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Communication: this is where john oliver is amazing. Rather than talk about all the complexities of the secret NSA programs. He simplified the entire scandal in

by slaxman 12y ago

Communication: this is where john oliver is amazing. Rather than talk about all the complexities of the secret NSA programs. He simplified the entire scandal into "NSA can see your dick pics. Stop them now". This episode is a big lesson in communication for startups.

xiaq 12y ago
This amazes me, but it saddens me more. On the one hand, I applaud the brilliance of John Oliver for presenting the NSA affair in an immediately alarming way and attracting the attention of the average people. On the other hand, people really have to think rationally and responsibly to tackle serious political issues. John Oliver is not going to work every time, and sometimes we don't have a John Oliver at all. I am deeply depressed by the political ignorance of the common people in the US. I have always assumed that political ignorance stems from political oppression, which seems to be case in China (which is my home country). But now it seems to be a consequence of universal human stupidity instead.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I think that people are ignorant, because why wouldn't they be? They have zero individual influence, 99% of things the government talks about openly is irrelevant bullshit and part of shaping the voter's sympathy. So basically if it doesn't influence your daily life and you have zero control over it, why should you care? So it doesn't seem surprising at all that people in modern democracies are ignorant of most of the politics. I think that many in tech, who are acutely aware of the significance of the NSA affair, care about it not because of politics, but because it's wrong and hurts people.
  - xiaq 12y ago
    > So basically if it doesn't influence your daily life and you have zero control over it, why should you care? I cannot really argue against this pessimistic picture of democracy. > I think that many in tech, who are acutely aware of the significance of the NSA affair, care about it not because of politics, but because it's wrong and hurts people. Your definition of politics is very weird to me. Since preventing wrong things that happen on a big scale fits perfectly into my definition of political activities (think about the American civil rights movement).
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      >> So basically if it doesn't influence your daily life and you have zero control over it, why should you care? > I cannot really argue against this pessimistic picture of democracy. I on the other hand don't see a different way. It seems to me that if you really want to change something for the better, you need to steer clear of any kind of politics. It's like a swamp or quicksand; if you enter it, you'll get stuck there. > Your definition of politics is very weird to me. Since preventing wrong things that happen on a big scale fits perfectly into my definition of political activities (think about the American civil rights movement). My working definition of politics here is anything that involves politicians and especially political parties, because anything they touch immediately gets corrupted and turned into a way for said officials to safeguard their careers. You may say I'm cynical, but that's what I see all around, living in a democracy. I admit there may be a better word than "politics" for what I'm talking about, but I can't find it now.
      - XorNot 12y ago
        People who claim they want to "avoid politics" tend to create the most toxic political situations around them. You "avoid politics" by generally becoming a despot.
      - balabaster 12y ago
        There also may be a better word than "democracy" for what you're talking about ;)
        tripzilch 12y ago
        "Deadlocked two-party rule with <that particular US election system where it sometimes hardly matters what you vote just because of where you live>" You know how, if you question people about democracy enough, after a bit they'll usually admit that "okay it's not optimal, but it's the best we got / came up with so far". That means you can fuck it up. It means you can do democracy badly. It means that just because it is technically a "democracy", doesn't mean it's working properly.
      - 12y ago
  - nfoz 12y ago
    The claim was about political ignorance of common people in the US. You extended that to "people in modern democracies". I think this is incorrect. In Canada, I find people are typically more politically aware if not involved, as compared to the US where I live now.
- esalman 12y ago
  I wouldn't say people are inherently stupid. Rather they have become such by design or as the outcome of a system. There are many faces to this 'design' or 'system'- like capitalism, 'american dream' and such.
- mrits 12y ago
  When people are using doublespeak to defend their position it is often helpful to use off colored shock statements to get your point across.
- vanderZwan 12y ago
