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There are good reasons to oppose CISPA. You shouldn't appreciate people trying to manipulate you into opposing it. This is something that really annoys me. It

by tomku 14y ago

There are good reasons to oppose CISPA. You shouldn't appreciate people trying to manipulate you into opposing it. This is something that really annoys me. It's incredibly frustrating to see people argue "on my side", but using reasons that are based almost entirely on FUD and hyperbole. It undermines that entire side of the argument, because people who aren't already on your side assume that if you had valid reasons, you wouldn't be resorting to manipulative exaggerations for shock value. Unfortunately, when the internet outrage machine is whipped up into a frenzy, people don't seem to care and will happily upvote and share anything that supports their side, even if it's completely full of shit.

tptacek 14y ago
And what's worse is, this could have been a valid (if cheap and manipulative) exercise if they were just explicit about their position being "oppose all cyber-security legislation". But that's not what they're saying. They're saying oppose CISPA. You come pretty close to needing to oppose all cyber-security legislation if you strongly oppose CISPA.
wahsd 14y ago
Unfortunately, while the sticklers insist on moral purity and perfect argument, they live in a world that operates on FUD and is grotesquely exploited and has become the modus operandi of our government, corporations, and fear mongering right. It is the reason that science and reason cannot take hold in many human societies, because there is a false equivalency of opposition. Opposing heinous attempts to control are not equivalent to opposing freedom, liberty, and self-determination.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Lies are lies.
- tomku 14y ago
  That's nice rhetoric, but when you disregard the truth in order to keep up in the arms race of lies that you claim the other side started, you become as reprehensible as them.
  - Retric 14y ago
    Telling lies and X is not equally as bad as telling lies and not X. EX: Where X is killing people. 'Smoking cigarettes makes you popular smoking cigarettes makes you unpopular.'
    - crusso 14y ago
      Unfortunately, we rarely have an absolute scale upon which to judge X. Everyone always claims the moral high ground, justifying their attempts to be deceptive with the same defense you provide there.
    - Symmetry 14y ago
      That's a particularly bad example, since the idea that cigarettes will make you unpopular will be a transparent falsehood to the target audience, and might cause them to doubt you when you say that cigarettes will kill them.
      - Retric 14y ago
        There was some recent anti smoking advertising that used that line, basically smoking = bad smell/yellow teeth = unpopular. Where a few years ago similar advertising used the smoking = cool = you become popular line of argument. Granted this was sub textual, but the implications where clear enough.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      When the currency of the debate is lies, the party that tells the best lies wins. The best liars rarely happen to be the ones you want to win.
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    As responsible for what though? As responsibly for lying? Yes. In the end you have to be able to say 'I am right on this subject, and they are wrong' and act accordingly. And when the fight is over there is zero point for being virtuous.
larrys 14y ago
"because people who aren't already on your side assume that if you had valid reasons, you wouldn't be resorting to manipulative exaggerations for shock value." Related is the idea of building a case by throwing in the entire kitchen sink in order to make your point with both strong and weak points. I've found it's best to try and stick the the basic strongest points. If you put weak points in your argument and people think "that's no big deal" it will detract from your main point and make people think "oh is that all they've got?" An fictional example to try and illustrate: "Bill Jeffrey the CEO of XYZ flies in a corporate jet and has a $10 million salary. He also gets free lunch in the cafeteria as well a laptop computer for his house in addition to a company car". (Now add on 10 other mundane things that many execs get)
crusso 14y ago
Agreed, yet it's also frustrating to live in a world where deceptive and emotional manipulation works because most people aren't that good at recognizing it and counteracting it. Do you just gnash your teeth and stick to your moral high ground while everything burns? Or do you "play the game", and use manipulation to achieve the moral good? Personally, I think I tend to do the former. When I get the relatives' chain email with stories that support my political ideals yet disagree with the facts as I know them or can learn them -- I try to correct the ignorance by sending out a Snopes or other factual link. Sometimes I feel like a sucker doing that, though. Should I try to correct the email outrage of a few people I know when that outrage might get them into the voting booth flipping the lever the way I want? Will that email outrage insulate those less curious against the deluge of misinformation coming from "the other side"?
- tomjen3 14y ago
  Sometimes you can correct the ignorance, sometime you best ignore it. But in the end even Starfleet had Section 35. The world is dirty and sometimes it is better to play dirty than to lose. I am not sure if this is one of those times though.
  - zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
