Liz

On an exploration of the reason behind my own existence.
Tweeting for myself and for you to bear witness ✌🏽

[Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki @Penprince_]

So I attended the police “invite” and saw the petition written against I and @PurityAddereth, the other victim was indeed by @chowdeck and defended by @OlaniwunAjayiLP lawyer @OdiaseYehoshua. In my opinion, the petition is an attempt to put us away, and silence us. The petition accused us their victims of trying to bomb their offices, kill their workers, specifically Victor, their Lagos operations manager and that we were a danger to all their workers and riders. These charges written there were conspiracy, threat to life and cyber bullying. But the makeup of the charges add up to nothing short of terrorism. This is why I said an attempt to put us away. The sentence for those can be similar to treason and attract a life sentence. They equated a writer, editor and publisher, and a fashion designer using their right to free speech after suffering gruesome damage, to people who can bomb their offices and kill their workers nation wide. You see where this is going with the cyber crime act? When I tell you this is an attack on all of us, our right to freedom of speech, dessent and criticism. Tell me how TF I am going to bomb anywhere when I need help bathing?

This is an abuse of the police process and a weaponization of the cybercrime act to punish dissent, criticism and free speech against writers, journalists and citizens as so many civil and human rights and other organizations have noted, including the US embassy, UK embassy, etc. so I will exhort to you all Nigerians and all in the international community to write to these embassies and ambassadors to see how this issue they have complained about is being used in this case to oppress what is Africa’s most decorated SFF writer-editor-publisher, including many others. You can write to them at these addresses in the pictures attached here,and handles below. Write to these international organizations to sanction through visas and other processes all those, persons and organizations in and of the Nigerian state, weaponizing the cybercrime act to silence criticism and free speech. The voice of everyone of us matters and free speech and the instruments of democracy must be protected.

Their CEO @LordBinary_'s address says San Francisco via X. You can't be in a place where you enjoy free speech, while bullying others here and stiffling their own by abusing the apparatus of law that is being misused to ruin this country further. So you all should write to the US and other embassies and state departments, all interested in protecting and punishing the violation of free speech and the instruments of democracy, to look into this. Unless this is now Russia or China. @USinNigeria @HCCanNigeria @UKinNigeria @RMontgomeryUK @NorAmbNigeria @HCSalvaggio

And I want you all to join your voices in insisting that Chowdeck

1. Show the public the petition they filed
2. Withdraw it formally
3. Issue a written apology
4. Release a public statement taking accountability

5. Call for the repealing of the Cybercrime act

Have you noticed the fact that Chowdeck, it's CEO hasn't said anything? What company accused of things these serious, for four months now, with a full pr department and board cannot say a word, even to the public actively demanding answers.

And to be clear, I attribute my accident and spinal fracture to the failures of Chowdeck and it's team. Feb 14 when I suffered the accident was a day when their love rush promo was in effect. They deliberately instigated a process that heightened movement and traffic without putting guardrails on this “rush”. One of the leading causes of accidents is fatigue. There are not enough guard rails on how many hours a rider can work. If anything they seem to instigate more activity, more “rush”. And that particular day, they did even more so. I blame the company, and @LordBinary_ . And until they take responsibility in all the ways they should, I will not stop speaking about this. And I will not be silenced. We must fight this, and the cybercrime act.

[Lilium @omoopeiswriting]

We’re all acting surprised and I don’t like it.

The films they act, have they ever shown you that they have sense? They make DV victims return to their husbands, make abused women and children forgive their abusers, why would they have a different worldview in person?

[Liz @iooxyl]

@Tegadesigns 👍🏽

[Liz @iooxyl]

Today is WAEC biology.
This child trying to explain to me the process through which plants get nitrogen. She does a pretty good job. But then, she says legumes are nitrate-fixing plants and examples of those legumes are: groundnuts, lentils, beans, and eggs!

