Like, download Watch Duty and get the results there. Otherwise, do it, man. Look it up on the internet and hope it makes you feel better. I feel bad for them, honestly, you know? I have been through this before. But the way I coped is by building Watch Duty, not by yelling into the ether. We all have our coping mechanisms. Some are productive and some are not.
Screenshot: Courtesy of Watch Duty
Do you think that people getting more information about what's happening on the ground will help them be more discerning about what's being said online? Or is all that nonsense posting still going to happen?
I don't know, man. I wish I had a good answer to answer your question, but I don't really care about those. This is absolutely distasteful. People are still running from the fire. And that's what really matters. I don't need armchair journalists anymore. There are great journalists who are not on watch duty, like a group of people who are relaying information to the public on X, which is great. I'm glad they do. I wish they had a better platform for this. There are still great people on social media, but unfortunately you have to filter out the Bitcoin porn and other random content that is being overridden by Chinese bots right now.
So what's next? How does Watch Duty think specifically about the next few days of this fire and then beyond that?
It's a great time for Mike Tyson's expression: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Right now, we are being punched in the face again and again. When I'm in that mode, we don't make strategic plans.
We are exceptionally strategic. We focus on what's in front of us, just like a firefighter. That's what we're doing today, keeping our servers online, feeding the engineers, making sure they can keep this thing running as we're experiencing three orders of magnitude explosive growth. And then journalists also need sleep, need pep talks, need help. And so it's really just “deal with it”, man. We are going to experience another wind event tonight. We have gone too far and tonight is going to be another very bad night.
What about long term? What is the future of how people use Watch Duty?
I can talk about long-term things because I've been thinking about it for centuries. We're really thinking a lot about what other disasters look like in Watch Duty. We are actively developing it now. We're working on making sure we can do the same thing we did in L.A. hurricane helenBecause that flood was devastating. People didn't have enough warning, they didn't understand it. And there is good data out there that is not being brought to the public. We want to be the voice of reason in these difficult times. And so what's next for us when we get out of this nonsense.
Beets sat there in despair.
Yes. I have to be creative, you know?