Email from Sabrina – 10/2, 3:24pm

Fuck.

So I’m guessing the files from the states listed are already gone? As in there’s no data from those in those states? If so…not sure how to feel about that one personally.

Meanwhile….the phonecall. What does the deletion of the One’s data have on those who are within the orbit of the ODSM? Clearly people are being summoned to something as a result. Why? For what? Is it the mid-season event or something much sinister?

On the one hand, I’m guessing my data is now gone. On the other hand…how much data did they have on me-and what will they do to those whose data is gone in order to get it back?

Also, 10/4/17. The date of the Mid-season event? Or is it a deadline for the ODSM to somehow stop the deletion of data, if possible?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mustafa Said.

Welp.

What did you psychos start?

Is this the revolution you were all gung-ho for?

You’re ruining peoples lives for some stupid sense of idealism…

Unintended consequences.

Never been so glad to have not participated in an interaction in my life.

What the actual…

So it sounds to me like they recovered a decent chunk of the data? Or maybe there was a virus that they cleared from those states? The wording here is very ambiguous to me. Recovered seems to make sense. But cleared. Are the files cleared of the corruption? Are they completely gone?

Please tell me they didn’t take Amanda’s kid…

The part where she interrupts after “come to the–” I think he says “Headquarters.”

Damn, @addisonborn.

So…are the people in the call still valuable to the ODSM? Or have they played their part?

Let’s be real here for a second, we don’t know what any of this means. We don’t know what “downgrading” is. We don’t know who these people are or what the OSDM plans to do with them. I will admit it doesn’t sound good though.

On Oct 2, 2017, 4:03 PM -0700, Sabrina Kern, wrote:
We all play a role until we are no longer valuable..

What makes them no longer valuable though? If they lost a bunch of information, the people who had been working on it would still be helpful in getting them back to where they were. Even if all the data is corrupted as the man says, I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t be useful to OSDM at all.

We all play a role until we are no longer valuable..

This is fairly simple.

The OSDM is closing up shops because of the data corruption. There aren’t exactly lay-offs in this kind of world. So they need to tie up loose ends.

OSDM Office Drone #4 here knew things. So did his wife. Her first instinct when she found out what happened was to grab their kid and bolt.

OSDM already had the kid, putting the wife in an impossible position: leave, and the kid dies. Or come in… and maybe there’s a chance.

This entire family is probably dead now. /harshtruth

“All human sin seems so much worse in its consequence than in its intentions.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing a lot of this now, this downgrading, I think we all knew that the consequences for our actions were going to be harsh. There are too many people, too many families even, involved in the OSDM (or whatever they even are anymore) for there not to be. The main thing is going to be seeing what they try to do to get our data back.

Likely that this person was some sort of OSDM equivalent of a case worker or analyst. In that particular case, they were valuable because they had skills in working the data that we provided. Now that the data’s gone, there’s no reason to… employ their services.

Maybe there will be attempts to regain their data, but why would the OSDM overlords want to keep on a team that already failed them spectacularly once before? In the corporate world this would be reshuffling and layoffs, in the OSDM world this is more likely to be razor blades and bleached walls

Those who were in charge of administration for the Nazi party were “just doing their job”, but they still contributed to the genocide even if they weren’t physically taking lives… Just using an extreme example to make a point – we don’t know who these people are, but they work for an organisation that thinks nothing of using manipulation and murder and who knows what else to their nefarious ends. This isn’t “idealism” – this is bringing down the big bad to save who knows how many people and it’s fucking ugly, yes, but I stand by what we did. I know this won’t be popular, I wish people didn’t have to get hurt, but we didn’t start this… We will finish it though.

Don’t really understand the reasoning behind any of this purging, but hey if the sex and murder cult wants to murder more of their followers because of sex and murder. Be my guest.

And here I thought BOS was all about nobody getting hurt. Hrm.

@nothenrygale I’m sure their kid Mackenzie is really feeling you on the nobility of your struggle.

Real question: If you had known your vote would potentially result in the death of children — who are inherently innocent because they’re, yaknow, children — would you have gone through with it? Not trolling; this is a legitimate moral quandary we should all be pondering (I sure as hell am on my side of the fence).

