8 ms·

What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do pleas

What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.

yuvadam 13y ago
Act by raising your awareness. Act by not standing silent. Act by being the change you want to see. There is nothing else but this.
- TimSAstro 13y ago
  I'm sorry to be snarky, but this gives me absolutely no concrete guidance on things I can do. It's a platitude.
  - yuvadam 13y ago
    Well, that is because there's no guaranteed success in any course of action, save for becoming change, and believing that that action alone is a small, but important, part in the network effect. I understand HN isn't exactly the usual activist crowd, but it should be pretty easy to understand that activism is about acting against forces much larger, stronger, and better funded than you are. Actions that bring change will be one-in-a-million, and they will always be the fruit of an individual (or a collective) that are persistent in their goals, and pursue them regardless of others joining them or not.
snitko 13y ago
Kinda simple. We finance this bullshit by paying taxes. Why do we pay them? Because they force us to and convince us it's a good idea. What do we do about it? Use any form of money that is problematic to track and tax: cash, gold, Bitcoin. Pretty sure it's possible to live just on that - would be a little uncomfortable, but certainly less so than some violent action. And it would be a major blow to the government if the majority of people started doing it. Also, if you're serious about doing something - don't just throw the usual "but who's gonna build the roads and help the poor". Think and find solutions that don't involve government. Don't just say it's impossible. Nothing is impossible and certainly not this.
- Cakez0r 13y ago
  That would be impossible in the UK. Salary is paid directly into one's bank account and tax is deducted before it even gets there.
  - snitko 13y ago
    Ask your employer if he can pay you in cash or Bitcoin off the record. If you're a business, sell for bitcoins and give discounts, certainly pay employees in Bitcoin if they ask you to. As far as I know, there's currently no law that requires you to pay taxes on bitcoins earned. Even if there was, it'd be prohibitively expensive for government to track everyone's Bitcoin addresses (data mining on the blockchain is certainly possible, but a great deal more difficult than reading your emails, I suppose).
    - Cakez0r 13y ago
      That could work if you were a freelancer (although it would make life significantly more complicated). However, no established employer would agree to pay cash or bitcoin. It'd be highly illegal and no business would want to take that risk. Aside from that, you'd still need a way to convert bitcoins to cash, which involves the money running through a bank account. It would turn in to an elaborate fraud operation.
      - snitko 13y ago
        As I said in reply to swombat, if you can't switch to cash, gold and Bitcoin completely, then at least keep your savings in either gold or Bitcoin. That alone might make a significant difference both to you and to society at large.
    - swombat 13y ago
      As a UK employer, that'd be a straight ticket to an HMRC investigation and severe penalties, possibly jail. Employing people illegally, "off the books", is treated as a serious thing here.
Cakez0r 13y ago
I posed this same question and the best answer (for a UK citizen) was to write to my MP. I did that and got a canned response back that addressed none of my points. I agree that it seems futile. I'm vehemently opposed to censorship but am powerless to stop it as an individual. It seems like it's already a done deal. We're not just talking about stopping something in its tracks, but rolling it back in the other direction. The amount of inertia required to do that is completely overwhelming.
- snitko 13y ago
  Writing to your MP (or governor, or senator) is akin to a slave begging his master. I don't mean to say you're a slave, but generations later, people may see this arrangement we have with our governments in this very way. It doesn't matter that we were told to believe our governments work for us. It doesn't take long to realize that we were told this precisely because it's not so. The power they have is so much greater that it'd be completely unnatural if they ever listened to what the people were asking them to do. They don't care. They only care that you think things are getting better or at least not getting worse. They don't care about what things really are. So I suggest people stop fooling themselves about civilized societies and democracies. There are none.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
>If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow. It think you've actually hit the nail on the head here. What we need is some leaders. When you think about the civil rights movement and other successful movements, you can name names. To some extent we have leaders, but they're more ideological leaders than meet-here-and-do-this leaders. We need people who can organize other people, so that we can cause 10,000 people to show up in one place at the same time. And then do it again, with the same people, in some other place at some other time when the need arises. Where is the organization to do this? Why don't we have conferences on this? The closest thing I can think of is the gaggle of Libertarians-nee-anarchists who hold a bunch of sessions largely for the purpose of soliciting donations from their elderly followers. They don't seem to be accomplishing anything, unless you count funding the likes of Michelle Bachmann as accomplishing something. It seems to me we need some kind of organizational structure for the rather not small number of 20- and 30-something people to fall into which is divorced from the fringes of the Tea Party. Because not wanting authoritarians to hold a majority in Congress or have SWAT teams kill your dog is an exceedingly moderate position.
- noja 13y ago
  What about librarians? They seem to fit the type, and this is a good time for them to show people their strengths.
- spdy 13y ago
  It think you've actually hit the nail on the head here. What we need is some leaders. Can you name one leader in the Arab Spring movements? Turkey protests? etc. Modern ways of communication take away the need of a leader we can inform ourselves and join an upcoming movement. What we need is a way to coordinate and get enough like minded people thats enough.
  - tonylemesmer 13y ago
    Did those uprisings have similarities in that, without leaders they typically move into a bloodshed phase? If leadership could avoid this, it might be a better route Not saying presence or absence of leadership is the cause, but don't assume because of no leadership it is the best way.
agilord 13y ago
We definitely need educators with good communication skills and sensitive social approach. They need to explain to the greater public why this matters and what they can do about it. They need to get over the threshold of "this is conspiracy nuts, leave me alone". This is the most disturbing thing I've seen: people see some of the facts, and they decide that it is paranoia. If we have the educators, we need to advertise them to extreme limit, ensuring that everyone gets their message at least five times in some format. The topic is really hard, because one needs to crush various myths: - that we can be safe, no matter what, - that the people in government are good and honest, - that it can happen to them and not only to others... ... while you keep their engagement level and focus up.

