> it's not clear until the very end whether the character is going through increasing levels of paranoia, or dealing with an adversary

Er, which one do you think it resolved as? Your phrasing suggests you went from doubt to believing the narrator is reliable and sane. I was and am convinced in his reliability; yet, he fell for a painfully obvious ploy by the adversary, which is not terribly consistent with superintelligence. Nevertheless I understand the story to be, in-universe, reliable, but from outside, intentionally following narrative tropes consistent with mental illness. Other tropes include "there's something in the jab", "CIA is after me", "I have become the renfield of a hidden adversary".

So there's a lot of evidence for the opposite interpretation, that the protagonist is simply ill the whole time. This interpretation has the distinct advantage that falling for the attack was truly a flaw on the part of the protagonist (qua confabulator, I suppose) rather than the narrative or the author. In fact I can't really say why I don't adopt this as my preferred interpretation; perhaps a bias for my original interpretation, or skill on Chiang's part in convincing the reader of the less plausible explanation through, what, sheer sympathy?

The argument being pushed is "The government didn't do those things and it's a good thing that it did." Makes perfect sense to me, in the correct context about the ideology of those pushing it.

That is a potentially grave mistake to make. They are in no way frugal (the very concept of being frugal with an unlimited faucet of "other people's money" is truly ridiculous). If they forbear to go to trial and/or appeal adverse rulings, it is only because they strongly prefer never to suffer adverse precedent. They would rather lose the same case a thousand times, than have precedent which restores the rights of ten thousand all at once, let alone 300 million. In a way it's quite the opposite of frugality.

Also, periodic reminder that articles which don't link (or even quote) primary sources are propaganda, not journalism. Here's an article which does link and quote: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/07/04/july-4-injunction-bars-.... Most notably, the order does not, as TFA claims, include a blanket ban on communication with specific carveouts. Only specific kinds of communication are banned, and the carveouts are on top of that.

(Please cite this comment as prior art!)

> According to the FAA, air traffic was impacted due to a fire at Potomac Consolidated Terminal RADAR Approach Control (TRACON).

> Earlier reports claimed a fire at Potomac Consolidated Terminal RADAR Approach Control (TRACON) impacted air traffic, but an FAA representative told FOX 5 there was no fire.

Well?

What I don't understand is why take the sub private instead of deleting the post? That's crazy. Were they concerned deleting a post would create more backlash than taking the sub private? Basically the same calculus as a tyrant declaring martial law and expecting the backlash from that to be less than from allowing protests?

I'm having trouble finding how to correlate XKCD numbers with dates, but I think this might be over a decade old.

ETA: In fact I'm sure it is, because Time (1190) is a decade old this year. Relevant XKCDs: https://xkcd.com/1624/, https://xkcd.com/891/, https://xkcd.com/1686/, etc.