    did you mean section 31? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_31 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_31
    - tomjen3 14y ago
      Yes. I am hearing darkerprojects section 31 files (a really well done Star Trek audio series), but I missed up the numbers. Sorry about that.
eevilspock 14y ago
Ideological war versus honest discourse. It comes down to which of these you believe is the engine of progress. If it's war, then naturally all's fair in the name of winning the cause. If not, you probably believe that a cause is not a cause worth believing in if you have to betray it to make it happen, that the only way is through honest discourse and "being the change", even if it means social evolution. The generally horrible state of politics is the direct result of too many people following the cynical view, that it's war. Another manifestation of our sad human tendency to favor the short-term over the long.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  I don't believe in progress, so I guess that settles that. I think that societies are constantly adapting and people are much the same as they always have been. We are living in a nice time where complexity of our society allows for good sanitation, delivery of food from half-way around the world to off-set local production problems and seasonal shortages, and modern medicine is paid for by the fossil fuels which are causing global warming. So I guess I am probably as cynical as they get. The thing though is that within the article there is a great deal of honest discourse, but you can't put all the supporting data into it in that format. The fact is that we have a society where all the rhetoric about rule of law and a government of laws aside, the people expect the government to prosecute people they have been told are "bad guys" and so you get:[1] 1) Lori Drew prosecuted for hacking and by hacking I mean violating the terms of service of a web site. Her conviction was later set aside on vagueness grounds. 2) Jeff Skilling prosecuted for honest services fraud under a standard that would make viewing HN from work a federal felony. His conviction for honest services fraud was set aside by the Supreme Court on vagueness grounds. 3) Daniel Hurwitz prosecuted because he knew or should have known that there was a statistical likelihood that at least some of his pain patients were selling narcotics from their prescriptions on the street. Hurwitz was following general medical consensus regarding medically appropriate prescriptions for chronic pain as well as the DEA's guidance. He was convicted, won a right to a new trial, and was convicted a second time for a smaller number of charges. 4) You also see federal entrapment of Randy Weaver for firearms violations (it is undisputed that Weaver would not have violated the law but for the repeated and prolonged insistence of a government informant paid to get convictions). Weaver may not be a good guy but neither is Skilling. This sort of thing, as well as additional problems with the case going forward (bad advice from lawyers, incorrect statements by a judge, etc) set up the tragedy at Ruby Ridge and FBI conduct so egregious that a man who shot and killed an FBI agent won a significant settlement from the government.[2] These patterns have been building since Reagan was in office.[3] The real problem here is breaking through the social consensus that we could never do what China does despite the fact that our civil liberties are degrading and the basic infrastructure is in place for those exact sorts of abuses. Indeed the only real difference is in degree, not in kind. I am reminded of Karl Doenitz's thoughts on the lessons from Nazi Germany. Doenitz, the architect of the U-boat war, was the one who lead the Third Reich from Hitler's suicide to the surrender. He said that the primary lesson one should draw from Nazi Germany was on the importance of a robust tradition of civil liberties.[4] (The fact that this is a systemic argument I think avoids Godwin's Law and puts this simply in the domain of history discussion.) The upshot is really that the problem that lead to the rise of the Nazis was not caused by bad people as we are lead to believe but rather by systemic deficiencies in German government before their rise to power. It's worth noting also that at the outset of WWI, the Kaiser Wilhelm stated that no civilized nation does not carefully rein in their press (responding to Serbian statements that freedom of the press prevented them from telling the press not to celebrate Archduke Ferdinand's death). [1] see "Three Felonies a Day: How Feds Target the Innocent" by EFF/ACLU veteran Harvey Silverglate. He covers the Hurwitz and Skilling cases, though the book was published before the Supreme Court ruled on the honest services fraud statute. [2] See "No More Wacos" by Kopel and Blackman. [3] Ibid. The authors blame Waco and Ruby Ridge largely on the militarization of law enforcement under Reagan and Clinton, and the drug exception to Posse Comitatus under Reagan. [4] See "Ten Years and Twenty Days" by Karl Doenitz.
danielweber 14y ago
I had a similar problem with SOPA. I had lots of people telling me SOPA sucked, but very few were willing to tell me why it sucked. It seemed the bill was just a product of evil and I should oppose it. There was a lot more seeking to be understood than to understand. (Caveat: I wasn't really reading HN at the time, where maybe I could have gotten a decent discussion, including opponents to the bill who could have described why the proponents liked it without dumb sarcastic comments.)