What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.

yuvadam 13y ago

Act by raising your awareness. Act by not standing silent. Act by being the change you want to see. There is nothing else but this.

TimSAstro 13y ago
I'm sorry to be snarky, but this gives me absolutely no concrete guidance on things I can do. It's a platitude.
- yuvadam 13y ago
  Well, that is because there's no guaranteed success in any course of action, save for becoming change, and believing that that action alone is a small, but important, part in the network effect. I understand HN isn't exactly the usual activist crowd, but it should be pretty easy to understand that activism is about acting against forces much larger, stronger, and better funded than you are. Actions that bring change will be one-in-a-million, and they will always be the fruit of an individual (or a collective) that are persistent in their goals, and pursue them regardless of others joining them or not.

snitko 13y ago

Kinda simple. We finance this bullshit by paying taxes. Why do we pay them? Because they force us to and convince us it's a good idea. What do we do about it? Use any form of money that is problematic to track and tax: cash, gold, Bitcoin. Pretty sure it's possible to live just on that - would be a little uncomfortable, but certainly less so than some violent action. And it would be a major blow to the government if the majority of people started doing it. Also, if you're serious about doing something - don't just throw the usual "but who's gonna build the roads and help the poor". Think and find solutions that don't involve government. Don't just say it's impossible. Nothing is impossible and certainly not this.