  > On the other hand, people really have to think rationally and responsibly to tackle serious political issues. While I agree with that, the limitation to that approach is that the rational part of the mind is not in control - it can at best guide emotion. Daniel Kahneman has a great metaphor for this: think of the rational aspect of the mind as the rider of an elephant, and the emotional, intuitive part as this elephant[0]. Sure, under most circumstances the rider can guide the elephant, but the elephant can want different things than the rider. In a way the elephant is more important, because if it doesn't work along the rider is helpless. You need to get the elephants to calm down and get along before it's riders can even bother with having a conversation. [0] Ignoring for a moment the issues with clear-cut boundaries like that, or the limitations of making sense of the mind in terms of two other minds. EDIT: I left a comment earlier on reddit[1] that indirectly talks about this as well: You have to realize he's not trying to reach out to people like you who already are aware of these issues and agree that something has to be done. He's trying to get the point across to people who are most likely to resist thinking about it, for all the wrong but understandable reasons. Like with race, climate change, gender issues, religion, those who need this stuff to be explained to the most are also the most likely to resist, because they literally Can't Deal With It. It's called fragility[2]: “a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include outward display of emotions such as anger, fear and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation.” Replace "racial" in that quote with any sensitive issue you want, like "gender", "political" or "religious". Everyone has this to some degree, and the first thing to do if you want to have a healthy debate is become aware of everyone's point of fragility and somehow circumvent it so we can have a reasonable discussion. Even more so when trying to reach out to the people who suffer from this the most. It is really important we keep trying to do that, no matter how frustrating it can get, because the ignorance of even a few affects everyone in society, especially in a democracy. It's a real problem and John Oliver even lampshades it, calling Snowden the IT guy in the office you don't want to learn from. He may appear to be shooting Snowden down, but what he's doing is approaching this from point of view of the many people with this mindset. He's acknowledging their experience (not to be confused with viewpoint) as a valid one, and trying to give them a way to connect to the topic regardless, with jokes and dick pics. [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/31lqjh/edward_snowden_explains_how_the_government_can/cq2u48g?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/31lqjh/edward_sno... [2] http://www.alternet.org/culture/why-white-people-freak-out-when-theyre-called-out-about-race http://www.alternet.org/culture/why-white-people-freak-out-w...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
auganov 12y ago
Luckily I didn't last till that part. You can use simple language without being vulgar or coarse. An entertainer can afford it, a startup probably can't.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  I think you missed the point, but there's an interesting point here: you are not necessarily your own audience. Clearly coarseness is a bad strategy to reach you, personally, but that doesn't mean it's a bad strategy to reach your target audience. You should speak the language of your target audience – in John Oliver's case, the people who enjoy his (frequently coarse) style of humor – rather than your own. Edward Snowden has largely been trying to explain things in a way that people like himself connect with – and that has actually worked pretty well, viz. nobody on this site would fail the "who is he and what did he do" test – but most people aren't like himself.
  - auganov 12y ago
    That's my point - an entertainer usually has an audience centered around their personality and it's derivatives. As a startup your audience is much more vague, often almost everyone. And when you do have an audience it's probably centered around something different.
    - sanderjd 12y ago
      I totally disagree that a startup's audience is more vague! If you're attempting to reach everyone then you probably aren't reaching anyone. Or do you mean post-traction "startups" who are trying to grow outwards from a smaller audience they have already won? If so, I suppose I agree with you, but I think the term "startup" is pretty dubious (though still widespread) in those cases.
makeitsuckless 12y ago
The number of people that praise John Oliver for dumbing down the issue amazes me. Dumbing down complex social and political issues is a communication strategy that will always see populists and extremists as winners. This is how we got here in the first place. The words "War on Terror" are the ultimate dumbing down of international politics. This is so easy to counter ("NSA can prevent another 9/11", "Government can trace pedophiles" etcetera) by the other side it's laughable. This is just playing into their hands.
- nulltype 12y ago
  Or playing out of their hands.
- sneak 12y ago
  So it's effective, is what you're saying? Mob rule is dumb, unfortunately. It's the nature of the beast.
- stephenboyd 12y ago
  The "NSA can prevent another 9/11" line will be used against both "dumb-ed down" and "smart-ed up" rhetoric to the same degree of effectiveness with the common American public. Speaking exclusively in terms only understood by people who've experienced a topic's college courses, books, or daily reading habit of relevant blogs isn't any more immune to authoritarian bumper-sticker politics. John Oliver didn't take away anyone's nuanced and detailed arguments against the surveillance state. He translated them for people who probably aren't going to understand or care otherwise, which only adds to the public discourse. And using an example of a single document (the photo of John Oliver's genitals) to have Ed Snowden explain how each of the revealed NSA programs relates to it is just good communication and not an oversimplification at all.