by tomku 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago

And what's worse is, this could have been a valid (if cheap and manipulative) exercise if they were just explicit about their position being "oppose all cyber-security legislation". But that's not what they're saying. They're saying oppose CISPA. You come pretty close to needing to oppose all cyber-security legislation if you strongly oppose CISPA.

wahsd 14y ago

Unfortunately, while the sticklers insist on moral purity and perfect argument, they live in a world that operates on FUD and is grotesquely exploited and has become the modus operandi of our government, corporations, and fear mongering right. It is the reason that science and reason cannot take hold in many human societies, because there is a false equivalency of opposition. Opposing heinous attempts to control are not equivalent to opposing freedom, liberty, and self-determination.

tptacek 14y ago
Lies are lies.
tomku 14y ago
That's nice rhetoric, but when you disregard the truth in order to keep up in the arms race of lies that you claim the other side started, you become as reprehensible as them.
- Retric 14y ago
  Telling lies and X is not equally as bad as telling lies and not X. EX: Where X is killing people. 'Smoking cigarettes makes you popular smoking cigarettes makes you unpopular.'
  - crusso 14y ago
    Unfortunately, we rarely have an absolute scale upon which to judge X. Everyone always claims the moral high ground, justifying their attempts to be deceptive with the same defense you provide there.
  - Symmetry 14y ago
    That's a particularly bad example, since the idea that cigarettes will make you unpopular will be a transparent falsehood to the target audience, and might cause them to doubt you when you say that cigarettes will kill them.
    - Retric 14y ago
      There was some recent anti smoking advertising that used that line, basically smoking = bad smell/yellow teeth = unpopular. Where a few years ago similar advertising used the smoking = cool = you become popular line of argument. Granted this was sub textual, but the implications where clear enough.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    When the currency of the debate is lies, the party that tells the best lies wins. The best liars rarely happen to be the ones you want to win.
- tomjen3 14y ago
  As responsible for what though? As responsibly for lying? Yes. In the end you have to be able to say 'I am right on this subject, and they are wrong' and act accordingly. And when the fight is over there is zero point for being virtuous.

larrys 14y ago

"because people who aren't already on your side assume that if you had valid reasons, you wouldn't be resorting to manipulative exaggerations for shock value." Related is the idea of building a case by throwing in the entire kitchen sink in order to make your point with both strong and weak points. I've found it's best to try and stick the the basic strongest points. If you put weak points in your argument and people think "that's no big deal" it will detract from your main point and make people think "oh is that all they've got?" An fictional example to try and illustrate: "Bill Jeffrey the CEO of XYZ flies in a corporate jet and has a $10 million salary. He also gets free lunch in the cafeteria as well a laptop computer for his house in addition to a company car". (Now add on 10 other mundane things that many execs get)

crusso 14y ago

Agreed, yet it's also frustrating to live in a world where deceptive and emotional manipulation works because most people aren't that good at recognizing it and counteracting it. Do you just gnash your teeth and stick to your moral high ground while everything burns? Or do you "play the game", and use manipulation to achieve the moral good? Personally, I think I tend to do the former. When I get the relatives' chain email with stories that support my political ideals yet disagree with the facts as I know them or can learn them -- I try to correct the ignorance by sending out a Snopes or other factual link. Sometimes I feel like a sucker doing that, though. Should I try to correct the email outrage of a few people I know when that outrage might get them into the voting booth flipping the lever the way I want? Will that email outrage insulate those less curious against the deluge of misinformation coming from "the other side"?

tomjen3 14y ago
Sometimes you can correct the ignorance, sometime you best ignore it. But in the end even Starfleet had Section 35. The world is dirty and sometimes it is better to play dirty than to lose. I am not sure if this is one of those times though.
- zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
  did you mean section 31? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_31 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_31
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    Yes. I am hearing darkerprojects section 31 files (a really well done Star Trek audio series), but I missed up the numbers. Sorry about that.