My face: 😲

[Liz @iooxyl]

If LinkedIn ever went to prison, it would get so many stitches, it would change its name to patchwork

[antifa honeypot @mformorphine]

thinking about when i was down bad for an old fling but lost all his social media so i would stalk his linkedin, only for him to tell me years later that he would get a notification about it every single time

[Liz @iooxyl]

It may be personally inconvenient, but #BoycottChowdeck
We cannot be oppressed by the government and by private businesses that we support with our hard-earned money.
Stand for something today. It could be you or your family tomorrow.

[Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki @Penprince_]

After 6 men including the Chowdeck rider that fractured my spine, claiming to be sent by @chowdeck, showed up at my home looking for me, threatening shooting, I and the other victim @PurityAddereth have been summoned by the @PoliceNG on a petition written AGAINST US for conspiracy, CYBERSTALKING, and threat to life. In relation to the @chowdeck rider accident. When I took their invite to the police station at Area F where it was already being handled, because I reported all this when it happened, their representative admitted the petition was filed by the company. Listen to this again. Six aggressive men including the Chowdeck rider who fractured my spine came to my house, threatening shooting. I am the one now being petitioned for threat to life under the cybercrime act. The men who came to my house to threaten us said they came to inquire about their motorcycle which is being held by Chowdeck on request of the police. But they came to my house because apparently Chowdeck told them it was because of me the bike was being detained and they should come to me. I have a recording of the rider admitting this.
Chowdeck says they didn't send him to come to my house and threaten me. Or even come to my house. But they did say that the bike was being held because I had a case with them. And that until I dropped the case against them, note. Not that until the case was resolved, but until I dropped the case, the bike couldn't be released. This kind of language puts the onus on me. It blames me. Puts a target on my back and makes me the subject of the bike man's ire. Which in turn led to them coming to my home.
Imagine recovering from a spinal fracture. Then all of a sudden you hear the person who fractured your spine, almost killed you is at your home. It's alarming at the least. And not just there, but there with five other people, making a half dozen overall, threatening to shoot the security person at the compound, accusing them of hiding me. I wasn't at home at the time btw. I was recuperating somewhere else. But imagine if I was. My security guy said they looked like they were there to do me harm or fight. That the one that threatened shooting was an agbero he had seen around in a bus stop close by. The rider spoke to me on the phone, and I explained to them the motorcycle wasn't with me, it was with Chowdeck. And it wasn't because of me it was being held. It was because Chowdeck had a case to answer. They were asked to leave by other occupants of the compound and they refused.
If you fracture my spine, give me nothing after, for my care, I shouldn't be the one being hassled to make it go away to clear up the baggage. The onus should be on you to clean this up asap, to do that. And they hadnt. Instead they were using language that made me the aggressor. And now accusing us their victims of cyber bullying and threat to life?
I have been caring for myself to the tune of millions weekly. I had a caregiver to do everything for me, even bath me, because I couldn't bend down, carry anything. Still can't do a lot now, months after. You haven't given me a penny for my care since, but you are telling people their bike is held down because of me. And at this time, they were trying to get me to accept the vastly inadequate settlement they were offering and sign the nda their lawyers @OlaniwunAjayiLP were trying to get me to sign. I had people invade my home to threaten shooting, violate the sanctity of my safe space where I should be healing. They have also been disclosing information of the negotiation to parties who should not have those info. Telling the rider and his folks inflated demands to make me look bad. They told these people that came to my home we were asking for a hundred million naira. At a time when we had agreed to accept 10 and the only thing holding this up was the NDA. All this makes is very unsafe, here at our home and neighborhood.

@NigBarAssoc

[Liz @iooxyl]

Yesterday I saw some people protesting the current government and demanding change.
I remarked to one of them that if they were serious, they should go and occupy the seat of government. And he replied that they were headed there.
There was a policeman in the car with me who heard what I said and he said to me afterwards, "don't talk like that outside next time". It was a serious warning.
I laughed it off in the moment, but I've been thinking about it since then.