- tinco 12y ago
  > This is so easy to counter ("NSA can prevent another 9/11", "Government can trace pedophiles" etcetera) by the other side it's laughable. No, this is actually an argument that can stand up to those arguments. All the technical and fundamental arguments of why privacy matters only apply vaguely and indirectly to the people. As Oliver says, people just don't care. Why do they care about another 9/11 or pedophiles? Because those things do affect them directly, as does the idea of the government having access to your dick picks. If this argument were so easy to counter, why would this argument have such a clear dramatic influence on peoples opinions on governmental intelligence operations? Alternatively, which argument would you bring up that would easily counter "NSA can prevent another 9/11"? I don't think that's so easy.
chiph 12y ago
>"NSA can see your dick pics. Stop them now" Which they can then blackmail you with should you ever decide to run for office or oppose them in any way. Much like how J. Edgar Hoover built secret files about politicians and celebrities which he allegedly used to influence them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover
drivingmenuts 12y ago
I, for one, am glad I never sent anyone any d* pics. I'm probably already a source of laughter in some government agency. OK, maybe a mild chuckles. Hopefully, not a grimace or a scowl.
amyjess 12y ago
Ultimately, that argument doesn't work. The people who can see your dick pics don't know you. You're just a nameless, faceless penis to them, and the people who might be looking at your dick picks are a nameless, faceless mass you don't know and never will know. Your dick pics are a statistic in a database. In fact, "people" probably don't even see your dick pics. A computer takes them and stashes them in a database, and the amount of data stored is so huge that the chance of any specific NSA employee running into your dick while querying the database is infinitesimal. Besides, even if the NSA wasn't involved, your ISP could see your dick pics anyway, and if you used any kind of image host to send your dick pics, so can they. I would be much more concerned if the NSA was handing the information to people I know, but they're not. People only care about privacy when it personally affects them. For example, I'm transgender. While I'm out and proud now, that wasn't the case back when I was still living as a guy. It didn't worry me that the NSA had this information on me in a database somewhere, but I would have been very, very worried if somebody I knew personally were to discover that I'm trans (before I was ready to tell them, anyway). Nobody cares that the NSA can see their dick pics. People might care if their friends and family can see their dick pics. Oh, but then you might say "but... but the NSA is going to blackmail politicians by threatening to reveal their dick pics if they don't do what the NSA says". That's possible, but you don't need mass electronic surveillance to do that. J. Edgar Hoover did it back in the '60s, and he didn't use either the Internet or mass surveillance to do that. No, he targeted people he wanted to blackmail, and he had his team do some good old-fashioned detective work to dig up blackmail material on them. That the NSA can hypothetically do the same thing with mass Internet surveillance doesn't change anything one iota.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  I agree with you in general but disagree with this: >That the NSA can hypothetically do the same thing with mass Internet surveillance doesn't change anything one iota. The reality is that is is much easier to abuse these powers now than it was in Hoover's days. Think about it like this: Hoover was bootstrapping his blackmail, current leaders can do it with economies of scale. So if the wrong person was elected or something happened to un-democratize our nation (don't think it can't happen) then there is a big juicy database that can be abused far far beyond anything anyone ever had in the history of census taking.
lukev 12y ago
Except this argument has the exact opposite effect on anyone who already has conservative tendencies. "Oh, I would never send a sexually explicit photo. Sounds like this only affects perverts and liberals. Carry on, NSA!"
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  Not really true. For some reason it seems instinctual to take nude pictures once you pass a threshold of trust and competence with technology. In my experience, this is pretty common across political strata -- insofar as the gap exists, it's more of a generational thing, where older people are less likely to be comfortable with technology, and therefore don't trust it with anything they want to keep private (these same people are usually nervous about online banking, etc., too).
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    I …flat out don't think this is true. Not sure how else to put it, but it is just outside my experience to correlate nude-picture-sending willingness with technology comfort. I don't really have theories on what it does correlate with – for instance I'm not willing to put it on a liberal/conservative spectrum – but I just don't think comfort with technology is the thing. Of course neither of us really know, because only the NSA has the data :)