Wouldn’t it have been wiser to know the true ramifications of your actions before leading your vote? What else is about to happen that we’re not aware of?

meh…. not really gonna be shamed into thinking that this is entirely our fault. Yeah our decisions contributed, but OSDM obviously isn’t really gonna make great choices when we decide not to play nice. Or hell even if we play nice…I’m sure some other murder thing would eventually happen. Murder sex cult is murder sex cult… what about murder sex cult is so hard to understand?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Twan Intarathuch.

Part of attacking an enemy is making sure innocents are in the clear first. Just sayin’.

Hey guys.

Remember that thing this morning about hope and path and working together?

SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT BOS. SERIOUSLY. ENOUGH.
BUT HER EMAILS!!!!!!!

It’s done.
Work together or GTFO.

@bcbishop Sabrina said it herself:

“We all play a role until we are no longer valuable.”

At some point, the OSDM would deem them as no longer valuable. They’ve been keeping the employees and their families living in fear of this. They’ve shown time and time again (including with Joyce mind you) that they do not value the lives of their employees. This is NOT BOS doing this, this is OSDM placing no value on human life. If their response to anyone working to bring them down is to harm innocent people, then they NEED to be fucking ended.

Stop trying to push the blame away from OSDM and onto BOS.

Here’s where I struggle a bit. Are we all to blame, yes. Not completely, but partially. For participating in the BOS’s BS game.

Was it worth it, a child being punished for this group choosing to have the OSDM’s data on us corrupted, no.

Would it have been worth it for the truth? I don’t know. without knowing what we would have discovered I cannot answer that question. I’d like to think if I knew what was going to happen I would have tried to stop it, but if I had been offered the truth, I’m not sure what I would have done.

I know to some it’s going to sound like I’m victim blaming here, but here goes.

These people knew what they were getting into. They knew OSDM was bad, they knew that when they joined, they knew that when they had a child, they knew that when they thought certain things would never happen. They knew what OSDM did and how they did it and what kind of information they had on people, they knew they couldn’t just run away if/when things got bad, that the OSDM would find them no matter where they went.

Do I want to see families destroyed? No. Do I want to see children being threatened? Absolutely not. Do I know that stuff like this is going to happen because OSDM is fucking evil? Yes.

Every employee, every family, everyone involved in this is hanging by a thread. Once the OSDM decides it doesn’t need to puppet you anymore, they cut the thread.

@nothenrygale I’m not shifting any blame. I find this horrible across the board, and it’s forcing me to think through a lot. But I am interested in your answer to the question I posed. If you’d known children could be harmed as a result, would you have followed through with your vote?

Again, this is not a troll or a gotcha. I actually think it’s vital we all consider our own moral compasses on stuff like this. It’s not like things are going to get any easier moving forward.

Did we collectively forget that the “bloodline” choice was unpopular because it could potentially harm innocent children?

Part of attacking an enemy is making sure innocents are in the clear first. Just sayin’.

Yeah, this sounds right. BOS has stated that their goal is to make sure no one gets hurt. This applies to these people, and especially their kid. I participated in the vote, and in hindsight, hell even just in normal sight, I realized we couldn’t judge the consequences and voted anyways. Is this on anyone but OSDM? No, but surely there are better options where no one gets hurt.

Hang on a minute (I am halfway through brushing my teeth as I type this because I am getting ready for bed – there is toothpaste all over my phone…)

We’ve been arguing at length about the consequences of activating MyChild. The precious data is disappearing… This could be more manipulation. What is the thing that will continue the argument, really get to people and make them react emotionally and potentially violently? The harming of “innocents”, especially children. This could be more OSDM data-mining bullshit… I mean, I don’t doubt that they are capable of destroying families to cover their backs. But it is worth bearing in mind. There is a truth in there, but it may be surrounded by lies. As always.

I’m confused, we are not the ones who have decided to (possibly) kill/kidnap employees because the data is down the shitter, so why are we the bad guys? Because we decided to make an actual move against this organization that has already seriously fucked up some people’s life’s? That email is terrible and the thought that the OSDM are ruining more lives is worse, but the fact that they would go to such lengths to tie up loose ends and keep things hidden? What is so important that people need to die in order to keep it lowkey?

