iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 7h

I originally posted this on Instagram on Feb 21, 2025. I'm here 85 weeks later to expand on the sentiment: No kings, no pedophiles, no racists, no NAZIs, no oligarchs, no AI, no pervasive control, fuck all that. Boston has been rebellious since we started. Let's keep it going.

A white man in black holding up a sign that says "no king for Boston."

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 21h

I know that I must seem just adorably naive and uptight, but I really do think that honesty and integrity matter and that we can and should do better than this. Good morning. 4/4

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 21h

Here’s the longer thread on how, in decades of consulting, I never even got to buy lunch for my government clients. 3/? bsky.app/profile/some...

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 21h

I’ve written at length about how important it is for public officials to maintain really clear, high standards of fiscal integrity and independence. As I say in the thread below: $50 per year may seem low, but it’s good because we should -always- be thinking about it. 2/? bsky.app/profile/some...

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 21h

I had a post-HONK beer yesterday with some local elected officials and we literally checked in about the $50 gift threshold when I offered to buy a round. The kind of influence peddling described in this article should be jailable. 1/? www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/u...

nytimes.com

Inside Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans (Gift Article)

The world’s richest person has quietly become by far the biggest known midterm donor, trying to save Republicans’ Senate majority with some of the largest donations in American political history.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I was putting the garden to bed for the winter, and one of the wires I use to support vines snapped back and hit me in the face. That’s my story about where this black eye came from, and I’m sticking to it.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I mean, racist cops chasing noisy black people out of mostly white neighborhoods isn’t -new- per se … but the use of the state helicopter to do it? Wow.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I think it's critically important to turn out in unprecedented numbers, vote for the democrats (no matter how bland and complicit), and try to pull the country back from our current collapse into authoritarian nationalism. Vote your conscience, but be realistic about the impact. 6/6

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

There are better and more nuanced voting systems available, and I think we should use them. Ranked choice / instant runoff lets you encode a -lot- more information than our current system. We don't use those at the state or federal level. One person, one vote, winner takes all. 5/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

This comes up because I'm seeing local people post about how voting for the socialist will somehow communicate to the mainstream democrat that they need to move to the left. Voting for the socialist is just saying "I want the socialist to win." That's it. Not voting is saying "I don't care." 4/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

If you're a liberal, leftist, socialist, communist, or whatever ... voting for a long-shot / no-realistic-hope fringe candidate rather than the mainstream democrat increases the odds, just a tiny bit, that the republican will win. Maybe you're fine with that, but that's the impact. 3/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Choosing not to vote doesn't convey any message. It just increases the impact of everybody else's vote by a tiny, tiny amount. 2/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

It's tactical voting discourse season again, so I will just gently remind everybody that the only information you can meaningfully encode with your vote under our current system is "I want this person to win." 1/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I've seen cries for help in this sort of thing before ... and I don't think this is one.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Yes. The video cuts straight from the cops banging on the door to him riding again.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Gimme a sec to look at the real results.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

This is from 2020. We used to be able to bring the numbers to storm the gates of government. In the absolute depths of the worst of COVID, we did this. This is a crowd at the gates of their government building. We need that now.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I have 48+ hours of surveillance that I -did- request. It includes the BLM protests, the No Kings protests, the Charlie Kirk Protests, and god knows what else. I will look at that tomorrow. For now, g'night. And seriously, fucking unplug. This is a marathon, not a sprint. 20/20

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I'm very open about who I am. I do that because of my privilege. I speak up because I can. I think that the state police just threatened me by sharing a video of them "taking down" some sort of supposedly rogue biker. Note that his crimes were never onscreen. Fuck that. 19/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

To sum up: The MA state police decided to include extra, non-required video in their response to my request for protest surveillance. What they showed was a cyclist being tracked from above and eventually tackled and shackled. I say this from my heart and with clear enunciation: Fuck that. 18/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Nope, all the same. It's a red dirt bike.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

They unmasked him. The final audio is the helicopter pilot saying "great job." 17/?

Two police officers removing goggles from a person in custody, as seen from the air.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Two cruisers pulled up to support that brave, brave white man who dragged a black man off his dirt bike to face justice for ... um ... what exactly? What was the crime? Where was the complaint? And this? THIS is what they give me to justify themselves? 16/?

