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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months ago

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Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Mar 13) in SAN FRANCISCO with ROBIN SLOAN, then Toronto, NYC, Anaheim, and more!

Another characteristically brilliant Kashmir Hill story for The New York Times reveals another characteristically terrible fact about modern life: your car secretly records fine-grained telemetry about your driving and sells it to data-brokers, who sell it to insurers, who use it as a pretext to gouge you on premiums:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html

Almost every car manufacturer does this: Hyundai, Nissan, Ford, Chrysler, etc etc:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/

This is true whether you own or lease the car, and it's separate from the "black box" your insurer might have offered to you in exchange for a discount on your premiums. In other words, even if you say no to the insurer's carrot – a surveillance-based discount – they've got a stick in reserve: buying your nonconsensually harvested data on the open market.

I've always hated that saying, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product," the reason being that it posits decent treatment as a customer reward program, like the little ramekin warm nuts first class passengers get before takeoff. Companies don't treat you well when you pay them. Companies treat you well when they fear the consequences of treating you badly.

Take Apple. The company offers Ios users a one-tap opt-out from commercial surveillance, and more than 96% of users opted out. Presumably, the other 4% were either confused or on Facebook's payroll. Apple – and its army of cultists – insist that this proves that our world's woes can be traced to cheapskate "consumers" who expected to get something for nothing by using advertising-supported products.

But here's the kicker: right after Apple blocked all its rivals from spying on its customers, it began secretly spying on those customers! Apple has a rival surveillance ad network, and even if you opt out of commercial surveillance on your Iphone, Apple still secretly spies on you and uses the data to target you for ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product – provided the company can get away with treating you as the product. Apple can absolutely get away with treating you as the product, because it lacks the historical constraints that prevented Apple – and other companies – from treating you as the product.

As I described in my McLuhan lecture on enshittification, tech firms can be constrained by four forces:

I. Competition

II. Regulation

III. Self-help

IV. Labor

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

When companies have real competitors – when a sector is composed of dozens or hundreds of roughly evenly matched firms – they have to worry that a maltreated customer might move to a rival. 40 years of antitrust neglect means that corporations were able to buy their way to dominance with predatory mergers and pricing, producing today's inbred, Habsburg capitalism. Apple and Google are a mobile duopoly, Google is a search monopoly, etc. It's not just tech! Every sector looks like this:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Eliminating competition doesn't just deprive customers of alternatives, it also empowers corporations. Liberated from "wasteful competition," companies in concentrated industries can extract massive profits. Think of how both Apple and Google have "competitively" arrived at the same 30% app tax on app sales and transactions, a rate that's more than 1,000% higher than the transaction fees extracted by the (bloated, price-gouging) credit-card sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

But cartels' power goes beyond the size of their warchest. The real source of a cartel's power is the ease with which a small number of companies can arrive at – and stick to – a common lobbying position. That's where "regulatory capture" comes in: the mobile duopoly has an easier time of capturing its regulators because two companies have an easy time agreeing on how to spend their app-tax billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Apple – and Google, and Facebook, and your car company – can violate your privacy because they aren't constrained regulation, just as Uber can violate its drivers' labor rights and Amazon can violate your consumer rights. The tech cartels have captured their regulators and convinced them that the law doesn't apply if it's being broken via an app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

In other words, Apple can spy on you because it's allowed to spy on you. America's last consumer privacy law was passed in 1988, and it bans video-store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history. Congress has taken no action on consumer privacy since the Reagan years:

https://www.eff.org/tags/video-privacy-protection-act

But tech has some special enshittification-resistant characteristics. The most important of these is interoperability: the fact that computers are universal digital machines that can run any program. HP can design a printer that rejects third-party ink and charge $10,000/gallon for its own colored water, but someone else can write a program that lets you jailbreak your printer so that it accepts any ink cartridge:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Tech companies that contemplated enshittifying their products always had to watch over their shoulders for a rival that might offer a disenshittification tool and use that as a wedge between the company and its customers. If you make your website's ads 20% more obnoxious in anticipation of a 2% increase in gross margins, you have to consider the possibility that 40% of your users will google "how do I block ads?" Because the revenue from a user who blocks ads doesn't stay at 100% of the current levels – it drops to zero, forever (no user ever googles "how do I stop blocking ads?").

The majority of web users are running an ad-blocker:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

Web operators made them an offer ("free website in exchange for unlimited surveillance and unfettered intrusions") and they made a counteroffer ("how about 'nah'?"):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Here's the thing: reverse-engineering an app – or any other IP-encumbered technology – is a legal minefield. Just decompiling an app exposes you to felony prosecution: a five year sentence and a $500k fine for violating Section 1201 of the DMCA. But it's not just the DMCA – modern products are surrounded with high-tech tripwires that allow companies to invoke IP law to prevent competitors from augmenting, recongifuring or adapting their products. When a business says it has "IP," it means that it has arranged its legal affairs to allow it to invoke the power of the state to control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

An "app" is just a web-page skinned in enough IP to make it a crime to add an ad-blocker to it. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model" and it's everywhere. When companies don't have to worry about users deploying self-help measures to disenshittify their products, they are freed from the constraint that prevents them indulging the impulse to shift value from their customers to themselves.

Apple owes its existence to interoperability – its ability to clone Microsoft Office's file formats for Pages, Numbers and Keynote, which saved the company in the early 2000s – and ever since, it has devoted its existence to making sure no one ever does to Apple what Apple did to Microsoft:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Regulatory capture cuts both ways: it's not just about powerful corporations being free to flout the law, it's also about their ability to enlist the law to punish competitors that might constrain their plans for exploiting their workers, customers, suppliers or other stakeholders.

The final historical constraint on tech companies was their own workers. Tech has very low union-density, but that's in part because individual tech workers enjoyed so much bargaining power due to their scarcity. This is why their bosses pampered them with whimsical campuses filled with gourmet cafeterias, fancy gyms and free massages: it allowed tech companies to convince tech workers to work like government mules by flattering them that they were partners on a mission to bring the world to its digital future:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

For tech bosses, this gambit worked well, but failed badly. On the one hand, they were able to get otherwise powerful workers to consent to being "extremely hardcore" by invoking Fobazi Ettarh's spirit of "vocational awe":

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

On the other hand, when you motivate your workers by appealing to their sense of mission, the downside is that they feel a sense of mission. That means that when you demand that a tech worker enshittifies something they missed their mother's funeral to deliver, they will experience a profound sense of moral injury and refuse, and that worker's bargaining power means that they can make it stick.

