The 279th Block: Pseudolaw and a new world order

(And pseudo-paywall)

Sep 07, 2025

This week…

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Dear readers,

I will turn on paid subscription to TSB in the coming days, but everything will remain free to read. There will not be any exclusive posts. I am merely doing it to keep some of my academic essays, like this one about the safe and equitable utilisation of space resources and benefit sharing, behind a paywall after it has been published. I cannot do this without turning on paid subscription. I am trying to avoid enabling plagiarism while also wanting to make the essays readily shareable to those in my personal or professional circle who are interested in reading it.

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Your Wikipedia this week: Sovereign citizen

And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.

ICYMI: The Previous Block was about strongmen and supression.

CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified.

PSEUDOLAW

‘Queen of Canada’ Romana Didulo remanded in custody, will represent herself at bail hearing Monday

Alexander Quon and Alex Kozroski for CBC News:

The cult leader was one of the 16 people who were arrested by the RCMP after a raid at a compound in Richmound, Sask. on Wednesday.
All 16 people were initially released without charges but police quickly rearrested Didulo, who calls herself the “Queen of Canada,” and Ricky Manz, who owns the compound in the village located 365 kilometres west of Regina.
Didulo and Manz have both been charged with failure to comply with an undertaking and intimidation of a justice participant. The failure to comply charge is because the pair were not supposed to contact each other. RCMP said the intimidation charge is related to an investigation in Richmound in July.
Information discussed during Didulo’s appearance Friday indicates that the charge is related to intimidating four people, including a police officer. Didulo repeatedly told Judge Alan Jacobson that she did not consent to her arrest, that she wanted a hearing under “natural law,” and that her case should be dismissed.
Jacobson was visibly annoyed as he instructed Didulo to not interrupt him.

Sovereign citizen conspiracy theorists, like Didulo, will certainly use pseudolegal arguments in court. And it will probably be quite the clown show. But it won't be the first time for Canadian courts. See: Naomi Arbabi. Loosely linked:

From 2024: How the “Queen of Canada” and conspiracy theorists splintered a small town by Rachel Browne, illustration by Michael Byers for The Walrus.
“Sovereign citizens” believe Australian laws do not apply to them. That’s where pseudolaw comes in by Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson for ABC.
Why are police a target for sovereign citizen violence? by Emma Shakespeare, Keiran Hardy, and Kristina Murphy (Griffith University) for The Conversation.

AUTHORITARIANISM

Anatomy of a coup plot: why Jair Bolsonaro is on trial

Tiago Rogero for The Guardian:

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was days away from taking office for his third term as the Brazilian president when soldiers from a special operations unit allegedly discussed the best way to kill him – possibly through poisoning or administering drugs that would trigger “organ failure”.
Investigators would later conclude that the supposed plan to assassinate the president-elect, his vice-president and a supreme court justice was one of many strands of a wider plot designed to keep the far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro in power.
At the end of 2022, Lula had just won the elections and was staying at a hotel in the capital, Brasília, while a police officer leaked details of his security apparatus to the special ops.
Meanwhile, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, already responsible for the main cases against Bolsonaro, was allegedly targeted by heavily armed soldiers who took up positions near his home, awaiting the final order to kill him.
According to the federal police and Brazil’s attorney general, the assassination plan was only aborted because a court session was delayed – and, more importantly, the commanders of the armed forces refused to endorse Bolsonaro’s coup plot.

Loosely linked:

Kim Jong Un has brought his daughter to Beijing. What to know about the possible North Korean heir by Kim Tong-Hyung for AP.
Hot mic catches Putin and Xi discussing organ transplants and immortality but Putin’s fascination with long life is nothing new by Pjotr Sauer for The Guardian.

AI / ALGO

AI Apocalypse? Why language surrounding tech is sounding increasingly religious

Krysta Fauria for AP:

Despite Thiel’s explicit invocation of language from the Book of Revelation, the positive visions of an AI future are more “apocalyptic” in the historical sense of the word.
“In the ancient world, apocalyptic is not negative,” explains Domenico Agostini, a professor at the University of Naples L’Orientale who studies ancient apocalyptic literature. “We’ve completely changed the semantics of this word.”
The term “apocalypse” comes from the Greek word “apokalypsis,” meaning “revelation.” Although often associated today with the end of the world, apocalypses in ancient Jewish and Christian thought were a source of encouragement in times of hardship or persecution.
“God is promising a new world,” said Professor Robert Geraci, who studies religion and technology at Knox College. “In order to occupy that new world, you have to have a glorious new body that triumphs over the evil we all experience.”
Geraci first noticed apocalyptic language being used to describe AI’s potential in the early 2000s. Kurzweil and other theorists eventually inspired him to write his 2010 book, “Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality.”
The language reminded him of early Christianity. “Only we’re gonna slide out God and slide in … your pick of cosmic science laws that supposedly do this and then we were going to have the same kind of glorious future to come,” he said.
Geraci argues this kind of language hasn’t changed much since he began studying it. What surprises him is how pervasive it has become.
“What was once very weird is kind of everywhere,” he said.