Multiple police converging on a person who has been pulled off his bike and held to the ground.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Eventually, the bike stalled out in the middle of an asphalt hellscape and the cops came over and tackled the dude. Literally yanked him off the bike and threw him to the ground. Recall, dear reader, that they didn't have to share this with me. 15/?

A police officer dragging a person off a moped, as seen from a police helicopter.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

"It's a red bike, he's taking a left, operator is not wearing a helmet." DO. YOU SEE. THE REAL PROBLEM? 14/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

That's a lot of white dudes to bang on the door of a rogue biker. 13/?

At least four police officers approaching the door of a suburban house, as seen from a helicopter.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

So they rolled in the cruisers. Not less than two marked and one unmarked car. They fucked around for a while and then parked to block his escape. 12/?

A police car blocking the driveway of a suburban house, as seen from the sky.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Pausing just a moment to remind you that it was optional for the state police to show me this. They -chose- this video for some reason. 11/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The rogue e-bike or moped or whatever driver did the sensible thing upon seeing a fucking state police helicopter following him and ... um ... went home? The house is on a cul-de-sac. Behold the terror of the suburbs, folks. Black man having fun. 10/?

Helicopter surveillance of a suburban home.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Lest you think I'm cherrypicking, here's another shot of the terrifying criminal causing havoc and mayhem. And like yeah, he's joyriding, but do you see the terrified onlookers leaping aside? No you do not because they are not there. The crime is driving while black. (do you even see him?) 9/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The voice-over at this point is an industry-standard Chuck Yeager calm pilot voice saying "yeah, it's some sort of e-bike, and he's driving pretty radically - passing cars, going over sidewalks and stuff." Reader: Look at those streets. I'm not excusing risky behavior ... but ... context. 8/?

An overhead view of a suburb with a single cyclist on the road and basically nobody else.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Powerful "wait, what, ME?" energy. And yes, they deployed the air wing at a cost of something like $2k per hour (excluding officer salaries) to film this. 7/?

A man on a motorbike looking into the camera of a helicopter based camera.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The scene opens with a state police helicopter loitering over Brockton, MA. Then, a person on some kind of e-bike comes zooming in and they focus in on them. For what it's worth, dude is aware that he's being watched. 6/?

A picture from a helicopter of a man on a motor bike looking right into the camera.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Before getting into the wildly overmatched and inappropriate use of force to stop this person on his e-bike ... can we pause and regard the horror of car dytopia from the air? Like, we've got a housing crisis and a climate crisis on at the same time, people. DO YOU SEE IT? 5/?

A view of a suburb, from the air. It's mostly road and parking lot.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

That first Brockton file? It's copaganda, plain and simple. Titled: "May 19, 2026: Air 4 assists in Brockton Patrol." TL;DR: There was a young brown man joyriding on some kind of e-bike, and they brought in a state fucking helicopter to track him down. 4/?

A black screen with white text saying "May 19, 2026, Air 4 Assists in Brockton Patrol."

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

My eye was drawn to the ones named "Brockton" because, well, Brockton is not in Boston and I requested only protest surveillance in Boston. This was extra. This was optional. Did they screw up and include something juicy? Oh reader, did they ever. 3/?

A file listing of four "Brockton" themed video files.

A map of the greater Boston area showing that Brockton is way the hell south of Boston.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The first thing I notice is that there is no particular rhyme or reason to these files. They're generally named by date, but sometimes collected into folders either by protests ("Charlie Kirk") or else just "1" and "2". 2/?

A file folder listing from a computer's file browser.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Hey all. It's Saturday night on an occasionally problematic but still government approved holiday weekend. I honestly hope you're not reading this right now. Unplug! Go be in a room with friends! I am in a room with nerd friends, and I am sifting through my recent public records request. 1/?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I ran into a former colleague at lunch today (Sugidama for the win) who moved from cutting edge research at one of the better institutes in town to helping Kayak make travel a bit easier because ... well ... you go where the money is, right?

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

2TB loaded up with lightly redacted video (and audio) of 48 protest overflights since 2020.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Can we at least go back to protesting Tesla dealerships? I thought that was nice.

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Chris Dwan (he/him) @somershade.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I think it’s pretty clear the AI is getting the white people treatment.

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