There was also the argument that silence=complicity. We knew that people were getting harmed at these retreats. By passing up the opportunity to strike a blow at the hosts, would we have been complicit in future abuses?

I have a feeling that there was no “right” answer that would have resulted in zero harm.

For me, the more pressing questions now are:

1) Why would they go straight to this downsizing? No effort to restore, retrieve, or regather the data? No hopes that eventually they’ll be up and running again? Just the most irreversible sort of downgrade? What makes them so sure this is the only path?

2) Why are they ok with us knowing that they’re doing this?! They spent so much effort in keeping the goings-on at the retreats quiet…now they’re essentially announcing a slaughter to us?

2a) Was Sabrina supposed to be leaking this? Is she leaking this because she hopes it can be stopped? Or was this leaked with the OSDM’s blessing?

2b) Was it leaked to get a reaction out of us?

3) Is there anything we can do to stop this from happening?

4) Is this confirmation, once and for all, that BOS and MyChild are not part of OSDM?

You know, that’s the thing about a rat trapped in a corner.

This is war and it will not be a hand-holding skip through the fields. There will be ugliness. There will be pain.
No matter what we chose, the OSDM would have responded in a way to make it seem like the blood is on our hands because the alternative is acceptance of defeat.
Like breaking up with an abusive spouse who takes your dog and throws it over a cliff and tells you its your fault for not loving them enough.
You think that doing nothing will avoid that?
Every action has a consequence, even inaction.

It will only get darker from here.
And the only way out of the darkness is through.

The Law of Unintended Consequences — A true story and tough-love allegory:

A city Mayor was up for re-election. He wanted to eliminate pawn shops. He lobbied the city council to pass an ordinance, and called on citizens to do the same. Pawn shops were a “blight”, you see, and “took advantage of the poor”.

A Challenger for the next election hired a consultant whose name rhymed with “Dreyers” and who loved ice cream. The Challenger asked what position he should he take on the matter? Dreyers, who was known to have wisdom in such matters, told the Challenger not to opine. Stay quiet. He did.

So citizens called and Emailed the city council with great vociferousness against the pawn shops, local newspapers ran editorials in support, and an ordinance was passed to ban them. So they all closed up.

But…

You see, people who pawned merchandise needed to raise money for necessities — which was spent in that same low-income area of town on urgent care, auto repair, etc. With the pawnshops gone, those customers took their business to the next town (costing them more in gas BTW), and got their necessities taken care of in the next town. Which meant far less revenue for the local businesses.

Within 6 months that same area was abandoned, run-down and crime-ridden, because nobody spent money there anymore.

Meanwhile, the City had an “unexpected budget deficit” that fiscal year because neither the pawn shops nor the local businesses paid taxes, because they no longer had businesses to pay taxes on.

Dreyers then told the Challenger to pivot his campaign to criticize the Mayor’s terrible idea, and on a campaign to combat “urban blight”…which included a plan to un-ban pawn shops.

You can guess who won the election in a landslide (and 2 city council members who had to find new jobs).

And the best part was the man-on-the-street interviews on the local news, and the local newspapers, all of whom wondered aloud about the terrible blight in that area, “How did this happen? We didn’t do anything! We just demanded the pawn shops get banned”

IT HAPPENED BECA– USE OF YOU, Dreyers screamed at the TV, counting his consultant fees like Sylvester McMonkey McBean.

————————————-

Voted for MyChild? Then shoulder the responsibility for it. Pledge devotion to a kind-hearted, well-intentioned, warm and lovable, but totally incompetent General with no field experience, no strategy, motivated entirely by passion, and lacking in reason? Without thought of unintended consequences? Without thought as to who else might become collateral damage?

Then, yes, that means culpability in this consequence.

I’m not saying this as a blame game. I’m saying this for the greater good, because it’s a mistake I’ve made countless times, to my eternal regret, and one I still make.

I’m saying this because, returning to the theme of Ouroboros — we only become whole when we confront our own responsibility and culpability in all of our actions. That in our need to feel good about “doing the right thing”, we rush to act, instead of pausing, seeking, reflecting, considering, and engaging on terms that make the most sense, at the right time, including considering unintended consequences.

Now, is there a consequence to doing nothing? Depends on the circumstance. In this particular instance, I’m feeling relieved that along with @bcbishop, I’m not scrubbing my hands compulsively screaming, “Out, damned spot!”