eevilspock 14y ago

Ideological war versus honest discourse. It comes down to which of these you believe is the engine of progress. If it's war, then naturally all's fair in the name of winning the cause. If not, you probably believe that a cause is not a cause worth believing in if you have to betray it to make it happen, that the only way is through honest discourse and "being the change", even if it means social evolution. The generally horrible state of politics is the direct result of too many people following the cynical view, that it's war. Another manifestation of our sad human tendency to favor the short-term over the long.

einhverfr 14y ago
I don't believe in progress, so I guess that settles that. I think that societies are constantly adapting and people are much the same as they always have been. We are living in a nice time where complexity of our society allows for good sanitation, delivery of food from half-way around the world to off-set local production problems and seasonal shortages, and modern medicine is paid for by the fossil fuels which are causing global warming. So I guess I am probably as cynical as they get. The thing though is that within the article there is a great deal of honest discourse, but you can't put all the supporting data into it in that format. The fact is that we have a society where all the rhetoric about rule of law and a government of laws aside, the people expect the government to prosecute people they have been told are "bad guys" and so you get:[1] 1) Lori Drew prosecuted for hacking and by hacking I mean violating the terms of service of a web site. Her conviction was later set aside on vagueness grounds. 2) Jeff Skilling prosecuted for honest services fraud under a standard that would make viewing HN from work a federal felony. His conviction for honest services fraud was set aside by the Supreme Court on vagueness grounds. 3) Daniel Hurwitz prosecuted because he knew or should have known that there was a statistical likelihood that at least some of his pain patients were selling narcotics from their prescriptions on the street. Hurwitz was following general medical consensus regarding medically appropriate prescriptions for chronic pain as well as the DEA's guidance. He was convicted, won a right to a new trial, and was convicted a second time for a smaller number of charges. 4) You also see federal entrapment of Randy Weaver for firearms violations (it is undisputed that Weaver would not have violated the law but for the repeated and prolonged insistence of a government informant paid to get convictions). Weaver may not be a good guy but neither is Skilling. This sort of thing, as well as additional problems with the case going forward (bad advice from lawyers, incorrect statements by a judge, etc) set up the tragedy at Ruby Ridge and FBI conduct so egregious that a man who shot and killed an FBI agent won a significant settlement from the government.[2] These patterns have been building since Reagan was in office.[3] The real problem here is breaking through the social consensus that we could never do what China does despite the fact that our civil liberties are degrading and the basic infrastructure is in place for those exact sorts of abuses. Indeed the only real difference is in degree, not in kind. I am reminded of Karl Doenitz's thoughts on the lessons from Nazi Germany. Doenitz, the architect of the U-boat war, was the one who lead the Third Reich from Hitler's suicide to the surrender. He said that the primary lesson one should draw from Nazi Germany was on the importance of a robust tradition of civil liberties.[4] (The fact that this is a systemic argument I think avoids Godwin's Law and puts this simply in the domain of history discussion.) The upshot is really that the problem that lead to the rise of the Nazis was not caused by bad people as we are lead to believe but rather by systemic deficiencies in German government before their rise to power. It's worth noting also that at the outset of WWI, the Kaiser Wilhelm stated that no civilized nation does not carefully rein in their press (responding to Serbian statements that freedom of the press prevented them from telling the press not to celebrate Archduke Ferdinand's death). [1] see "Three Felonies a Day: How Feds Target the Innocent" by EFF/ACLU veteran Harvey Silverglate. He covers the Hurwitz and Skilling cases, though the book was published before the Supreme Court ruled on the honest services fraud statute. [2] See "No More Wacos" by Kopel and Blackman. [3] Ibid. The authors blame Waco and Ruby Ridge largely on the militarization of law enforcement under Reagan and Clinton, and the drug exception to Posse Comitatus under Reagan. [4] See "Ten Years and Twenty Days" by Karl Doenitz.

danielweber 14y ago

I had a similar problem with SOPA. I had lots of people telling me SOPA sucked, but very few were willing to tell me why it sucked. It seemed the bill was just a product of evil and I should oppose it. There was a lot more seeking to be understood than to understand. (Caveat: I wasn't really reading HN at the time, where maybe I could have gotten a decent discussion, including opponents to the bill who could have described why the proponents liked it without dumb sarcastic comments.)