Or at least, it did. In this era of mass tech layoffs, when Google can fire 12,000 workers after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years, tech workers are learning that the answer to "I won't do this and you can't make me" is "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" (AKA "sharpen your blades boys"):

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

With competition, regulation, self-help and labor cleared away, tech firms – and firms that have wrapped their products around the pluripotently malleable core of digital tech, including automotive makers – are no longer constrained from enshittifying their products.

And that's why your car manufacturer has chosen to spy on you and sell your private information to data-brokers and anyone else who wants it. Not because you didn't pay for the product, so you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

Cars are enshittified. The dozens of chips that auto makers have shoveled into their car design are only incidentally related to delivering a better product. The primary use for those chips is autoenshittification – access to legal strictures ("IP") that allows them to block modifications and repairs that would interfere with the unfettered abuse of their own customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The fact that it's a felony to reverse-engineer and modify a car's software opens the floodgates to all kinds of shitty scams. Remember when Bay Staters were voting on a ballot measure to impose right-to-repair obligations on automakers in Massachusetts? The only reason they needed to have the law intervene to make right-to-repair viable is that Big Car has figured out that if it encrypts its diagnostic messages, it can felonize third-party diagnosis of a car, because decrypting the messages violates the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy

Big Car figured out that VIN locking – DRM for engine components and subassemblies – can felonize the production and the installation of third-party spare parts:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

The fact that you can't legally modify your car means that automakers can go back to their pre-2008 ways, when they transformed themselves into unregulated banks that incidentally manufactured the cars they sold subprime loans for. Subprime auto loans – over $1t worth! – absolutely relies on the fact that borrowers' cars can be remotely controlled by lenders. Miss a payment and your car's stereo turns itself on and blares threatening messages at top volume, which you can't turn off. Break the lease agreement that says you won't drive your car over the county line and it will immobilize itself. Try to change any of this software and you'll commit a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Tesla, naturally, has the most advanced anti-features. Long before BMW tried to rent you your seat-heater and Mercedes tried to sell you a monthly subscription to your accelerator pedal, Teslas were demon-haunted nightmare cars. Miss a Tesla payment and the car will immobilize itself and lock you out until the repo man arrives, then it will blare its horn and back itself out of its parking spot. If you "buy" the right to fully charge your car's battery or use the features it came with, you don't own them – they're repossessed when your car changes hands, meaning you get less money on the used market because your car's next owner has to buy these features all over again:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

And all this DRM allows your car maker to install spyware that you're not allowed to remove. They really tipped their hand on this when the R2R ballot measure was steaming towards an 80% victory, with wall-to-wall scare ads that revealed that your car collects so much information about you that allowing third parties to access it could lead to your murder (no, really!):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

That's why your car spies on you. Because it can. Because the company that made it lacks constraint, be it market-based, legal, technological or its own workforce's ethics.

One common critique of my enshittification hypothesis is that this is "kind of sensible and normal" because "there’s something off in the consumer mindset that we’ve come to believe that the internet should provide us with amazing products, which bring us joy and happiness and we spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return":

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-have-great-conversations/

What this criticism misses is that this isn't the companies bargaining to shift some value from us to them. Enshittification happens when a company can seize all that value, without having to bargain, exploiting law and technology and market power over buyers and sellers to unilaterally alter the way the products and services we rely on work.

A company that doesn't have to fear competitors, regulators, jailbreaking or workers' refusal to enshittify its products doesn't have to bargain, it can take. It's the first lesson they teach you in the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Your car spying on you isn't down to your belief that your carmaker "should provide you with amazing products, which brings your joy and happiness you spend hours of the day on, and should ask nothing back in return." It's not because you didn't pay for the product, so now you're the product. It's because they can get away with it.

The consequences of this spying go much further than mere insurance premium hikes, too. Car telemetry sits at the top of the funnel that the unbelievably sleazy data broker industry uses to collect and sell our data. These are the same companies that sell the fact that you visited an abortion clinic to marketers, bounty hunters, advertisers, or vengeful family members pretending to be one of those:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/07/safegraph-spies-and-lies/#theres-no-i-in-uterus

Decades of pro-monopoly policy led to widespread regulatory capture. Corporate cartels use the monopoly profits they extract from us to pay for regulatory inaction, allowing them to extract more profits.

But when it comes to privacy, that period of unchecked corporate power might be coming to an end. The lack of privacy regulation is at the root of so many problems that a pro-privacy movement has an unstoppable constituency working in its favor.

At EFF, we call this "privacy first." Whether you're worried about grifters targeting vulnerable people with conspiracy theories, or teens being targeted with media that harms their mental health, or Americans being spied on by foreign governments, or cops using commercial surveillance data to round up protesters, or your car selling your data to insurance companies, passing that long-overdue privacy legislation would turn off the taps for the data powering all these harms:

https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms

Traditional economics fails because it thinks about markets without thinking about power. Monopolies lead to more than market power: they produce regulatory capture, power over workers, and state capture, which felonizes competition through IP law. The story that our problems stem from the fact that we just don't spend enough money, or buy the wrong products, only makes sense if you willfully ignore the power that corporations exert over our lives. It's nice to think that you can shop your way out of a monopoly, because that's a lot easier than voting your way out of a monopoly, but no matter how many times you vote with your wallet, the cartels that control the market will always win:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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thehydraethereal · 2 months ago

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✿ 𝓒 𝓪 𝓼 𝓽 𝓮 𝓭 𝓢 𝓱 𝓪 𝓭 𝓸 𝔀 𝓼

✿ r.c x topper's gf! reader

✿ 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: nonconsensual touching, dacryphilia, reader is lowkey dark too, rafe is a warning in general, knives, i don't know anything else 18+ do not interact of these trigger you.

✿ 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: you think dating a rich boy is gonna give you a life without worries or fears. you were wrong.

✿ please request more dark!rafe stuff pls, i need to write him

The golden hues of the sunset faded over the Kook’s side of the island, casting long shadows over the pristine lawns and stately homes. You leaned on the balcony railing of your room, the breeze brushing against your skin, lifting the hem of your sheer top ever so slightly. You loved these moments alone, where the only sound was the rustle of palm trees and the distant crash of waves. It was peaceful.

