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Unpopular but true comment warning: It's kind of alarming how easily you can throw Osama Bin Ladin (a guy who killed thousands of innocent Americans), with Ric

Unpopular but true comment warning: It's kind of alarming how easily you can throw Osama Bin Ladin (a guy who killed thousands of innocent Americans), with Richard Spencer who _says_ fucked up things. Richard Spencer (just like the Westboro Baptist Church) is probably a complete douchebag nutjob. But to so casually equate saying douchey things with the murder of thousands... that's exactly what leads to Officer Friendly getting more powers over every day, innocent citizens. Look at Russia and China. They're literally doing what you're suggesting by using thought crimes to justify massive surveillance and censorship of every forum and network to "protect society" from bad thoughts and damaging their "way of life". The very rights that allowed the civil rights movement to exist, are the ones you guys are casually trying to destroy. Daring to have an opinion the majority finds revolting. Freedom of Speech is literally a protection of minorities from the majority. Those in power don't need protection. [edit] 1 minute in, and yep, this is going down as I expected. Have a great day. =D

cvwright 9y ago
You're right - I picked Spencer because he's an easy target, especially on a board that generally leans to the Left. If there's some incident of racial violence that somehow traces back to him, I doubt the typical HN reader would object to the FBI getting a warrant to search his house or his car. And I suspect that most here wouldn't mind them getting a warrant for his phone under the same circumstances, if they can just bring themselves to admit it. > The very rights that allowed the civil rights movement to exist I think I see what you're saying here, but encryption wasn't really around in MLK's day. > are the ones you guys are casually trying to destroy. Whoa there, please don't lump me in with the authoritarians, especially the new Leftist flavor that's so popular lately. The case that I'm trying to make in this thread is that we've got to find a better balance that protects minority voices (like MLK, or Ben Shapiro, or Milo Yanawhatshisname or whoever Berkeley is rioting about this week) in a cryptographically strong way, while still allowing for some sort of accountability in extreme cases. If we fail at this - or worse, if we can't be bothered to try - then I'm afraid we're going to wind up stuck with something crappy like key escrow, and then the thought police are really going to have a field day.

cvwright 9y ago

You're right - I picked Spencer because he's an easy target, especially on a board that generally leans to the Left. If there's some incident of racial violence that somehow traces back to him, I doubt the typical HN reader would object to the FBI getting a warrant to search his house or his car. And I suspect that most here wouldn't mind them getting a warrant for his phone under the same circumstances, if they can just bring themselves to admit it. > The very rights that allowed the civil rights movement to exist I think I see what you're saying here, but encryption wasn't really around in MLK's day. > are the ones you guys are casually trying to destroy. Whoa there, please don't lump me in with the authoritarians, especially the new Leftist flavor that's so popular lately. The case that I'm trying to make in this thread is that we've got to find a better balance that protects minority voices (like MLK, or Ben Shapiro, or Milo Yanawhatshisname or whoever Berkeley is rioting about this week) in a cryptographically strong way, while still allowing for some sort of accountability in extreme cases. If we fail at this - or worse, if we can't be bothered to try - then I'm afraid we're going to wind up stuck with something crappy like key escrow, and then the thought police are really going to have a field day.