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The only "bizarre" thing is the insistence on purity (or if you rather, binary logic instead of fuzzy logic), not the position itself. Any decent politician ca

by mpyne 13y ago

The only "bizarre" thing is the insistence on purity (or if you rather, binary logic instead of fuzzy logic), not the position itself. Any decent politician can exploit this to derail the entire point of the ideologue, by tying the ideologue into supporting things that the majority oppose. Try to imagine an interview given to a Senate subcommittee where a hacktivist claims with a straight face that '...more people die in car accidents each day than in 9/11, so what's the big deal?' Sometimes compromise is actually better for the people overall. Sometimes strategic retreat allows a political party to be in an advantageous position when the other side inevitably makes a misstep. On the other hand, stubbornly digging a line in the sand risks trapping the party position in a salient, only to later be "overcome by events". It can be OK to say "Your idea is stupid, and I don't support it. But if it's implemented it should contain at least X, Y, Z to minimize the damage your stupid idea would cause". But tech activists don't generally ever get to that point, and should their objections be overcome the final result ends up being more damaging than it otherwise might have been.

nhaehnle 13y ago
It's not bizarre at all. You give up part of your position by simply conceding that there can be a debate about the subject. The thing is, your point is valid, too. The whole purity thing itself is not a binary thing, but rather fuzzy. I think what's needed is both. We need credible, respected leaders who absolutely refuse any kind of blanket, surveillance-by-default architecture. We also need credible, respected leaders who say the other thing - though of course not too publicly. And those two groups had better not fight each other, but unite against the common enemy. Conservatives tend to be very good at this sort of thing, probably because conservatism is really tribalism at its core, and so conservatives understand instinctively that they should not attack each other. Defenders of civil rights are all about the individual, so unfortunately they are more prone to in-fighting, as this thread demonstrates ;)

by mpyne 13y ago

nhaehnle 13y ago

It's not bizarre at all. You give up part of your position by simply conceding that there can be a debate about the subject. The thing is, your point is valid, too. The whole purity thing itself is not a binary thing, but rather fuzzy. I think what's needed is both. We need credible, respected leaders who absolutely refuse any kind of blanket, surveillance-by-default architecture. We also need credible, respected leaders who say the other thing - though of course not too publicly. And those two groups had better not fight each other, but unite against the common enemy. Conservatives tend to be very good at this sort of thing, probably because conservatism is really tribalism at its core, and so conservatives understand instinctively that they should not attack each other. Defenders of civil rights are all about the individual, so unfortunately they are more prone to in-fighting, as this thread demonstrates ;)