It had been a long day—one of many spent playing the part of the perfect Kook daughter. Your parents had hosted another one of their insufferable dinner parties, rubbing shoulders with all the elite, talking business and wealth as if the island itself didn’t have another side—a darker side they preferred to ignore. You knew that side well, far more than you let on. After all, you were dating Topper Thornton, the golden boy of the Kooks, the epitome of clean-cut success.

As the evening wore on, Topper had dropped by. His presence, as always, was calming, though lately, that very calmness had become predictable. You had spent time together, but his soft smiles and easy charm were beginning to feel too safe. After he left, you had stayed up, restless, staring at the open window.

Now, the night had fully descended, and the room was bathed in silver moonlight. You paced slowly, the breeze from the window growing cooler, sharper.

Suddenly, you froze. A strange noise—soft, barely there—caught your attention. At first, you thought it was the wind. But no, it wasn’t. It was something else, something deliberate. The sound of movement, just outside your window.

Your heart skipped a beat, adrenaline surging through your veins. You turned your head slowly, eyes narrowing at the open window, half-expecting to see nothing but shadows. But there was a figure. A tall, imposing silhouette, just outside, barely visible in the darkness.

You blinked, breath catching in your throat, trying to make sense of what you were seeing. The figure was still, just watching. Then, as if sensing you realization, it stepped closer. The moonlight revealed more: a mask. A white, twisted mask—Ghostface.

You gasped, stumbling back, your hand gripping the edge of the bed for support. Your pulse raced, the shock freezing you in place for a moment that felt like an eternity. You had seen that mask before, in movies, in stories meant to scare people, but this—this wasn’t fiction.

You swallowed hard, heart pounding in your chest as the figure moved into your room without a sound. He was tall, looming over you as he crossed the threshold. The air grew thick with tension, suffocating. His presence was overpowering, dark, predatory.

You opened your mouth to scream, but before you could make a sound, he was there. Fast. Too fast. The cold, gleaming edge of a knife was suddenly at your throat. Your breath hitched, eyes wide with terror as you stared into the emotionless mask.

“Don’t,” his voice was low, distorted by the mask, almost a growl. “Scream, and it’ll be your last.”

The tears welled up in your eyes instantly. You wanted to scream, but not necessarily of fear. The knife pressed just a little harder against your skin, and you winced, feeling the sharpness of the blade, the threat of its cold kiss.

He laughed, a low, mocking sound that made your stomach twist in knots. “Pretty little Kook girl,” he sneered, stepping closer, so close you could feel his breath behind the mask. “I like the way you tremble.”

You felt the tears spill down your cheeks, the breaths coming in sharp, uneven gasps. The fear was paralyzing, but underneath it, something else stirred. A strange pull. There was a familiarity to his presence.

He leaned in, the tip of the knife dragging down from your throat to the collarbone, just enough pressure to make your skin prickle. He paused, and you could feel his eyes on you, even through the mask. "Why are you doing this?" you moaned out.

“Why?” he repeated, his voice laced with amusement. “Because, princess, I like seeing you like this. Scared. Vulnerable.”

You shuddered, biting your lip, trying to keep yourself from falling apart completely. The knife glinted in the moonlight as he twirled it in his hand, toying with it, as if savoring the power it gave him.

“You’re… insane,” you whispered.

“Maybe,” he said, his voice dripping with dark amusement. He lifted the knife to your cheek, brushing the flat of the blade against your tear-streaked skin. “But you’re not going to stop me, are you?”

You blinked through the tears, her mind reeling.

“Rafe…?” she whispered, barely able to speak.

He paused, and for a moment, the room was silent. The air hung thick with tension as he slowly removed the mask, revealing the face beneath. Rafe Cameron, his eyes gleaming with that familiar mix of danger and desire, smirked down at you.

“Miss me?” he asked, his voice smooth, confident, completely unbothered by the terror he had just inflicted on you.

"Fuck yeah-" you breathed out, pulling your panties down with a smirk. He laughed, looking at the wetness glistening in the moonlight.

"I like what fear does to you..." Rafe breathed out before entering you with a deep grunt.

#ghostface #rafe x reader #dark!rafe #dark!rafe x reader #dark!rafe cameron #dark rafe cameron #kinktober #girlblogging #dark rafe cameron x reader #dark rafe x reader

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dingdangdiggity · 7 years ago

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Seriously???

Ok, so I don’t ever do my own texts posts and shit, but like I’m seriously pissed off right now, so what the fuck.

My friend and I were just enjoying the morning listening to BTS’s new album when she sends me a post about people complaining about the lyrics to “Pied Piper” saying that its “Predatory” and “Pedophilic”.

(If anyone doesn't know what the song is about, it’s about the boy’s VOICES and MUSIC being so captivating that it will draw you in and you can’t escape.)

** No where in the song does it talk about having sex or touching fans inappropriately.**

And it pisses me off that some people are /really/ arguing that the song makes it sound like BTS is ok with sexually assaulting their fans.

The fans arguing that it is about nonconsensual sex have voiced that they have actually been through bad shit themselves, and I'm not saying that that should be ignored. I’m not putting down their experience when I’m arguing my case, because I too have been through sexual assault and harassment on a few different occasions.

If anyone is thinking like “well what gives you the right to say that it’s not implying sexual assaulting fans?” Well let me tell you a little bit about myself, I am a 22 year old college graduate. During my four years of college I had taken many different gender studies classes, I’ve taken a music study course in which we analyzed songs actually about rape culture, and for my speech class I took I used the whole semester to talk about rape and rape culture across college campuses and in the media. I made every speech about the topic and even shared with the class my story of being sexually assaulted. I have done so much studying on the topic of rape and rape culture. I have wrote many LENGTHY papers about songs that literally talk about getting a girl drunk and taking advantage of her, as well as other songs along the same topic, which don’t actually explicitly say that the guy is going to rape the girl. So I’m pretty sure I have some of the right credentials that would justify my stance on the case.

Yes I understand how to people that have gone through some really bad experiences that some of what the lyrics have translated to can be considered triggering. I understand that completely! But no where does it imply that they are going to sexual take advantage of a fan.

Hell, if anyone is in the wrong here it is fans, it is ARMY, for always objectifying the guys, over sexualizing them, for projecting their fantasies on them. I feel sorry for the boys for having to deal with over half of the shit the fans say to them everyday. If anything the boys are only repeating things that fans have said to them.