[DEDE! @minutesimal_]

In your 20’s you will get an offer to do marketing in a bank, please ensure you tear that letter and never look back

[Ihtesham Ali @ihtesham2005]

A TV writer with no philosophy degree read Aristotle, Kant, Bentham, and Scanlon back to back, built a sitcom around what he found, then explained in one book why the trolley problem is no longer a thought experiment and the people who need to understand this most are the ones building AI.

His name is Michael Schur.

He co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But The Good Place was the project that broke him open. On the surface it was a comedy about a woman who accidentally ends up in heaven. Underneath, it was a philosophy seminar. Every episode was built around a real ethical framework. He had to actually understand all of it to make any of it funny.

After the show ended, he wrote the book anyway. He called it "How to Be Perfect." It begins with the most honest opening line in any philosophy book ever written: Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason? No.

That is not a joke. That is his method. He starts with the obvious and builds toward the impossible.

Here is the framework he built, and why the most dangerous people in tech right now are running exactly one of the four schools of thought without knowing any of the others exist.

The first school is Virtue Ethics. Aristotle built it around 350 BCE. The question it asks is not "what should I do?" It asks "what kind of person should I be?" The idea: become genuinely good, and good actions will follow naturally. You build courage. You build honesty. You build practical wisdom. Then you trust the person you built.

The second school is Deontology. Kant built it in the 18th century and it is the exact opposite. Kant did not care about the person. He cared about the rule. His version: act only in ways you would be comfortable turning into a universal law. If everyone lied whenever it was convenient, the concept of truth would dissolve. So you never lie. Even if the truth gets someone killed. The rule is absolute because the moment you make one exception, it stops being a rule.

The third school is Utilitarianism. This is the one that should stop anyone building AI cold.

Jeremy Bentham invented it in the late 1700s. The principle sounds beautiful: the right action is whichever one produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Pure math. Pure outcome. Intention means nothing. Only consequences count.

Schur runs it through the trolley problem, the most famous thought experiment in philosophy.

You are driving a runaway trolley. Five people are tied to the main track. You can pull a lever and redirect it to a side track where only one person is tied. Do nothing and five die. Pull the lever and you kill one to save five.

A utilitarian says pull the lever. The math is obvious.

Now the same problem with one change. You are on a bridge above the track. A large man is standing next to you. The physics are clear: if you push him off the bridge, his body stops the trolley. Five people live. He dies. The math is identical.

Almost nobody will push the man. Even people who pulled the lever instantly in the first version refuse.

The utilitarian has no answer for why these two situations feel different. The numbers are the same. The outcome is the same. The only thing that changed is whether you are using another human being as a tool.

That gap between the math being correct and the action feeling monstrous is exactly where AI ethics collapses every single time.

The fourth school is Contractualism, built by the philosopher T.M. Scanlon. It asks the question that Kant's rules and Bentham's math both miss. What principles could be justified to everyone affected? Not the majority. Not the person with the most power. Everyone. Including the one person who ends up on the shorter end of the calculation.

Schur's conclusion is the part that people who live inside growth frameworks and optimization loops will resist the hardest. None of the four schools is correct on its own. Each one has a scenario where following it perfectly produces something most humans recognize as evil. Pure utilitarianism justifies harvesting one person's organs to save five dying patients. Pure deontology says you cannot lie to the murderer asking where your friend is hiding. Each system, taken to its logical extreme, becomes a machine that produces monsters while generating perfect internal justification for doing so.

The way out is not picking the right framework and following it harder.

The way out is using all four as lenses. Ask what Aristotle would do. Ask what Kant would allow. Do the utilitarian math. Then ask Scanlon's question: could you justify this to the person it hurts most?

Where those four answers overlap, you are probably on solid ground. Where they pull in different directions, you are in territory that deserves far more than a two-hour board meeting.

Schur also coined a term that has been stuck in my head since I finished the book. Moral Exhaustion. The feeling of living in an age where you can know, in real time, every ethical implication of every product you use, every company you work for, every piece of code you ship. The gap between what you know and what you can actually change becomes so large that the easiest response is to stop asking.

