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I can understand the hacker community disagreeing with the author but to do him justice, the article needs to be read in the following light 1. Other countries
by tn13 13y ago
I can understand the hacker community disagreeing with the author but to do him justice, the article needs to be read in the following light
1. Other countries like China, Iran, Russia etc. will use Snowden's revelations (and likes) to lobby for a system where these countries get an "equal" say in how internet is being run.
2. If at all any government wants to "control" internet it better be US alone than some other nation of mixture of others nations.
- rhizome 13y agoWhat do the scare quotes around "equal" mean? And what trait(s) connects the countries you list? 2. If at all any government wants to "control" internet it better be US alone than some other nation of mixture of others nations. Of course this is what light the article is being read in, isn't it the title?
- tn13 13y agoThe trait that connects these countries: Sufficiently large countries whose opinion is reported in newspapers. The scare quote around "equal" : It means country X's opinion about how internet is to evolve and run would matter as much as country Y. Which is to say some countries such as United States who have contributed to growth of internet would be under represented and some countries like Sri Lanka will be over represented. This often happens in UN and eventually the large countries like US or China have to use different tactics to gain favorable opinion.
- saraid216 13y ago> What do the scare quotes around "equal" mean? What is equal say? Is it that each country gets a vote, or is it that each human being gets a vote, or is it that each privileged (definition variant on circumstance) human being gets a vote? "Equal" is an ideal that sounds great until you realize other people may define it differently. It's easy to say that their definition is wrong, but that's the point at which you realize you don't actually have a say.
- rhizome 13y agoPerhaps, but doesn't the word carry those meanings without the quotation marks, too?
- saraid216 13y agoWith that logic, you'd never use quotation marks unless it's dialogue or quoting. The point is to draw attention to the fact that the meaning is not necessarily that which is immediately apparent.
- rhizome 13y agoThe point is to draw attention to the fact that the meaning is not necessarily that which is immediately apparent. Correct, and this is a paraphrase of the Wikipedia definition of "scare quotes." However, all scare quotes imply an unstated different usage, which, if you re-read, is what I was asking about. Generally, the solution for this invitation for misunderstanding is to use the proper words to convey the writer's meaning, or at least to use more words. I was simply asking for clarification before proceeding under a misunderstanding.