Hell, there is a long running joke in the entire KPOP community where people say “All I wanted to do was learn their names!” Fans always joke about how “once you give kpop a chance you won’t be able to escape”. The guys are literally taking what the fans say to them about them and their music.

**They are just REPEATING what ARMY has already said. When the guys literally see fans say shit like “my body is ready” on pictures or videos of them what do you think that they see? They see fans basically saying “you’re so hot, if you were here right now you could totally have sex with me”.

When fans talk and post shit like that ya’ll don't criticize each other saying that YOU’RE being predatory towards BTS, but once BTS say the same exact things the fans say ya’ll turn on them?

Seriously?

The song talks about fans who obsess over them, the same fans that have said themselves that they can’t escape from them if they tried. The song talks about the fans who sit behind their computers and analyze ever little thing they do.

So how bout this, to the people that have analyzed “Pied Piper” and have concluded that it is about sexual assault, how bout you go back and analyze their other songs too? Because once you do, you will actually see songs that have contributed to rape culture.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have never seen people condemn BTS for “War of Hormone”, for example? If you go back and “analyze” the translated lyrics to THAT song, you’ll see how bad /that/ is. The song is literally about how they don’t need to fap to porn anymore because now all they have to do is think about this girl whose “front” is hot, whose “back” is hot, even talking about her “unspeakable parts”. With a literal line translating to “Girls are like an equation, us guys just do them”. And you’re not going to argue that that is rape culture but you’re gonna say that “Pied Piper” is?

They even say in the first verse for fans to STOP analyzing their shit and to just listen to the song because it is a GIFT for them for having supported them over the years. They’re singing about the song ITSELF being captivating, not that they themselves are going to physically take captive the fans. They are saying that you can’t escape their music that you love so much, not that they are going to physically take you and not let you escape.

If you would ACTUALLY analyze the song, and not take it for fucking face value, then you would see the ACTUAL meaning of the song.

All the guys wanted to say is that they love their fans; they thank their fans for their support.

All the guys wanted to do is write a song for the fans telling the to just LISTEN TO THE FUCKING SONG AND TO STOP ANALYZING SHIT.

But NOOOOOO!!!

Fans are just gonna sit there and over analyze the song and make it about something that it is not, because that is what they always do.

They even say so themselves.

I’m done.

*mic drop*

#BTS #Bangtan #Pied Piper #War of Hormone #bangtan sonyeondan #bangtan boys #PISSED #MIC DROP #sorry i just had to #im done

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supertrendingnewsarticles · 5 years ago