Cakez0r 13y ago
That would be impossible in the UK. Salary is paid directly into one's bank account and tax is deducted before it even gets there.
- snitko 13y ago
  Ask your employer if he can pay you in cash or Bitcoin off the record. If you're a business, sell for bitcoins and give discounts, certainly pay employees in Bitcoin if they ask you to. As far as I know, there's currently no law that requires you to pay taxes on bitcoins earned. Even if there was, it'd be prohibitively expensive for government to track everyone's Bitcoin addresses (data mining on the blockchain is certainly possible, but a great deal more difficult than reading your emails, I suppose).
  - Cakez0r 13y ago
    That could work if you were a freelancer (although it would make life significantly more complicated). However, no established employer would agree to pay cash or bitcoin. It'd be highly illegal and no business would want to take that risk. Aside from that, you'd still need a way to convert bitcoins to cash, which involves the money running through a bank account. It would turn in to an elaborate fraud operation.
    - snitko 13y ago
      As I said in reply to swombat, if you can't switch to cash, gold and Bitcoin completely, then at least keep your savings in either gold or Bitcoin. That alone might make a significant difference both to you and to society at large.
  - swombat 13y ago
    As a UK employer, that'd be a straight ticket to an HMRC investigation and severe penalties, possibly jail. Employing people illegally, "off the books", is treated as a serious thing here.

Cakez0r 13y ago

I posed this same question and the best answer (for a UK citizen) was to write to my MP. I did that and got a canned response back that addressed none of my points. I agree that it seems futile. I'm vehemently opposed to censorship but am powerless to stop it as an individual. It seems like it's already a done deal. We're not just talking about stopping something in its tracks, but rolling it back in the other direction. The amount of inertia required to do that is completely overwhelming.

snitko 13y ago
Writing to your MP (or governor, or senator) is akin to a slave begging his master. I don't mean to say you're a slave, but generations later, people may see this arrangement we have with our governments in this very way. It doesn't matter that we were told to believe our governments work for us. It doesn't take long to realize that we were told this precisely because it's not so. The power they have is so much greater that it'd be completely unnatural if they ever listened to what the people were asking them to do. They don't care. They only care that you think things are getting better or at least not getting worse. They don't care about what things really are. So I suggest people stop fooling themselves about civilized societies and democracies. There are none.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

>If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow. It think you've actually hit the nail on the head here. What we need is some leaders. When you think about the civil rights movement and other successful movements, you can name names. To some extent we have leaders, but they're more ideological leaders than meet-here-and-do-this leaders. We need people who can organize other people, so that we can cause 10,000 people to show up in one place at the same time. And then do it again, with the same people, in some other place at some other time when the need arises. Where is the organization to do this? Why don't we have conferences on this? The closest thing I can think of is the gaggle of Libertarians-nee-anarchists who hold a bunch of sessions largely for the purpose of soliciting donations from their elderly followers. They don't seem to be accomplishing anything, unless you count funding the likes of Michelle Bachmann as accomplishing something. It seems to me we need some kind of organizational structure for the rather not small number of 20- and 30-something people to fall into which is divorced from the fringes of the Tea Party. Because not wanting authoritarians to hold a majority in Congress or have SWAT teams kill your dog is an exceedingly moderate position.

noja 13y ago
What about librarians? They seem to fit the type, and this is a good time for them to show people their strengths.
spdy 13y ago
It think you've actually hit the nail on the head here. What we need is some leaders. Can you name one leader in the Arab Spring movements? Turkey protests? etc. Modern ways of communication take away the need of a leader we can inform ourselves and join an upcoming movement. What we need is a way to coordinate and get enough like minded people thats enough.
- tonylemesmer 13y ago
  Did those uprisings have similarities in that, without leaders they typically move into a bloodshed phase? If leadership could avoid this, it might be a better route Not saying presence or absence of leadership is the cause, but don't assume because of no leadership it is the best way.

agilord 13y ago

We definitely need educators with good communication skills and sensitive social approach. They need to explain to the greater public why this matters and what they can do about it. They need to get over the threshold of "this is conspiracy nuts, leave me alone". This is the most disturbing thing I've seen: people see some of the facts, and they decide that it is paranoia. If we have the educators, we need to advertise them to extreme limit, ensuring that everyone gets their message at least five times in some format. The topic is really hard, because one needs to crush various myths: - that we can be safe, no matter what, - that the people in government are good and honest, - that it can happen to them and not only to others... ... while you keep their engagement level and focus up.