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>Tools like Tor or a web browser are not equivalent to a screwdriver or a knife. Only that they are. Tor is a software project that allows you to stay anonymou

by vadfa 5y ago

>Tools like Tor or a web browser are not equivalent to a screwdriver or a knife. Only that they are. Tor is a software project that allows you to stay anonymous. You can use it to buy drugs, you can use it to whistleblow, you can use it to post intimate pictures of someone online, you can use it to circumvent the censorship of your government, you can use it to troll in forums. It's just a tool like a pen. Is a pen a political tool because you can use it to write the Mein Kampf? >Tools do not exist in a vacuum, everything we do is political whether we like it it not. It's precisely this attitude that is ruining the discourse in the west.

notafraudster 5y ago
A pen maker is just as entitled (and socially obligated, in my opinion) to reflect on the uses of his tool as a software developer is, just as all tool makers are. Some tools are exclusively used for ill, some primarily used for ill, some dual-use, some designed for good and sometimes used for ill, some overwhelmingly good with occasional abuses. Opiates are a tool, and the moral calculus of being involved in their industrial production differs from the production of pens. Guns are a tool, and the moral calculus of being involved in their industrial production differs from the production of pens. Some things are designed for apolitical reasons, and yet a politics emerges around their use. The Tiki Torch guys didn't build their product to be political, and yet when they saw their product used in political images in Charlottesville, they felt the need to restate their values, and acknowledged that their product had become enmeshed in politics. That's how things work. Even the parent comment doesn't draw the distinction fully enough. Knives overwhelmingly serve a prosocial purpose, humans have an almost infinite need to cut objects, especially as it relates to food production. But the use of knives in the context of interpersonal violence does merit reflection, product updates, and an expression of values. I think knife companies should and likely do reflect on the full set of uses of knives. None of this prescribes an answer to any given question, I am not the kind of person who thinks that someone should be forced to declare a particular thing. But your insistence that the process of the question itself is "ruining discourse in the west" is not a very thoughtful take. If the makers of Tor have considered the myriad ways in which their tools are used and want to support some ways, disavow others, and design for or against others, I think that's great, and hardly ruining anything.
- aiilns 5y ago
  Haha that's what I was thinking when I wrote about the knife, but it didn't fit with what I had in mind very well. I really like your comment and agree with what you've written, what I was going for (and failed to really spell out) is that by definition everything within the public sphere is politics. Everything that shapes or defines the relationships between groups or individuals is politics. That's what one will find if he searches dictionaries for politics. But somehow the word has taken on new meaning and people manage yo argue nonsensically with it. I'm sure that people who argue like this against politics/things being political all have slightly different things in mind and noone understands the original meaning of politics.

by vadfa 5y ago

notafraudster 5y ago

A pen maker is just as entitled (and socially obligated, in my opinion) to reflect on the uses of his tool as a software developer is, just as all tool makers are. Some tools are exclusively used for ill, some primarily used for ill, some dual-use, some designed for good and sometimes used for ill, some overwhelmingly good with occasional abuses. Opiates are a tool, and the moral calculus of being involved in their industrial production differs from the production of pens. Guns are a tool, and the moral calculus of being involved in their industrial production differs from the production of pens. Some things are designed for apolitical reasons, and yet a politics emerges around their use. The Tiki Torch guys didn't build their product to be political, and yet when they saw their product used in political images in Charlottesville, they felt the need to restate their values, and acknowledged that their product had become enmeshed in politics. That's how things work. Even the parent comment doesn't draw the distinction fully enough. Knives overwhelmingly serve a prosocial purpose, humans have an almost infinite need to cut objects, especially as it relates to food production. But the use of knives in the context of interpersonal violence does merit reflection, product updates, and an expression of values. I think knife companies should and likely do reflect on the full set of uses of knives. None of this prescribes an answer to any given question, I am not the kind of person who thinks that someone should be forced to declare a particular thing. But your insistence that the process of the question itself is "ruining discourse in the west" is not a very thoughtful take. If the makers of Tor have considered the myriad ways in which their tools are used and want to support some ways, disavow others, and design for or against others, I think that's great, and hardly ruining anything.

aiilns 5y ago
Haha that's what I was thinking when I wrote about the knife, but it didn't fit with what I had in mind very well. I really like your comment and agree with what you've written, what I was going for (and failed to really spell out) is that by definition everything within the public sphere is politics. Everything that shapes or defines the relationships between groups or individuals is politics. That's what one will find if he searches dictionaries for politics. But somehow the word has taken on new meaning and people manage yo argue nonsensically with it. I'm sure that people who argue like this against politics/things being political all have slightly different things in mind and noone understands the original meaning of politics.