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(Bloomberg) -- Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison Wednesday for sexual assault. His next stop is likely to be a maximum-security prison an hour north of the lower Manhattan courtroom in which his punishment will be pronounced.Weinstein, who became an emblem of the MeToo movement as waves of women accused him of harassing or attacking them over the years, was convicted last month of forcing oral sex on production assistant Miriam Haley and raping Jessica Mann, who wanted to be an actor.The maximum total penalty was 29 years. Weinstein, 67, has asked New York State Supreme Court Justice James Burke for five, citing his age and failing health. Weinstein, who has been jailed since his conviction, arrived in court shortly after 9:30 a.m. in New York, handcuffed to his wheelchair. Court officers removed the cuffs as sentencing got underway.Weinstein Compares MeToo to McCarthy Era (10:58 a.m.)Harvey Weinstein addressed the court in the final moments before sentencing, warning of a “crisis” in America that he compared with the McCarthy era.“I’m worried about this country,” he began. “We are going through this crisis right now in our country, it started basically with me. I was the first example and now there are many men who have been accused of abuse, something I think that none of us understood.”“It is not the right atmosphere for the United States of America,” he said. “Everybody is on some kind of blacklist. I had no power. Miramax was a small company. I couldn’t blackball anybody.”“I think possibly men like myself, like Dalton Trumbo -- they said they were Communists, and now there’s a scare, just like that now.”Weinstein’s Lawyer Says He Didn’t Get a Fair Trial (10:52 a.m.)Defense attorney Damon Cheronis called a letter prosecutors filed with the court Friday arguing for a harsh sentence “a laundry list of unsubstantiated allegations that have not been vetted” and said the judge shouldn’t consider those uncharged crimes in fashioning Weinstein’s sentence.“I read the letter through the very same prism that you saw it through,” Burke told Cheronis.Lead defense lawyer Donna Rotunno then argued that a report by probation officials includes errors and misstates testimony and asked Burke to disregard it.Rotunno asked for the minimum sentence and said her client couldn’t get a fair trial because of various prejudices against him.“Having every single thing you do and every move you make be scrutinized and dominated by the media, as you can hear by the clicking of the typewriters today in court,” was insurmountable, she said.“Mr. Weinstein is a sick man,” she said, referring to a history of heart disease and other unspecified medical issues that were recently diagnosed.“His parents taught him that you should give back,” she said. “If you look at the allegations in this courtroom, it’s a very small side of who he is. What you don’t see is the other side of what he’s done. He built careers, and because he built careers, everybody wanted a piece of him.”Rotunno cited Weinstein’s five children, including two grown daughters and three young children.She said allies of Weinstein wanted to come forward in support but were afraid to do so.“They don’t feel they can do so because they can lose their jobs,” she said.Weinstein Showed Contrition, Denial in 2017 (10:40 a.m.)Yesterday the court released a trove of documents relate to the case, including two letters Weinstein sent to industry colleagues in late 2017, as the allegations against him were becoming public.In an October 2017 letter, Weinstein expressed some contrition, calling himself “a flawed human being” and admitting he had been “inappropriate in many ways.” He expressed admiration for the then-nascent MeToo movement, saying it was “teaching old dinosaurs like me the way” in terms of his interactions with women in the industry.But he also sought to cast blame back, saying he had seen “actors and actresses take an almost predatory stance toward casting.” He also said “things have been wildly exaggerated” and decried the “vitriol” being expressed against him.On Dec. 21, 2017, Weinstein struck a more despairing tone. “I have lost my family,” he wrote. “I have daughters that will not talk to me. I have lost my wife. I have lost the respect of my ex-wife and generally all of my friends. I have no company. I’m alone.”He again tried to defend himself though, calling himself a “sex addict” and saying his conduct reflected changing social mores.“There’s a difference between assault and womanizing,” Weinstein said. “There’s a difference between assault and cheating. Men my own age grew up in a different era. Now in a movement that has swept our country, things that were consensual 22 years ago have become non-consensual.”Defense Lays Out Case for Leniency (10:31 a.m.)Defense attorney Arthur Aidala told Burke the average sentence for the most serious crime Weinstein was convicted of, which carries a prison term of five to 25 years, is 8 1/2 years.“We did our research and we did our homework, and what we came up with, that the top count that Mr. Weinstein is facing today, the New York state mean number is 8 1/2 years,” he said.Aidala said other cases involved weapons.“There’s no evidence of that here,” he said, adding that “it’s lower for people who are first-time offenders.” Aidala said last fall Burke sentenced another man, who had raped an underling, and pleaded guilty, to 7 1/2 years.“Here there are less serious charges,” he said.‘Harvey was the power over the powerless’ (10:12 a.m.)Victims broke into tears as they addressed the judge.“The day my uncontrollable screams were heard form the witness room was the day I got back my voice, the day I got back my power,” Mann told Burke. “That, your honor, is what the victim of a rapist looks like.”Mann said “there is so much still left unsaid about his abuse” and pointed to “the wreckage Harvey Weinstein made of my life.” She asked the judge to recognize the trauma she has experienced, calling it “rape-induced paralysis.”“Harvey had every advantage over me,” she said, citing his weight and strength. “Flight was not possible.”Weinstein, in a blue suit, sat silently with his hands clasped in front of him.“Harvey was the power over the powerless,” Mann said, adding that he went so far as to threaten her father “with an old-school Mafia beatdown.”“My rape was preventable,” she said, noting the long history of abuse that prosecutors have detailed and saying Weinstein frequently paid off accusers and made them sign nondisclosure agreements.Mann asked Burke to give Weinstein the maximum prison term, noting that a drunk driver can get five years.“Harvey should be given a chance to be rehabilitated while he serves time for his crimes,” she said.Prosecutor Asks Judge for the Maximum Sentence (10 a.m.)Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi called for the maximum sentence and praised Weinstein’s accusers.“Simply put, without these women and others willing to come forward, being 100% transparent and sacrificing their privacy and well-being, this matter would have never been undertaken and the defendant would never have been stopped,” she told the judge. “He led a life of crime, unchecked for decades.”Haley, addressing the court, said Weinstein raped her.“What he did not only stripped me of my dignity as a woman ... it diminished my confidence and faith in people,” she said. “It was embarrassing and very hurtful that this person that I knew would do this to me. I am relieved to know he is no longer out there. I am relieved he will now know he is no longer above the law.”But mostly, Haley said through tears, “the past couple of years have been excruciatingly difficult. I lived in fear and paranoia on a daily basis, fearing retaliation. I would have panic attacks and nightmares and I feared for my life.”Will Weinstein Speak? (9:43 a.m.)Before Burke hands down his sentence, Weinstein will have an opportunity to address the court. Will he? That remains to be seen. Weinstein may use the opportunity to apologize for his crimes, to plead for mercy or at least to thank the judge for his handling of the case. Or he may stay silent and let his lawyers do the talking for him.The Calm Before the Storm (9:15 a.m.)The scene outside the courthouse isn’t quite as chaotic as it was during the trial. There are about six satellite trucks and a dozen cameras right now, significantly fewer than in January and February. Concern over the coronavirus may be a factor. Some trains into Manhattan seemed less crowded than usual, and the streets downtown are noticeably less bustling.Weinstein’s Accusers Stride Into the Courtroom (8:55 a.m.)Weinstein’s six accusers from the trial strode into the courtroom just before 9 a.m. in a show of force, with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. following behind. The actor Annabella Sciorra, in a pair of wire-rimmed aviator glasses and a leather jacket, is seated directly next to Vance and is chatting with him. Beside them are Haley and then Tarale Wulff, Dawn Dunning and Lauren Young, the three witnesses prosecutors called to show a pattern of nonconsensual sex. Mann is at the end of the row. Weinstein’s accusers are all seated directly behind the prosecution table, where Assistant District Attorneys Joan Illuzzi and Meghan Hast are seated.To contact the reporters on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at [email protected];Olivia Raimonde in New York at [email protected];Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at [email protected], Peter JeffreyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Private equity looting public health in a pandemic

During a 2007 trip to NYC, while taking long walks from one indie bookstore to the next, lugging increasingly heavy bags of pressed vegetable matter, I stumbled on Simon Lovell's HOW TO CHEAT AT EVERYTHING at the St Mark's Bookshop.

https://www.runningpress.com/titles/simon-lovell/how-to-cheat-at-everything/9781560259732/

Despite the title, its really about about NOT getting cheated: anatomical dissections of scams that show you how they work. One thing that stuck with me from all that is how to spot a dirty "proposition" bet, a variable-odds bet on a specific outcome from a range of outcomes.

Lovell's rule of thumb is the more complicated a bet is, the scammier it is. If it pays 2:1 for one outcome, 5:1 for another, and 100:1 for a third, it's probably a scam. Complexity confounds your ability to match odds to payouts - to intuit whether it's a good bet.

I remember being at Defcon one year and going into a Vegas casino and asking a craps croupier to explain how the game worked, and as he rattled off the different odds on the different paylines, I was like, Ohhhhh, I get this. This is a scam.

The next time I had that feeling was during the financial crisis, when I started to learn about CDOs and other complex derivatives, and how their originators presented them to investors, using esoteric math to prove they were safe. Ohhh, I thought. Oh, I get it.

The more I learned about finance, the more this insight came back to me. Because so often the complexity was revealed to be an ornament, a form of dazzle there to confuse the eye about the true shape of the transaction.

The rococo equations where set-dressing to support the idea that mere mortals are disqualified from discussing, understanding, or regulating the finance industry. And nowhere is that more in evidence than in the private equity world.

Because the underlying scam is pretty simple, tbh. Borrow money using the company you're acquiring as collateral (that's right: you're using an asset you don't own as collateral to acquire it - like a mortgage, except the transaction is nonconsensual for the "seller").

Sell off the company's assets, especially real-estate holdings, so the company now has to pay rent for its own buildings (this is very popular with PE takeovers of chain restaurants, exposing them to rent-shocks).

Eliminate cost-centers that provide long-term value to the company, but whose absence isn't felt in the short term - like buying up newspapers and firing the local sales staff who know local merchants, consolidating sales to a national office.

