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No, cynicism is warranted and expected. There were the crypto fights of the '90s, where the government tried classifying it as weaponry subject to export regul

No, cynicism is warranted and expected. There were the crypto fights of the '90s, where the government tried classifying it as weaponry subject to export regulations, caused the open sourcing of PGP rather than subject it to the regs. That's probably the best example of an actual game-change that we drove through our pushback against the national security apparatus. It's taken 10 years, but we've been striking some solid blows against the National Security Letter regime, with the ACLU and EFF working with folks like Nicholas Merrill of Calyx. But that's just trying to claw back from a godawful status quo post-PATRIOT Act. SOPA isn't valid because we know that the MPAA/RIAA will keep trying to slip their policies through; we haven't hit a major realignment point yet on IP issues. But it opens up the possibility of a win, as long as our activist groups don't oversimplify, as a solid minority of HN pointed out with the recent CISPA debate. But c'mon, we of all people know that rates of change are what matter, not the current state of things. Groups like EFF and CDT act as a force. The force at any given point can be and often is overmatched by content or national security. It's one of the reasons why I'm arguing that we can't just ignore the political world anymore. We need to more actively support these groups, offline as well as online. They are our best defenses to continue to be able to grow the pie, and yet the old money of content or the government contract money of national security continues to make more sustained, ongoing arguments in their favor to our detriment.

mtowle 13y ago
I appreciate the thoughtful response. You've clearly weighed these issues more than a little, and you appear to have done so with an effort toward intellectual self-honesty. That said, I would submit to you that the above position suffers from the same collection of blind spots which manifest in 99% of political positions (hopes?) of the e^x variety. Chief among them is the habit of obfuscation, not just to others but perhaps to yourself, via lofty rhetoric. It's true, such rhetoric is far from unusual in the political sphere-- and far be it from me to argue against the general use of hyperbole-- but when its usage and another thing's absence occur together so frequently, one can possibly infer it's being used to distract from that other thing's absence. I hope this doesn't sound confrontational or condescending; I suffered from this exact same intellectual disease for years before giving up politics entirely in 2011. Do I still have the same beliefs? Yes. Do I pursue political action/conversation? No, hardly ever. The disease is the notion that politics in the agora can build into a movement capable of effecting highest-level institutional change, and the disease's symptoms are "fights," "game-change," "drove," "pushback," "striking," "solid blows," "claw back," "a win," "a force," "the force," "overmatched," "best defenses," etc. The difference between politics and any other domain that uses this language is that in politics, The Good Fight is never over. It sucks you in, and you die trying, no matter what you're trying for. The only movements ever to effect high-level institutional change did not start in the agora, they were born into people. Be it for women or for blacks or for union workers (not literally, but they think of themselves that way, which, here, is the point), the only movements ever to effect high-level change had in their back pocket millions of supporters they didn't even need to persuade. Persuasion. Doesn't. Work. Even when it's successful, it doesn't work. Biggest agora political movement of all time were the anti-war protests of Vietnam and Iraq; neither accomplished a single thing. But they sure thought they were accomplishing something at the time. Ballots and marches and protests and sign-waving and signature collecting and, yes, donation collecting. Fighting the fight, striking some solid blows here and there, what have you. The thing they hid from themselves via their rhetoric, same as you, was that nobody knew how to end the fight. Nobody knew what it would take. (If you don't believe me, Roe v. Wade was 40 years ago. Let that sink in.) So they fought the way the system told them to fight the system: by attacking the system at its point of greatest strength: the public narrative. I can't believe the system would just lie like that, can you? If there is a way to end this, it's via technology. They can't ticket you for jaywalking if you can fly. Next meeting, tell the CDT to take however many thousands they spend on lobbying or "awareness" (whatever that means) and start funding bittorrent-, darknet/meshnet-, etc.-based projects and startups. I don't know how many CS profs are interested in that kind of research, but I know how many are getting corporate funding for it.

mtowle 13y ago

I appreciate the thoughtful response. You've clearly weighed these issues more than a little, and you appear to have done so with an effort toward intellectual self-honesty. That said, I would submit to you that the above position suffers from the same collection of blind spots which manifest in 99% of political positions (hopes?) of the e^x variety. Chief among them is the habit of obfuscation, not just to others but perhaps to yourself, via lofty rhetoric. It's true, such rhetoric is far from unusual in the political sphere-- and far be it from me to argue against the general use of hyperbole-- but when its usage and another thing's absence occur together so frequently, one can possibly infer it's being used to distract from that other thing's absence. I hope this doesn't sound confrontational or condescending; I suffered from this exact same intellectual disease for years before giving up politics entirely in 2011. Do I still have the same beliefs? Yes. Do I pursue political action/conversation? No, hardly ever. The disease is the notion that politics in the agora can build into a movement capable of effecting highest-level institutional change, and the disease's symptoms are "fights," "game-change," "drove," "pushback," "striking," "solid blows," "claw back," "a win," "a force," "the force," "overmatched," "best defenses," etc. The difference between politics and any other domain that uses this language is that in politics, The Good Fight is never over. It sucks you in, and you die trying, no matter what you're trying for. The only movements ever to effect high-level institutional change did not start in the agora, they were born into people. Be it for women or for blacks or for union workers (not literally, but they think of themselves that way, which, here, is the point), the only movements ever to effect high-level change had in their back pocket millions of supporters they didn't even need to persuade. Persuasion. Doesn't. Work. Even when it's successful, it doesn't work. Biggest agora political movement of all time were the anti-war protests of Vietnam and Iraq; neither accomplished a single thing. But they sure thought they were accomplishing something at the time. Ballots and marches and protests and sign-waving and signature collecting and, yes, donation collecting. Fighting the fight, striking some solid blows here and there, what have you. The thing they hid from themselves via their rhetoric, same as you, was that nobody knew how to end the fight. Nobody knew what it would take. (If you don't believe me, Roe v. Wade was 40 years ago. Let that sink in.) So they fought the way the system told them to fight the system: by attacking the system at its point of greatest strength: the public narrative. I can't believe the system would just lie like that, can you? If there is a way to end this, it's via technology. They can't ticket you for jaywalking if you can fly. Next meeting, tell the CDT to take however many thousands they spend on lobbying or "awareness" (whatever that means) and start funding bittorrent-, darknet/meshnet-, etc.-based projects and startups. I don't know how many CS profs are interested in that kind of research, but I know how many are getting corporate funding for it.