by slaxman 12y ago

xiaq 12y ago

This amazes me, but it saddens me more. On the one hand, I applaud the brilliance of John Oliver for presenting the NSA affair in an immediately alarming way and attracting the attention of the average people. On the other hand, people really have to think rationally and responsibly to tackle serious political issues. John Oliver is not going to work every time, and sometimes we don't have a John Oliver at all. I am deeply depressed by the political ignorance of the common people in the US. I have always assumed that political ignorance stems from political oppression, which seems to be case in China (which is my home country). But now it seems to be a consequence of universal human stupidity instead.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
I think that people are ignorant, because why wouldn't they be? They have zero individual influence, 99% of things the government talks about openly is irrelevant bullshit and part of shaping the voter's sympathy. So basically if it doesn't influence your daily life and you have zero control over it, why should you care? So it doesn't seem surprising at all that people in modern democracies are ignorant of most of the politics. I think that many in tech, who are acutely aware of the significance of the NSA affair, care about it not because of politics, but because it's wrong and hurts people.
- xiaq 12y ago
  > So basically if it doesn't influence your daily life and you have zero control over it, why should you care? I cannot really argue against this pessimistic picture of democracy. > I think that many in tech, who are acutely aware of the significance of the NSA affair, care about it not because of politics, but because it's wrong and hurts people. Your definition of politics is very weird to me. Since preventing wrong things that happen on a big scale fits perfectly into my definition of political activities (think about the American civil rights movement).
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    >> So basically if it doesn't influence your daily life and you have zero control over it, why should you care? > I cannot really argue against this pessimistic picture of democracy. I on the other hand don't see a different way. It seems to me that if you really want to change something for the better, you need to steer clear of any kind of politics. It's like a swamp or quicksand; if you enter it, you'll get stuck there. > Your definition of politics is very weird to me. Since preventing wrong things that happen on a big scale fits perfectly into my definition of political activities (think about the American civil rights movement). My working definition of politics here is anything that involves politicians and especially political parties, because anything they touch immediately gets corrupted and turned into a way for said officials to safeguard their careers. You may say I'm cynical, but that's what I see all around, living in a democracy. I admit there may be a better word than "politics" for what I'm talking about, but I can't find it now.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      People who claim they want to "avoid politics" tend to create the most toxic political situations around them. You "avoid politics" by generally becoming a despot.
    - balabaster 12y ago
      There also may be a better word than "democracy" for what you're talking about ;)
      - tripzilch 12y ago
        "Deadlocked two-party rule with <that particular US election system where it sometimes hardly matters what you vote just because of where you live>" You know how, if you question people about democracy enough, after a bit they'll usually admit that "okay it's not optimal, but it's the best we got / came up with so far". That means you can fuck it up. It means you can do democracy badly. It means that just because it is technically a "democracy", doesn't mean it's working properly.
    - 12y ago
- nfoz 12y ago
  The claim was about political ignorance of common people in the US. You extended that to "people in modern democracies". I think this is incorrect. In Canada, I find people are typically more politically aware if not involved, as compared to the US where I live now.
esalman 12y ago
I wouldn't say people are inherently stupid. Rather they have become such by design or as the outcome of a system. There are many faces to this 'design' or 'system'- like capitalism, 'american dream' and such.
mrits 12y ago
When people are using doublespeak to defend their position it is often helpful to use off colored shock statements to get your point across.
vanderZwan 12y ago
> On the other hand, people really have to think rationally and responsibly to tackle serious political issues. While I agree with that, the limitation to that approach is that the rational part of the mind is not in control - it can at best guide emotion. Daniel Kahneman has a great metaphor for this: think of the rational aspect of the mind as the rider of an elephant, and the emotional, intuitive part as this elephant[0]. Sure, under most circumstances the rider can guide the elephant, but the elephant can want different things than the rider. In a way the elephant is more important, because if it doesn't work along the rider is helpless. You need to get the elephants to calm down and get along before it's riders can even bother with having a conversation. [0] Ignoring for a moment the issues with clear-cut boundaries like that, or the limitations of making sense of the mind in terms of two other minds. EDIT: I left a comment earlier on reddit[1] that indirectly talks about this as well: You have to realize he's not trying to reach out to people like you who already are aware of these issues and agree that something has to be done. He's trying to get the point across to people who are most likely to resist thinking about it, for all the wrong but understandable reasons. Like with race, climate change, gender issues, religion, those who need this stuff to be explained to the most are also the most likely to resist, because they literally Can't Deal With It. It's called fragility[2]: “a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include outward display of emotions such as anger, fear and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation.” Replace "racial" in that quote with any sensitive issue you want, like "gender", "political" or "religious". Everyone has this to some degree, and the first thing to do if you want to have a healthy debate is become aware of everyone's point of fragility and somehow circumvent it so we can have a reasonable discussion. Even more so when trying to reach out to the people who suffer from this the most. It is really important we keep trying to do that, no matter how frustrating it can get, because the ignorance of even a few affects everyone in society, especially in a democracy. It's a real problem and John Oliver even lampshades it, calling Snowden the IT guy in the office you don't want to learn from. He may appear to be shooting Snowden down, but what he's doing is approaching this from point of view of the many people with this mindset. He's acknowledging their experience (not to be confused with viewpoint) as a valid one, and trying to give them a way to connect to the topic regardless, with jokes and dick pics. [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/31lqjh/edward_snowden_explains_how_the_government_can/cq2u48g?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/31lqjh/edward_sno... [2] http://www.alternet.org/culture/why-white-people-freak-out-when-theyre-called-out-about-race http://www.alternet.org/culture/why-white-people-freak-out-w...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