He says that response is understandable. He also says that choosing not to ask is itself a moral choice, and the consequences of that choice scale in exact proportion to the power you hold.

A person building a product one billion people will use is not operating at the scale where shrugging is a neutral act.

The people who built the most consequential technologies of the last decade were not evil. Most were genuinely trying to do good. They ran the utilitarian math. They saw a billion users. They saw engagement numbers that looked like impact. They optimized for the greatest good for the greatest number and did not notice until much later that the people being turned into variables in the math were still people.

Schur read 2,500 years of philosophy and the lesson he came out with fits in one sentence. You cannot use a single framework because every single framework, followed perfectly, eventually produces the wrong answer.

The people who cause the most damage are not the ones who do not care about ethics. They are the ones who found one framework they liked, felt good about it, and stopped asking.

The trolley problem is not a thought experiment anymore.

It runs on servers. It gets optimized overnight. And the people making those decisions right now have never once asked what Scanlon would say.

[Kpaxs @Kpaxs]

Practice pausing before the yes.

Practice leaving while you still have dignity.

Practice eating like your body is not a machine you rent.

Practice spending like your future has a claim on your money too.

Practice loving people without auditioning for them.

Practice working without disappearing into work.

Practice resting before your body forces you.

Practice telling the truth before the lie requires infrastructure.

Practice asking for help before collapse becomes your only language.

Practice choosing friends around whom your nervous system does not need armor.

Practice noticing whether you feel expanded or erased.

Practice being loyal to the version of you who has to live with the outcome.

And when you fail, because you will, practice repair.

[Liz @iooxyl]

POV: ChatGPT says this is illegal … so you rephrase the prompt 💀

[Liz @iooxyl]

Someone said Arsenal fans don't know how to celebrate happiness because they are not used to it😭

[Gbemi O-O @GbemiOO]

When you delay a payment , you’re actually affecting people’s lives.
Especially for work already done. I need the big companies to understand this. It’s so unfair.

[Dr. El Mo PsyD™️ @Drelmoatiku]

❤️H.E. Peter Obi❤️

[Liz @iooxyl]

Dear Mr President...
And it's BAT you are referring to😭
Ok ma.
Continue 👏🏽

[Liz @iooxyl]

If only labour laws worked on this country 😏

[Liz @iooxyl]

@miss_she_du 7th is too late for full month's pay?
Ahhh, na wa!

[Liz @iooxyl]

Males can get so angry when they think a woman has made a fool of them...their rage can actually dam a river👀

[Chawanna @DrChaeEd]

There’s a parenting struggle I have that I never really talk about (bc I don’t think ppl are honest enough about it).

Kids, boys especially, tend to communicate primarily through hostile humor (jokes that in any other context are demeaning or critical).

[Liz @iooxyl]

Some countries go through national periods of reconciliation where warring factions apologise to each other and reconcile.
We don't need that in Nigeria.
What we need is a national day/week/month of rage.
Because if you really deep it, this country forces you to swallow loads of complete BS on a daily, with no recourse, no relief. Just more and more, every day, over and over.
To the point where we have stopped feeling.
We have lost all feeling. We are not desensitised, no. We are beyond desensitised, we are mere husks now, completely lacking in empathy, in courage, in morals, in basic humanity!

Now we cling to hashtags like #BringBackOurChildren and #BringBackThe43 while children sleep in the bush at the behest of murderous drug-fueled teenage miscreants that security forces fully refuse to pursue, capture or persecute!

[Oloye. @Ol0ye]

Rashida Tajudeen -11, Ahmed Ramoni -8, Abdulsalam Toyib -4, Baraka Abioye -16, Fatimo Jimoh -15, Hassan Azeez -14, Joshua Adeleke -13, Samuel Oyedele -7, Emmanuel Oyedele -4, Lege Taiwo -12, Balkis Ayanwale -8, Asa David 10, Shuaibu Aliyu 10

@officialABAT #BringBackOurChildren