reading this report on how victims of rape get treated in rationalist / tpot / ea / vibecamp circles (if you don't know what these words mean: 1) you're lucky, keep it that way 2) it's various flavours of toxic tech subcultures pushing eugenics and racist pseudoscience):
I wish I could blame the situation over there on the overt right-wing misogyny and fascist appeal of tescreal circles, but too much of that essay just feels like I'm reading about the chaos computer club, and other left-oriented little clubs in activist circles etc.
so I'm reposting it here as suggested reading for people who are in the mindspace to read about sexual harm, and I'll add some notes for applying this experience to c3 and left groups:
the thing about a group's cadres investigating themselves being like the police self-auditing a police murder. that part about how it sucks for a victim to have no support network outside of the group? every time I talk about the difficulties in socialising or making friends in Germany, someone in the comments tell me: "I made all my friends at chaos hackerspaces" "I wouldn't know where to meet people if not for chaos hackerspaces" "chaos hackerspaces are the only place where autistic people can meet".
folks this isn't the flex for chaos hackerspaces that you think it is. if those in chaos regularly find themselves unable to relate to society outside chaos, that is not a sign that chaos is miraculously good at neurodiversity. that is a sign coloured red, and it's a flag.
if you're a woman and you've been in a situation where you're alone in a room with men, you probably did the automatic scan (what is my path to an exit? if I scream will anybody hear me? can I fight off this guy if I need to? I could probably throw that lamp on him and run, etc.). you should treat any group you're connected to the same way: there are many reasons why a group might decide to ostracise you, and unfortunately a very common reason is "someone hurt you and you complained"; scan the room, what's your path to the exit?
if you're running or trying to start a community that gives you one rule to go by: you want your community to make it easy for people to get out. you want to empower members to relate to larger society, not to get them dependent on you.
in particular the thing about "high ideology" or "intentional" communities. it's easy for me to talk smack about stuff I disbelieve or don't care about, so to pick something near home: anarchy is something akin to a religion, in that it's not just a political project but also a worldview about how humans work and how they should behave. I believe strongly that this is the correct approach.
when you believe strongly in a thing, it's easy to fall into the trap to only trusting or wanting to relate to other believers. reflecting on the history of religions will quickly teach you that this is a bad idea. one, it will make you whitewash the bad things that people in your ideology do; two, it will prevent you from acknowledging the good that people can do without having your ideology.
this is why I'm always pushing for anarchists, myself included, to be open to people outside the movement, especially when you disagree with them. yes I know left unity is a trap set up by entrist trotskys yadda yadda, but I've fought nazis side by side with commies, I've fought the police with christians, I've had basic-ass liberals shield me from riot cops. I've met people connected to parties I distrust* who are just like, bright-eyed young folk doing what they think is best for the world.
(* that is, every party.)
I'm not saying ideological divergences don't matter or that you should just organise with marxists in your group, marxists will try to take over it's in their manual; I'm saying that even if you 100% believe no one reaches god without jesus, it's still nice to be friends with muslims and atheists and to recognise it when they do good things.
easy cheatcode? the lumpenproletariat. if as a leftist your political work puts you in conversation with homeless folk, minimum-wage service workers, refugees, inmates etc. you're doing it correctly. if you work with people at the margins of society you'll quickly be exposed to #problematic#content of all kinds. so you learn the skill of not letting the homeless guy at the soup kitchen make homophobic remarks, while also not starving him. this is a fine line to walk, and the skill involved is often never exercised in groups that consist entirely of university students and white middle-class folk. as a result the first time there's a problem the code of silence kicks in; the person reporting the problem is treated as the problem.
A modified FBI badge. It now reads 'Federal Wallet Investigators.' It is made out to 'Timothy J Shotspotter.' It is held in the three-fingered, gloved grip of a cartoon character. Around its edges, we see a cartoon room from a public domain Betty Boop cartoon.
@pluralistic possible subject for a future Pluralistic article if you haven’t covered this already.
Background music business copyright claims a YT’er for covering a keynote which uses one of their music clips in the background.
Will future keynotes include copyrighted music in the background to prevent source material from being quoted is the subject matter. And YT’s copyright system.
2025-10-17 1500 -
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"Non-Entity" ch1 pg35 Art by EngineTrap)
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"Non-Entity" ch1 pg34 Art by EngineTrap)
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Federal Wallet Inspectors ( pluralistic.net )
https://i0.wp.com/craphound.com/images/12Dec2025.jpg?w=840&ssl=1 ...
"Non-Entity" ch1 pg33 Art by EngineTrap)
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"An Eeveelution Story" ch1 pg9 (Art by Plussol)
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"Non-Entity" ch1 pg32 Art by EngineTrap)
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"An Eeveelution Story" ch1 pg8 (Art by Plussol)
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"An Eeveelution Story" ch1 pg7 (Art by Plussol)
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"Non-Entity" ch1 pg31 Art by EngineTrap)
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"Non-Entity" ch1 pg30 Art by EngineTrap)
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"An Eeveelution Story" ch1 pg6 (Art by Plussol)
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