. People from these kinds of movements do best with short, pithy ones. Trump’s “American Carnage” speech was enough.

That would be intriguing if true. Are there any investigative reporting videos that show the command-style tents, burner phones and such? Do we have any video footage of the rioters self proclaiming to be oath keepers? Was the author of the powerpoint charged? It would be an interesting story if someone like John Oliver or related youtuber put all the evidence from this together into one video report. It's been a year so I would expect someone would have put all of this together by now.

Those questions and more can be answered from a diversity of news sources. I suppose the New York Times documentary has the most amount of video; the problem is too much video.

But, for reference, the command tent is in a video posted by the President’s son. The distributor of burner phones is part of the FBI investigation, not sure how directly she worked with the White House. Of the 700 people arrested, only 40 have been charged with conspiracy; those are overwhelmingly members of groups with manifestos.

Hope that helps

I found some recent videos that do in fact cover more details and it's actually quite a bit worse than you describe. There are no burner phones or command tents it seems, or at least that is not a significant part of how these people coordinate anything. These people are using social media and public podcasts to coordinate their actions. No manifesto, public podcasts. In fact they have been monitored extensively and followed for quite a while leading up to this. [1] Several militia groups and white supremacist groups had been planning this for a while and reporters had been working with social media companies to use machine learning to know who would be where, armed with what and what they intended to do. The only part they got wrong was the clothing. This time the one militia that usually wear Hawaiian shirts went in plain clothes but were spotted instantly either way.

The most concerning part of this to me is that as far as I can tell the incident on the 6th was simply allowed to happen. They only had a handful of state police in standard gear even knowing there would be a mob coming their way with militia members mixed in.

There is an interview with the federal prosecutor [2] that towards the end says there could be a case and it could go that way meaning the more serious charges but sounds more like he wants to go back to being the DA in Miami. Maybe he will hand this off to the next federal prosecutor?

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v22xC09WSVc

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbAYJt0hJG8

Their chances of success are much higher next time. An “unrest detector” won’t be deployed to preserve democracies.

Better question:

Is anything that goes as far as implementing an "unrest detector" worth preserving? Strikes me as getting going down some roads that lead to very dark places indeed.

For posterity, the actual title of the article is “Coup Prediction Algorithms Are Here to Save and/or Destroy Democracy”

And, for an Internet comment section, Gizmodo’s on this article is relatively intelligent and well informed.

No.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

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