Sermon concluded. We now return you to the next edition of racist Dr. Seuss stories.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Lawrence Meyers.

Mmmm, well yeah, BOS (and all who voted) should accept partial responsibility. Cause and Effect. We knew our choice would have consequences. Isn’t the motto “burn it down”? Burning things down sometimes leaves bodies. But also aligning yourself with an organization (OSDM) that operates this way also makes you complicit in these actions.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Sage.

@daela

1) Straight out of the SPECTRE playbook. If an arm gets diseased, you don’t treat it. You remove it.

2) http://jamesbond.wikia.com/wiki/File:Oil.jpg

2a) IMHO, it seems clear this is quite intentional. She appears to be happily returned to OSDM.

2b) See #2.

3) My suggestion: think before acting.

4) There is never a “once and for all”

What a disturbing phone call to listen to…

I think pointing fingers here is counterproductive and a distraction. Any choice made would have had consequences that would be pinned on us. It’s never going to be pretty.

What are the actions taken during this “downsizing”? The thing they said would never happen or they never talk about?

How does this involve the child? Either the child is dead or they will never see them again and it seems from this call that the parentz know this. If the OSDM is okay with us knowing this, then there must be something buried in plain sight that they think we will overlook. Perhaps they are relying on a pattern we always seem to stick to and therefore underestimate our ability to see the truth within the lie.

So what are we missing that is in clear view?

One thing to keep in mind is that we don’t know WHY the OSDM did whatever they did to that family, so assuming that it’s an abuser tactic is wrong. They may not be thinking of us at all while they do this. They may think they HAVE to do this. We have no idea what made them do it, what situation OUR decision put them in. The fact is, our decision led directly to their decision. Decisions *always* have consequences. We can’t pick and choose which ones are truly our fault and which ones are someone else’s fault. They are all our fault. It doesn’t erase the responsibility from the OSDM, but pointing fingers at them won’t absolve us either.

All assigning blame does in this context is make us feel better by saying it’s not our fault. It won’t change what happened. This is where we’re at now, and at some point we’re likely to be at a similar crossroads again. Perhaps we can make more thoughtful choices next time.

It seems like a lot of people are saying that the community made a knee jerk decision without properly analyzing the situation. That might be true, but when do we ever have enough information to make an informed decision. None of us truly know what is going on and I don’t think we will ever truly have enough information. By abstaining to act, do we really gain anything? Who knows? Maybe we would all be invited to an awesome murder sex cult party if we played nice.

Anyways accept that what happened, happened and move on. When you have a chance to act, pray that you make a good decision and that you won’t have to be accused of being short sighted

As always, I’ll have all your backs when that time comes.

I voted. Admittedly, I didn’t vote for the “winning” vote, but I participated. I wish I hadn’t. I’m sure there were other consequences for abstaining, but this is as much on my shoulders for participating as anyone’s. The truth is that none of us knew what would happen, what the full consequences of our actions would be. Two people, however, probably did. And if that’s true, they chose to go through with this knowing those consequences. I feel like we are pointing too many fingers and putting our hands up in defense and not asking enough questions. Did Morgan and Stacey, in fact, know the consequences of this choice? I feel like there’s an awful lot of hurt going around for people who don’t hurt people. I’m beginning to feel like there are no good guys in this.

When I first heard the call, and the word “downgrade” my first thought was, “Are these people (Man and Amanda) AI beings, who are being decomissioned as a result of our decision?” (downgrade = opposite of an upgrade, for software).

Batman is going after Joker, and as a way to get back at him he pulls the whole “Here are two innocent people, you can only save one” scheme. Do you watch that and go “FUCK YOU BATMAN, YOU DID THIS!” No, you go “BATMAN, STOP THE JOKER”.

I don’t know how I “go,” but I’m pretty sure that Batman saves one of the two people and spends a fuckton of time feeling responsible for the death of the other, while simultaneously holding the Joker responsible for that same death.

This call made me feel ill. ?

• I think we should wait and see how Morgan reacts to this before thinking any further on it. It’s obvious we have our own thoughts and pointing fingers, but it’ll be interesting to see how the leader and Stacey herself react to this. I think it’ll show us who they are as people, as a group, and what their ideas mean.