auganov 12y ago

Luckily I didn't last till that part. You can use simple language without being vulgar or coarse. An entertainer can afford it, a startup probably can't.

sanderjd 12y ago
I think you missed the point, but there's an interesting point here: you are not necessarily your own audience. Clearly coarseness is a bad strategy to reach you, personally, but that doesn't mean it's a bad strategy to reach your target audience. You should speak the language of your target audience – in John Oliver's case, the people who enjoy his (frequently coarse) style of humor – rather than your own. Edward Snowden has largely been trying to explain things in a way that people like himself connect with – and that has actually worked pretty well, viz. nobody on this site would fail the "who is he and what did he do" test – but most people aren't like himself.
- auganov 12y ago
  That's my point - an entertainer usually has an audience centered around their personality and it's derivatives. As a startup your audience is much more vague, often almost everyone. And when you do have an audience it's probably centered around something different.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    I totally disagree that a startup's audience is more vague! If you're attempting to reach everyone then you probably aren't reaching anyone. Or do you mean post-traction "startups" who are trying to grow outwards from a smaller audience they have already won? If so, I suppose I agree with you, but I think the term "startup" is pretty dubious (though still widespread) in those cases.

makeitsuckless 12y ago

The number of people that praise John Oliver for dumbing down the issue amazes me. Dumbing down complex social and political issues is a communication strategy that will always see populists and extremists as winners. This is how we got here in the first place. The words "War on Terror" are the ultimate dumbing down of international politics. This is so easy to counter ("NSA can prevent another 9/11", "Government can trace pedophiles" etcetera) by the other side it's laughable. This is just playing into their hands.

nulltype 12y ago
Or playing out of their hands.
sneak 12y ago
So it's effective, is what you're saying? Mob rule is dumb, unfortunately. It's the nature of the beast.
stephenboyd 12y ago
The "NSA can prevent another 9/11" line will be used against both "dumb-ed down" and "smart-ed up" rhetoric to the same degree of effectiveness with the common American public. Speaking exclusively in terms only understood by people who've experienced a topic's college courses, books, or daily reading habit of relevant blogs isn't any more immune to authoritarian bumper-sticker politics. John Oliver didn't take away anyone's nuanced and detailed arguments against the surveillance state. He translated them for people who probably aren't going to understand or care otherwise, which only adds to the public discourse. And using an example of a single document (the photo of John Oliver's genitals) to have Ed Snowden explain how each of the revealed NSA programs relates to it is just good communication and not an oversimplification at all.
tinco 12y ago
> This is so easy to counter ("NSA can prevent another 9/11", "Government can trace pedophiles" etcetera) by the other side it's laughable. No, this is actually an argument that can stand up to those arguments. All the technical and fundamental arguments of why privacy matters only apply vaguely and indirectly to the people. As Oliver says, people just don't care. Why do they care about another 9/11 or pedophiles? Because those things do affect them directly, as does the idea of the government having access to your dick picks. If this argument were so easy to counter, why would this argument have such a clear dramatic influence on peoples opinions on governmental intelligence operations? Alternatively, which argument would you bring up that would easily counter "NSA can prevent another 9/11"? I don't think that's so easy.

