Roman elites drank from leaded cups because it made water sweeter. Radiation was thought at one time to have healing properties, so people would add uranium to their drinking water. Glowing dishes are still a collectors item. After the discovery of x-rays, shoe stores started installing them and using them on kids feet to size shoes. Lead was added to gasoline to improve engine performance, and paint to make it whiter. We all know about asbestos and DDT.

We look back at all of this and think, "how could people have been so incompetent back then?" Some of these things caused irreparable harm in their generation, some continue to cause harm today almost 100 years later.

If you wonder that, look at the whole #LLM thing and you have your answer.

@aeva they started telling me to do what I was told, so I stopped being able to provide value. I'm fine with the situation.

Following instructions from incompetent leadership is indistinguishable from sabotage.

@su_liam @kkarhan @sashag absolutely, but doing something illegal is a decision that people choose, not something that someone does because of misinformation.

@kkarhan @sashag also police use encrypted (but perhaps crackable) frequencies for coms. Also transmitting on police frequencies is definitely not legal.

@hvdklauw @fesshole "please call me back at my 900 number...."

I've listened to enough episodes of Revolutions to have a rough idea of what's coming next. If you're in the US, now is a good time to do some more long-term (the system will be down for months or years) kind of disaster planning.

That means building connections with your community, because you can't do everything yourself and you may have to figure out how to get things without state/capital functioning to facilitate that.