I’ve never understood the BOS. They talk about ideals of destroying the ODSM, starting fires but also never harming innocents (or anyone?). This has always confused me on where their actual morals are.

I present The Trolley Dilemma –

Imagine you are standing beside some tram tracks. In the distance, you spot a runaway trolley hurtling down the tracks towards five workers who cannot hear it coming. Even if they do spot it, they won’t be able to move out of the way in time.

As this disaster looms, you glance down and see a lever connected to the tracks. You realise that if you pull the lever, the tram will be diverted down a second set of tracks away from the five unsuspecting workers.

However, down this side track is one lone worker, just as oblivious as his colleagues.

So, would you pull the lever, leading to one death but saving five?

Do the BOS make the conscious decision to save multiple lives by sacrificing another? This may seem like an unfair question, and you can deflect it by not answering and just blaming the trolley itself. But at the end of the day- do you pull the lever or not?

Do you kill people directly responsible? Do you try and reform/”save” them? Do you kill their bloodline if it means destroying the ODSM?

What lines are the BOS willing to cross to reach their goal?

@kortneydarling From a legal perspective, aka what can and cannot get you charged as “responsible” in front of a judge, if you are NOT an employee of the train or railway, doing nothing makes it unlikely that you would would be charged. Pulling the lever is a manslaughter charge, if not murder. The defense of pulling the lever comes down to whether you can argue the necessity of the action. Elements of necessity include 1. That you did not create the danger that caused you to commit the crime; 2. You stopped criminal activity as soon as possible; 3. There was no immediate and reasonable alternative, and; 4. What was prevented is greater than the crime committed. Either way, pulling the lever winds up with you arrested and in front of a judge while you defend the necessity.

One thing to keep in mind is that we don’t know WHY the OSDM did whatever they did to that family, so assuming that it’s an abuser tactic is wrong. They may not be thinking of us at all while they do this. They may think they HAVE to do this. We have no idea what made them do it, what situation OUR decision put them in. The fact is, our decision led directly to their decision. Decisions *always* have consequences. We can’t pick and choose which ones are truly our fault and which ones are someone else’s fault. They are all our fault. It doesn’t erase the responsibility from the OSDM, but pointing fingers at them won’t absolve us either.

All assigning blame does in this context is make us feel better by saying it’s not our fault. It won’t change what happened. This is where we’re at now, and at some point we’re likely to be at a similar crossroads again. Perhaps we can make more thoughtful choices next time.

Gotta go with @coryphella on this one. Why are we hearing this in the first place?? Either Sabrina released it wtihout OSDM’s knowledge and we’re meant to understand the gravity of our decisions, or ODSM meant for us to hear this for this exact reason- they knew we’d all start blaming each other and get distracted yet again. And like Megan stated above, we aren’t even sure of the context of this call. It could be completely unrelated to the MyChild events, or it could be a direct cause. We don’t know, and I think we need to be thinking about WHY we’re hearing this.

Also, the use of the term “downgrade” is really odd, as @superstar pointed out. Why that term?

Thought: we all jumped to the conclusion that Makenzie is a child…what if she isn’t??

Elon Musk created an energy efficient electric car and refused to patent the engine schematics in hope that others would take and continue to use the design, as a means to more energy efficient cars on the road and a cleaner environment. He makes lots and lots and lots of money off this design, but he also does it as a means to bettering the world. Do you feel bad for the gas companies who lose profits as a result? Do you feel bad for the competing car companies who have access to this design, but instead decide to adapt Elon’s car chasis and not the energy efficient non-patented engine design and lose profits as a result? Do you view Elon’s desire for cleaner cars as nothing more than a money grab with unintentional ecological side effects, ignoring the fact that he refused to patent?

The events of the past week reminded me of a Facebook post that went up back in early August. This is a tricky situation. If anyone wants to point any sort of blame at BOS, sure this may be it. That our actions did not prevent OSDM from retaliating against innocent people. BUT, unfortunately we know OSDM is much bigger and widespread than we initially thought. There will not be any sort of easy solution to stopping OSDM and several steps will have to be taken.

@111error Now that we’ve struck this blow to the OSDM, is there anything at our disposal to help with preventing them from taking further actions against innocent people?