chiph 12y ago

>"NSA can see your dick pics. Stop them now" Which they can then blackmail you with should you ever decide to run for office or oppose them in any way. Much like how J. Edgar Hoover built secret files about politicians and celebrities which he allegedly used to influence them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

drivingmenuts 12y ago

I, for one, am glad I never sent anyone any d* pics. I'm probably already a source of laughter in some government agency. OK, maybe a mild chuckles. Hopefully, not a grimace or a scowl.

amyjess 12y ago

Ultimately, that argument doesn't work. The people who can see your dick pics don't know you. You're just a nameless, faceless penis to them, and the people who might be looking at your dick picks are a nameless, faceless mass you don't know and never will know. Your dick pics are a statistic in a database. In fact, "people" probably don't even see your dick pics. A computer takes them and stashes them in a database, and the amount of data stored is so huge that the chance of any specific NSA employee running into your dick while querying the database is infinitesimal. Besides, even if the NSA wasn't involved, your ISP could see your dick pics anyway, and if you used any kind of image host to send your dick pics, so can they. I would be much more concerned if the NSA was handing the information to people I know, but they're not. People only care about privacy when it personally affects them. For example, I'm transgender. While I'm out and proud now, that wasn't the case back when I was still living as a guy. It didn't worry me that the NSA had this information on me in a database somewhere, but I would have been very, very worried if somebody I knew personally were to discover that I'm trans (before I was ready to tell them, anyway). Nobody cares that the NSA can see their dick pics. People might care if their friends and family can see their dick pics. Oh, but then you might say "but... but the NSA is going to blackmail politicians by threatening to reveal their dick pics if they don't do what the NSA says". That's possible, but you don't need mass electronic surveillance to do that. J. Edgar Hoover did it back in the '60s, and he didn't use either the Internet or mass surveillance to do that. No, he targeted people he wanted to blackmail, and he had his team do some good old-fashioned detective work to dig up blackmail material on them. That the NSA can hypothetically do the same thing with mass Internet surveillance doesn't change anything one iota.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
I agree with you in general but disagree with this: >That the NSA can hypothetically do the same thing with mass Internet surveillance doesn't change anything one iota. The reality is that is is much easier to abuse these powers now than it was in Hoover's days. Think about it like this: Hoover was bootstrapping his blackmail, current leaders can do it with economies of scale. So if the wrong person was elected or something happened to un-democratize our nation (don't think it can't happen) then there is a big juicy database that can be abused far far beyond anything anyone ever had in the history of census taking.

lukev 12y ago

Except this argument has the exact opposite effect on anyone who already has conservative tendencies. "Oh, I would never send a sexually explicit photo. Sounds like this only affects perverts and liberals. Carry on, NSA!"

cookiecaper 12y ago
Not really true. For some reason it seems instinctual to take nude pictures once you pass a threshold of trust and competence with technology. In my experience, this is pretty common across political strata -- insofar as the gap exists, it's more of a generational thing, where older people are less likely to be comfortable with technology, and therefore don't trust it with anything they want to keep private (these same people are usually nervous about online banking, etc., too).
- sanderjd 12y ago
  I …flat out don't think this is true. Not sure how else to put it, but it is just outside my experience to correlate nude-picture-sending willingness with technology comfort. I don't really have theories on what it does correlate with – for instance I'm not willing to put it on a liberal/conservative spectrum – but I just don't think comfort with technology is the thing. Of course neither of us really know, because only the NSA has the data :)