(If you think Google and Facebook killed newspapers, you're not wrong, but you're not right either: they'd been consolidated and asset stripped for decades, had their cash reserves, plant and real estate sold off, and were weak and flailing when the internet came along)

Declare a special dividend for the PE owners and their investors, in which the cash you realize from the selloffs disappears into offshore tax-havens, leaving behind a damaged, failing business.

When the company fails, restructure it through bankruptcy. Take special care to zero out obligations to suppliers (the entire US independent toy industry was annihilated by the PE shutdown of Toys R Us) and workers (bye, Sears pensions).

Engage in predatory conduct. Buy doctors' groups that serve hospital emergency rooms and opt them out of all insurance plans. Stick people who show up in ambulances, unconscious or in extremis, with titanic bills. $5k for an icepack? Why not!

Make minimal payments to the creditors who loaned you the money to do the leveraged buyout. Maybe buy the debt from them at pennies on the dollar and start extracting debt payments from the company - predatory behavior can help with this!

Hospitals and newspapers are really great for this, because they're important so they get bailouts. Canada's giant newspaper bailout will direct millions in taxpayer funds to the US vulture capitalists who tanked Postmedia and the National Post.

Hospitals are an AMAZING storefront for this kind of long-con, especially in a crisis. There are so many ways to cash out. They're like the craps-table of The Pandemic Casino, a moneyspinner for the casino boss.

Like, if you happen to own a beloved low-income hospital that has served poor people in a city with some of the worst poverty in America, you can offer to rent it to the city for $1m/month!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/02/eff-livestream-today/#joel-kills

Or if you're a PE company that staffs about half of the country's hospitals (especially their front-line ER docs and nurses), you can slash their pay and benefits and they'll keep showing up for work!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#private-equity

Or you can just demand a bailout. Steward is a PE-backed hospital chain whose debt-loaded acquisition of Easton Hospital in Lehigh Valley (PA) left the region's major hospital saddled with so much debt it was already on the brink of collapse.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/hospital-bailouts-begin-for-those-owned-by-private-equity-firms/

It's owned by Cerberus, a giant and notorious PE looter. Cerebus is about to pocket $8m in bailout money approved by PA governor Tom Wolf, who was responding to Steward's threat to shut down the hospital effective Mar 27 if it didn't get a payout.

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/easton-hospital-owner-to-proceed-immediately-on-closure-without-state-takeover-by-midnight.html

The $8m is a downpayment, and there's $24m more to come. It's true that when Cerebus bought Easton Hospital, it was struggling...because it had ALREADY been debt-loaded by another PE looter, Forstmann Little & Co.

And while Cerebus's investors have made huge profits from the transaction, the Steward hospitals are the worst-performing in PA, with $592m in losses in 2017/8.

http://www.chiamass.gov/assets/Uploads/mass-hospital-financials/2018-annual-report/Acute-Hospital-Health-System-Financial-Performance-Report-FY2018.pdf

When PE companies acquire doctors' groups, they argue that they're merely investing in the front-line caregivers, and that these are still owned and representative of those doctors who save our lives. But that's a lie.

Dr Ming Lin is a 17-year ER veteran who was just fired from Bellingham, WA's Peacehealth St. Joseph Medical Center after going public about the lack of PPE and the unsafe conditions for caregivers and patients at his hospital.

The company that fired him is Teamhealth, owned by Blackstone. the largest PE company in the world. Teamhealth says that the doctor's practices it owns are actually run by doctors, but has refused to publish the operating agreements it has with those docs.

Docs like Ming Lin. If you believe Teamhealth practices are run by docs, then you have to believe that Ming Lin fired himself. Otherwise, Blackstone fired him.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/04/what-wall-street-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-hospital-emergency

Blackstone has ordered ALL of its docs to be silent on lack of PPE, on pain of immediate dismissal. Its CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is a Trump insider, and the order protects Trump from negative news stories that reveal his complicity in the negligent homicide of Americans.

Private equity is a scam. The math that shows that it's providing value - as opposed to helping socially useless parasites loot real businesses that provide real value - is a window-dressing, like fraudulent bond ratings that were used to sell CDOs.

Image: Lisa Brewster https://www.flickr.com/photos/sophistechate/2670946312

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New York Prosecutor Says Former Movie Producer Weinstein Abused His Power

New York prosecutors told jurors that Harvey Weinstein abused his power and pushed back against claims by the former Hollywood producer’s defense team that his accusers were not credible.

Setting the stage for the jury to begin deliberating next week in Weinstein’s weeks-long sexual assault trial, Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi said Weinstein, 67, had counted on his victims never coming forward.

“The defendant not only ran roughshod over the dignity and the very lives of these witnesses, but he also underestimated them,” she said.

The trial is a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women have accused powerful men in business, entertainment, media and politics of sexual misconduct.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006 and raping Jessica Mann, a onetime aspiring actress, in 2013.

Justice James Burke is expected to give the jury legal instructions on Tuesday morning, after which they will begin deliberating.

Since 2017, more than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct.

The former producer, who was behind films including “The English Patient” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has denied any nonconsensual sex.

On Thursday, Donna Rotunno, one of Weinstein’s lawyers, assailed Weinstein’s accusers as unreliable and said an “overzealous” prosecution was trying to portray consensual sex as assault, and that women must be “responsible” for their choices.

Illuzzi said on Friday that all the women were credible and had no reason to lie.

“If they didn’t feel compelled to do this, would they put their families through this?” she asked. “Would they put themselves through the stress?”

She also pushed back against Rotunno’s argument about women’s responsibility.

“If you’re the victim of fraud, nobody is going to say, well, you gave the accountant access to your money,” she said.

Haleyi testified during the trial that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in his home in 2006. Mann testified that Weinstein raped her in a Manhattan hotel room early in what she called an “extremely degrading” relationship with him.

Illuzzi rejected the defense’s claim that Mann had a loving relationship with Weinstein, but also said it would not matter if she had been “head over heels in love with him.”

“He still wouldn’t be allowed to rape her on March 18 of 2013,” she said.

Jurors heard from four other women, including actress Annabella Sciorra, who testified that Weinstein came into her apartment one winter night in 1993 or 1994 and raped her. The accusation is too old to be charged as a separate crime, but it could act as an aggravating factor to support the most serious charge in the case, predatory sexual assault, which carries a possible life sentence.

Prosecutors called the remaining three women to bolster their evidence of Weinstein’s intent, but did not charge him with any crimes related to them.

After court wrapped up for the day, Rotunno told reporters that the evidence showed the relationships the accusers had with Weinstein were consensual.

