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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 7h

My brothers and cousins here in the US, drug addicted, dead or moved back to Sweden where they live on disability.

I've done ok, as I was gifted, read encycylopedias and rode my bike to the library multiple times a week in grade school.

🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 7h

Also many immigrants were given a solid education in their home country, something we fail to deliver here. My parents were immigrants, as did 3 of my dad's brothers.

My cousins in Norway and Sweden, school mostly paid for. Health care, covered. Doctor's, Biologists, Physicists & programmers.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 7h

The "immigrant empire builder" highlights rare exceptions, not typical experiences. Most immigrants AND native-born people work hard and struggle. The real issue: an economy where hard work no longer guarantees security. Comparing exceptions to averages obscures systemic problems affecting everyone.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 7h

Just started researching my father's exposure to Nazis who occupied his home in Norway and how it might have shaped his personality. He was born less than a year before the invasion, and spoke better German than Norwegian at the age of 5. He also bonded with Polish POWs, they gave him candy which.

🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 8h

We see it. The people who could actually stop this are too invested in the system to use real power. So it falls to the rest of us to build something that doesn't depend on their permission.

🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 9h

Same pattern everywhere: Proven automated enforcement gets blocked by "freedom" rhetoric and intimidation, so politicians choose expensive surveillance theater instead. Car lobby wins, public safety loses. At least Munich got it right, Seattle and much of the US are still stuck.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 11h

You're right. Unmonitored cameras can't stop crime in real time, so they're just building surveillance infrastructure for later.

Seattle's building a police state instead of solving problems. Pining for "hard on crime" '90s, when crime is at historic low levels.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 12h

San Francisco uses cameras to enforce traffic laws, reduce crashes, and fund safety.

Seattle uses cameras to watch people, expand police surveillance, and drain budgets.

Katie Wilson will bring proven solutions to Seattle. Harrell chose backward priorities.

#WilsonForMayor

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 12h

Seattle's "Real Time Crime Center":
• $3.1M taxpayer cost
• Expensive staff monitoring 14 hours/day (can't afford 24/7)
• ZERO revenue generation
• Effectiveness unproven
• Built while cutting $1.8M in rental assistance

This is surveillance theater, not public safety.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 12h

San Francisco's automated speed cameras after 6 months:
• 50% drop in extreme speeding
• 36% reduction in violations overall
• System PAYS FOR ITSELF through tickets
• Zero staff monitoring needed (fully automated)
• Revenue funds more safety improvements

This is what actual Vision Zero looks like.

Split-screen illustration comparing two public safety models: the left shows an automated speed camera reducing speeding and funding a “Community Safety Fund” in green-blue tones, while the right shows a dim red surveillance control room labeled “Resource Drain” with operators watching multiple screens.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 15h

IF cameras literally turn off for 10 hours:
→ Criminal activity just shifts to the 10-hour dark window
→ Surveillance becomes theater, not deterrent
→ $3.1M for part-time cameras is even worse value

EITHER WAY: This undermines every justification for the investment

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 15h

IF cameras record 24/7 but are only "monitored" 14/7:
→ Then we're building a $3.1M archive system, not a crime prevention system
→ Footage reviewed AFTER crimes occur, not preventing them
→ This is evidence collection, not the "real-time" crime prevention claimed

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 19h

Your vote to honor him, followed by this statement strongly supporting Israel, seems to paper over the nuanced debate Kirk himself was having about U.S.-Israel relations and AIPAC's role. What is your actual position on these questions?

🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 19h

Kirk said "I'm told by some people that if I criticize AIPAC that's antisemitic" before questioning if AIPAC goes against American interests. These positions cost him major donors, including a $2 million donation withdrawn just before his death.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 19h

Rep. Larsen, I'm concerned about the context surrounding your recent vote on H.Res. 719 honoring Charlie Kirk. Before his death, Kirk had begun publicly questioning AIPAC's influence and whether unconditional support for Israel serves American interests.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 1d

Fully expect to meet face to masked face the same Chuds from the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, and 3%ers who I scrapped with on the streets of Seattle, only this time we won't be able to get them fired from their jobs.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

The maneuver isn't heading off truth. It's redefining it.
Weiss paid in Paramount stock over time = wealth tied to company.
Klein's elite position = career tied to acceptable discourse.
Both create alignment without explicit censorship. That's how power protects itself.

🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

Centrists don't suppress truth-tellers. They capture them. Buy their platforms ($150M to Weiss). Demand acceptable framing (Klein to Coates). Install compliance (officers or discourse norms). Define what counts as "serious analysis."

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

Klein demanding "better frames" = CBS installing compliance officer. Same mechanism. Different tactics. Both define what counts as acceptable "truth." Not censorship. Just boundary enforcement on what critique is allowed.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

Not lost on everybody, but the pattern runs deeper than irony. Remember when Ezra Klein interviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates about his book comparing Israel to Jim Crow? Klein kept asking: "Can you engage with Israeli democracy?" Coates kept answering: "I'm analyzing domination, not democratic processes."

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 2d

Is the irony of the president’s friend buying something called “the free press” and immediately installing a government truth compliance officer lost on everybody?

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 2d

Breaking News: Paramount is buying The Free Press for $150 million and appointing Bari Weiss, the news site's co-founder, as the editor in chief of CBS News. nyti.ms/4gUnu5D

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks for having a canvasser stop by my house this weekend. You got all our democracy vouchers. Just donated some more, we can't give Bruce another go around at THIS important juncture. He's proven incapable of leading or protecting us.

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Reposted by 🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡

Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 2d

Jane Goodall offers sage advice for the rest of us. #3E

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

When the powerful set the terms of debate, they've already won. Trump says "war zone," media investigates crime stats, and nobody asks why a president is sending troops to cities that didn't vote for him. That's how authoritarianism gets normalized.

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

Media accepted "Saddam has WMDs" as the debate frame, so we argued about evidence instead of whether invasion was legal. Now it's "Portland is dangerous" when crime is falling. Don't fall for it twice. The question is: Can he deploy troops at all?

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🧮 Seattle Data Nerd ⁘⁙⁚ 💡 @dpsea.bsky.social · 2d

This is the playbook:
1) Manufacture crisis narrative
2) Deploy extraordinary power
3) Media debates if crisis justifies response
4) Actual abuse becomes footnote
5) Precedent set for next time. We're watching Step 3. Seattle is probably next.

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 2d

I really wish media covering Trump's invasion of US cities would step away from this "Trump wants to fight crime, but how bad is it really?" framing. They obviously don't give a shit about local crime, but this manufactured narrative dominates all the coverage.

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

As Trump ramps up National Guard threats, what’s crime really like in Portland and Seattle?

Donald Trump has often name-checked both cities, describing them as dangerous. Here's what the numbers show.

www.seattletimes.com

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