This is a lazy argument, as I can safely say that 80% or more of HN has the same political bent, and every community ever has said “but not everyone.”
Read the comments on the Parler deplatforming. See what was upvoted. See what the consensus was. Nobody cares about the principles, even here, when rubber hits the road.
Imagine if the undesirables, on either side, started actively using all the decentralized censorship-resist tech for their cause. Would the builders and commentators here be saying “working as designed,” or would there be a sense of fury, a sense of “not like that?” A sense of “that was supposed to enable my cause, not yours?”
Suppose Proud Boys coordinated their Jan 6 activities on Signal and Tor. Suppose Truth Social was built on ActivityPub and MAGA developers were the loudest voices at FOSDEM advocating for censorship-resistant protocols. How do you feel? Are we still citing the same principles? If not, we never believed them.
> The public will not respond until the groundwork has been laid to make effective protest impossible. Only then will important things be regulated out. Until then it will just be “nerd stuff”.
I’m looking at history and noticing that 99.9% of revolutions did not have the internet required to be successful.
> This is a lazy argument, as I can safely say that 80% or more of HN has the same political bent, and every community ever has said “but not everyone.”
I disagree, but even if you were correct: like, what’s your point? Are you grouping me in with them because I happen to be posting here? I reject that characterization.
Edit: I feel like this is an attempt at some kind of “gotcha” based on the example you provided. No, I don’t believe access to tech should be gated based on politics. IMHO everyone should have access to private and secure systems, as part of their human rights regarding speech, thought, and personal privacy. I attempted to raise this point in several venues during the “deplatforming” fad and explained how the political pendulum made it a bad idea. The mob remained unconvinced.
> I’m looking at history and noticing that 99.9% of revolutions did not have the internet required to be successful.
You tell me how people are going to protest effectively in the face of:
- Ubiquitous visual surveillance and facial recognition
- Ubiquitous audio surveillance via pocket spies and things like Flock/ShotSpotter/other competing systems
- Ubiquitous ALPR systems and GPS-enabled “digital plates” being trialed in some areas
- Data mining coupled with AI behavioral analysis (sloppy but likely good enough)
- An increasing percentage of cars with remote shutdown capabilities
- The replacement of cash with digital currency that can be remotely disabled
The future looks a lot like China, but without their “economic miracle” that has kept the population satisfied.
This is a lazy argument, as I can safely say that 80% or more of HN has the same political bent, and every community ever has said “but not everyone.”
Read the comments on the Parler deplatforming. See what was upvoted. See what the consensus was. Nobody cares about the principles, even here, when rubber hits the road.
Imagine if the undesirables, on either side, started actively using all the decentralized censorship-resist tech for their cause. Would the builders and commentators here be saying “working as designed,” or would there be a sense of fury, a sense of “not like that?” A sense of “that was supposed to enable my cause, not yours?”
Suppose Proud Boys coordinated their Jan 6 activities on Signal and Tor. Suppose Truth Social was built on ActivityPub and MAGA developers were the loudest voices at FOSDEM advocating for censorship-resistant protocols. How do you feel? Are we still citing the same principles? If not, we never believed them.
> The public will not respond until the groundwork has been laid to make effective protest impossible. Only then will important things be regulated out. Until then it will just be “nerd stuff”.
I’m looking at history and noticing that 99.9% of revolutions did not have the internet required to be successful.