“I think he’s confident. And this is a tough situation for anybody to be in,” she said of Weinstein.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Howard Goller and Daniel Wallis)

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Matt Lauer‘s rape accuser Brooke Nevils is expressing her gratitude for her fiancé Luke Thompson.

One day after her allegations that Lauer allegedly anally raped her in his hotel room at the 2014 Sochi Olympics became public, Nevils, 35, penned a sweet note on Twitter to Thompson, whom she has been spotted in New York City with.

“The mystery man spotted with me by the photographers camped outside our building is my incredibly strong and supportive fiancé, Luke,” she wrote on Twitter beside a photo of the couple, featuring Nevils with her arm around the political strategist as he leaned into her.

“I look forward to being spotted with him for the rest of our lives,” she lovingly added of Thompson.

According to Thompson’s LinkedIn page, the 35-year-old has his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University and is currently working as the president of Ad Astra Insights.

He previously served as the director of analytics for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the page indicates.

RELATED: Matt Lauer’s Rape Accuser Brooke Nevils Slams His Open Letter as a ‘Case Study in Victim Shaming’

Nevils’ tweet of gratitude comes after an intense day and a half for the Emmy-nominated producer.

On Wednesday, Variety published details from Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, which recounted Nevils’ alleged rape by Lauer, 61.

“It was non-consensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” she reportedly told Farrow in the book. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”

Nevils said in the book that she had more sexual encounters with Lauer back in New York City, according to Variety, telling Farrow: “It was completely transactional. It was not a relationship.”

RELATED VIDEO: Matt Lauer Accused of Rape by NBC News Colleague in Ronan Farrow’s New Book: Report

The ousted Today co-anchor, who recently finalized his divorce from longtime wife Annette Roque, penned a lengthy letter in response, saying the encounter in Sochi was the beginning of his affair with Nevils and “the first of many sexual encounters between us over the next several months.”

“At no time, during or after her multiple visits to my apartment, did she express in words or actions any discomfort with being there, or with our affair,” he said. “She also went out of her way to see me several times in my dressing room at work, and on one of those occasions, we had a sexual encounter. It showed terrible judgment on my part, but it was completely mutual and consensual.”

Lauer, who pointed out what he claims are “contradictions” in Nevils’ story, also acknowledged that people were aware of the affair and that they “reluctantly and quietly reached out in the past two years and shared what they know.”

“They have accurately described Brooke and her role in this affair. I hope those people will understand that these allegations cross a serious line, and what they can share is a vital truth, even if it may seem unpopular,” he added before concluding that he has “never assaulted anyone or forced anyone to have sex. Period.”

RELATED: Everything to Know About Brooke Nevils, the Emmy-Nominated Producer Accusing Matt Lauer of Rape

In response to Lauer’s denial, Nevils released a statement on NBC Nightly News hours later and slammed his open letter as a “case study in victim-blaming.”

“There’s the Matt Lauer that millions of Americans watched on TV every morning for two decades, and there is the Matt Lauer who this morning attempted to bully a former colleague into silence,” Nevils said. “His open letter was a case study in victim-blaming.

“I am not afraid of him now,” she added. “Regardless of his threats, bullying, and the shaming and predatory tactics I knew he would (and now has) tried to use against me.”

Nevils also expressed gratitude to those who have been moved to share their own stories after hearing hers in a message on Twitter.

“I want to thank the many survivors who shared their stories with me today and offered their support. It takes courage, and I am truly grateful,” Nevils tweeted.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to online.rainn.org.

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Opinion: Louis C.K. and his supporters haven't seemed to learn anything

Author Michael Arceneaux on why Louis C.K.'s attempt at a “comeback” and the male comics supporting him are emblematic of the rape culture that #MeToo is fighting.

In his heart of hearts, comedian Michael Ian Black believed he was asking an important, daring question when, on August 28th, he tweeted: “Will take heat for this, but people have to be allowed to serve their time and move on with their lives. I don't know if it's been long enough, or his career will recover, or if people will have him back, but I'm happy to see him try.”

Black asked this in response to comedian Louis C.K. returning to the stage on August 26th by way of a performance at the Comedy Cellar in New York. The performance has been described as a “surprise,” but it reeks of intentionality. Louis C.K.-like Matt Lauer, like Kevin Spacey, like Charlie Rose, like Mario Batali, and like other high profile men who have been marred with scandal over allegations of some level of sexual misconduct, assault, and/or harassment-is seeking a comeback. In November of 2017, the comedian admitted to exposing his penis and masturbating in front of women without their consent.

Louis C.K. had been avoiding public appearances ever since, and yet, not even a full year after the accusations were made and acknowledged, he's already back to the stage.

Speaking to Vulture, women described the atmosphere as “intimidating” for anyone not all ready to watch Louis C.K. perform. Making matters worse is word that he actually made jokes about rape whistles. “It felt like there were a lot of aggressive men in the audience and very quiet women,” one woman in attendance explained. “It's the kind of vibe that doesn't allow for a dissenting voice. You're just expected to be a good audience member. You're considered a bad sport if you speak out.” It's as if, once again, the comedian is forcing himself on women without their consent.

What message do you think it sends to women - not just in comedy, but broadly - when an audience gives an admitted abuser a standing ovation? Or when progressive men welcome his return?

- Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) August 28, 2018

When Louis C.K. took the stage, he was greeted with a standing ovation. Some would be inclined to take that as evidence that the public is ready for Louis C.K.'s return and couple it with the suggestion that we simply move on. This is certainly the gist of Michael Ian Black's question-whether he realized that or not. Indeed, when another Twitter user informed Black that his question was “hurtful,” he wrote back: “My intention was never to place the needs of the abuser over the victims, but rather to begin asking a question: is there a way to bring people back? I asked the question in good-faith, but perhaps naively…” Later, after numerous women confronted his stance, he seemed to better understand the problem. He retweeted a thread from Kathy Griffin about women comics' careers being stalled and then said, “I made a mistake the other day in trying to defend a position that was…ultimately indefensible. I was wrong…” When actress June Diane Raphael responded to Michael Ian Black's original question with her own: “How do we break it to men that the #metoo movement has barely even begun?,” Black tweeted, “I can tell you from personal experience, this point was brought home loud and clear to me yesterday.”

Another male comedian, Marlon Wayans, also took to Louis C.K.'s defense. When questioned about his return to the stage, Wayans said to TMZ: “Comics need the stage. That's where we express and that's where we take all our anxieties and life depressions…we put 'em on stage and we make people laugh…I think he wants to come back and talk about it. He's apologetic and sincere and funny, so I hope he finds the funny in it. Nobody may understand that journey, but comedians, we go in dark caves and we come out with these light things called jokes.”

All of these people-Michael Ian Black, Marlon Wayans, the folks who applauded Louis C.K.-are guilty of the same sin: placing far greater concern on the culprit rather than the victim.

It has not even been a year since Louis C.K. admitted that he forced himself upon women, and he is already staging a comeback-with support from his male colleagues, no less. Louis C.K. has faced no consequence from the actions for which he has admitted fault. There has been no criminal persecution, no civil litigation. We do not know if he has sought treatment in any real way. We don't know if he's offered any acts of contrition to the women he intimidated.

such an important/brave take from the desperately needed perspective of Fellow Male Comedian. for women, it's always useful to know who thinks louis ck chilling as a millionaire for a few months w/o ever fully and honestly reckoning w actions implications counts as "serving time"

- maria yagoda (@mariayagoda) August 28, 2018

Louis C.K. has not offered the world anything to right his wrongs, and yet Michael Ian Black and other like-minded people (noticeably men) are rallying on his behalf. As if he is the victim. As if he deserves our graciousness and understanding. As if he is the one we should all be focusing on.

The owner of the Comedy Cellar, Noam Dworman, revealed to the Hollywood Reporter that he wasn't at the club when Louis C.K. performed. Dworman says the move was done at the “spur of the moment,” and noted that C.K. told the emcee that night that he wanted to go onstage. Perhaps Louis C.K. feels he is ready for a comeback. Maybe he, as Marlon Wayans explained, felt he truly needed to be back on stage. Sure, that's understandable-but ultimately, it's telling.

His choice to return to the stage already, and to make jokes about how “rape whistles are not clean,” all demonstrate that Louis C.K. is as selfish as ever.

For once in his life, he ought to be thinking about women. Why didn't it dawn on C.K. that seeing him on stage only nine months after owning up to despicable predatory behavior might be triggering for women and perhaps even other men in the audience? And if it did dawn on him, then he decided to show up on stage anyway. Why? He doesn't care; it's about him, still.

The audience last night didn't choose to see him. It was a nonconsensual surprise, his specialty.

- Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) August 28, 2018

Sadly, such a degree of self-centeredness and a lack of compassion is understandable for him to have. After all, we are only now seeing men be held accountable for their awful actions thanks to the #MeToo movement, but we have already been bombarded with so much chatter about their “comebacks.”

Thanks to the likes of Michael Ian Black and Marlon Wayans, those men stand to feel even more empowered to return to business as usual, wrongdoing be damned. And if you care more about these men than the people who they have hurt, you may not have exposed yourself in the gross manner that Louis C.K. is now known for, but you have certainly shown your ass to the world. I “may take heat for this,” but I stand by it.

Michael Arceneaux is the New York Times bestselling author of the recently released book I Can't Date Jesus from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Essence, The Guardian, Mic, and more. Follow him on Twitter.

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Opinion: Louis C.K. and his supporters haven't seemed to learn anything

Author Michael Arceneaux on why Louis C.K.'s attempt at a “comeback” and the male comics supporting him are emblematic of the rape culture that #MeToo is fighting.

Louis C.K. had been avoiding public appearances ever since, and yet, not even a full year after the accusations were made and acknowledged, he's already back to the stage.

What message do you think it sends to women - not just in comedy, but broadly - when an audience gives an admitted abuser a standing ovation? Or when progressive men welcome his return?

- Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) August 28, 2018

All of these people-Michael Ian Black, Marlon Wayans, the folks who applauded Louis C.K.-are guilty of the same sin: placing far greater concern on the culprit rather than the victim.

- maria yagoda (@mariayagoda) August 28, 2018

His choice to return to the stage already, and to make jokes about how “rape whistles are not clean,” all demonstrate that Louis C.K. is as selfish as ever.

The audience last night didn't choose to see him. It was a nonconsensual surprise, his specialty.

- Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) August 28, 2018

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Opinion: Louis C.K. and his supporters haven't seemed to learn anything

Author Michael Arceneaux on why Louis C.K.'s attempt at a “comeback” and the male comics supporting him are emblematic of the rape culture that #MeToo is fighting.

Louis C.K. had been avoiding public appearances ever since, and yet, not even a full year after the accusations were made and acknowledged, he's already back to the stage.

What message do you think it sends to women - not just in comedy, but broadly - when an audience gives an admitted abuser a standing ovation? Or when progressive men welcome his return?

- Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) August 28, 2018

All of these people-Michael Ian Black, Marlon Wayans, the folks who applauded Louis C.K.-are guilty of the same sin: placing far greater concern on the culprit rather than the victim.

- maria yagoda (@mariayagoda) August 28, 2018

His choice to return to the stage already, and to make jokes about how “rape whistles are not clean,” all demonstrate that Louis C.K. is as selfish as ever.

The audience last night didn't choose to see him. It was a nonconsensual surprise, his specialty.

- Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) August 28, 2018

The post Opinion: Louis C.K. and his supporters haven't seemed to learn anything appeared first on HelloGiggles.

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tothe-tooth-blog · 6 years ago

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Opinion: Louis C.K. and his supporters haven't seemed to learn anything

Author Michael Arceneaux on why Louis C.K.'s attempt at a “comeback” and the male comics supporting him are emblematic of the rape culture that #MeToo is fighting.

Louis C.K. had been avoiding public appearances ever since, and yet, not even a full year after the accusations were made and acknowledged, he's already back to the stage.

What message do you think it sends to women - not just in comedy, but broadly - when an audience gives an admitted abuser a standing ovation? Or when progressive men welcome his return?

- Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) August 28, 2018

All of these people-Michael Ian Black, Marlon Wayans, the folks who applauded Louis C.K.-are guilty of the same sin: placing far greater concern on the culprit rather than the victim.

- maria yagoda (@mariayagoda) August 28, 2018

His choice to return to the stage already, and to make jokes about how “rape whistles are not clean,” all demonstrate that Louis C.K. is as selfish as ever.

The audience last night didn't choose to see him. It was a nonconsensual surprise, his specialty.

- Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) August 28, 2018

The post Opinion: Louis C.K. and his supporters haven't seemed to learn anything appeared first on HelloGiggles.

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