Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism • Hacker News Board

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#211

Post by AndrewKemendo » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

As an anarchist I accept that we have literally the worst branding and need to start over.

It’s not by accident of course, but yet it remains true that 99% of people see the word “anarchist” and think about the Anarchist cookbook or teenagers making prank calls and being angsty and throwing the odd Molotov cocktail.

No wonder then these comments are filled with people equivocating between “anti-government” Christi-fascists like the oath keepers and anarcho-communists like members of the DSA.

They couldn’t be further apart, but because both are “anti-government” then people assume it’s all the same cause it’s a binary system conceptually.

You’re either state capitalist or state communist there is no third option (or fourth! How absurd!).

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#212

Post by thecrash » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

upofadown wrote: post #114

sneak wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference is that Signal will cheerfully let the user have an insecure conversation before the user has verified the safety number. PGP makes it very difficult to fail in that particular way. Most people do not use "insecure" in this way. I would venture to say that your usage of "insecure" here is actually incorrect. Approximately nobody ever does this verification[1], so this distinction is critically import…

>Approximately nobody ever does this verification[1], so this distinction is critically important: Signal works out of the box, whereas PGP does not. Then, say, Telegram in non-secret message mode, is just as secure, in the sense that you have to trust a third party. Not clearly informing the user of this trust is dishonest. >...after studies showed non-technical users (reasonably) associate the idea of fingerprints…

> Then, say, Telegram in non-secret message mode, is just as secure, in the sense that you have to trust a third party. Not clearly informing the user of this trust is dishonest.

The difference is that if Telegram was intercepting messages, there would never be any indication to users. If Signal did it there would be evidence on the client side, in the form of tampered safety numbers.

We can worry that a user is very unlikely to notice bad safety numbers, but "very unlikely" is much different from "impossible" when it comes to mass surveillance. All it takes is a single public scandal where Signal provably tampered with safety numbers for the whole service to be thrown into question. Not to mention the dramatic surge in user interest in "safety numbers" that would result from such attacks being detected in the wild.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#213

Post by enragedcacti » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #193

enragedcacti wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paradox of tolerance gets you a long way to understanding it, but you will also have to be far more specific if you want answers because practically everyone has limits to what they consider acceptable speech, even if they don't call it that. Beyond that, there is a pretty concerted effort to elevate minor grievances into the national spotlight to portray the left a certain way, e.g. the Oberlin Cafeteria scandal…

People are constantly misapplying The Paradox of Tolerance - which is an argument for protecting free speech in all cases other than one: opposition of free speech. Somehow that got contorted by modern-day activists into "I can shout down or physically attack people I don't agree with" -- which is exactly opposite of what was being argued by Popper. It's an argument for more permissive expression, not less. He notes…

"We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#214

Post by AndrewKemendo » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

programmarchy wrote: post #207

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for referencing Girard! Agreed that this is a compelling hypothesis Have you looked through “A thousand plateaus” from Deleuze/Guattari (I don’t know anyone who has actually read the whole thing)?

I timidly approached Deleuze a few years ago but didn't make it very far, haha. Should probably give it ago again... did you find it useful?

Yes! Though if I could follow along for more than a few pages I would probably get more out of it.

I’m going to actually restart with just Ch15 and see if that is a better approach

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#215

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #25

mc32 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was about introducing sex ed to third graders. Have third graders put down their toy cars, dolls and blocks yet? And then you have a Cal governor suinf a school dist demanding they teach the curriculum he believes is correct. So you have an example of two governors, one on each side, tellig districts what to teach But, the thing is, liberals _used_ _to_ espouse free speech as long as it was legal and defended it…

That may have been the intent (which I seriously doubt) but in practice it means teachers cannot even mention their same sex partners or even that gay/trans people exist because that could be considered “sex ex” by a parent who doesn’t want their children to know gay people exist (and for the record it is not sex ed) Hence the use of the phrase “don’t say gay”

I would government employees to not talk about sex, their partners, their bedrooms, and all manner of topics to 5-9 year old kids.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#216

Post by JohnFen » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

> Does far-right just mean non-progressive and conservative?

Don't know what they mean, but to me, "far right" doesn't mean that. It means the most radical extreme of the right. Just like "far left" means the most radical extreme of the left. I'd even argue that the far right is not actually conservative, and the far left is not actually liberal.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#217

Post by nostromo » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:35 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #199

nostromo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are constantly misapplying The Paradox of Tolerance - which is an argument for protecting free speech in all cases other than one: opposition of free speech. Somehow that got contorted by modern-day activists into "I can shout down or physically attack people I don't agree with" -- which is exactly opposite of what was being argued by Popper. It's an argument for more permissive expression, not less. He notes…

I can't find any textual support for that narrow interpretation of the Paradox of Tolerance in anything that Popper wrote. Where does he say that only opposition to freedom of speech counts as 'intolerance' in the relevant sense?

You'll need to read the book -- if you're looking for a soundbite you're doing yourself a disservice -- it's short anyway. But note that he's talking specifically about argumentation.

The book is a response to Plato, who generally opposed free speech for the masses. In general, Popper strongly disagrees with Plato. And it's important to note that he described of the paradox as he understood it from Plato, but does not necessarily endorse it.

The people suddenly fond of this one footnote might take a moment and read his work anyway, as they may be surprised to read his views on socialism and Marx specifically.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#218

Post by nostromo » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

enragedcacti wrote: post #213

nostromo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are constantly misapplying The Paradox of Tolerance - which is an argument for protecting free speech in all cases other than one: opposition of free speech. Somehow that got contorted by modern-day activists into "I can shout down or physically attack people I don't agree with" -- which is exactly opposite of what was being argued by Popper. It's an argument for more permissive expression, not less. He notes…

"We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

You really should read the whole work before citing it.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#219

Post by TurkishPoptart » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:41 PM UTC

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

Nobody asked for content moderation, why are they trying to create this complaint out of thin air? If there’s a channel I don’t like, I’ll leave it/unsubscribe.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#220

Post by mc32 » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

Klonoar wrote: post #202

Gareth321 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly is censorship. Maybe you're conflating censorship with the First Amendment? The Constitution only protects certain kinds of speech. Only that of citizens with respect to government, and only Americans. When people speak about censorship, they are referring to all kinds of censorship by people all over the world, including private companies censoring individuals.

So just to be clear: you consider it censorship when the rest of the world tells you "you cannot harass x group by utilizing this set of harmful language"?

It clearly is, what else would one call that? Perhaps it's censorship you agree with and others agree with and maybe I agree with some of it, but it's never the less censorship. It's also censorship when the government redacts documents, but we have granted the government some carve-outs in order to protect national security and other things, which over time has become abused just like your proposition would be abused.

Also, language is not harmful. It may be abusive or offensive but it's not harmful. That's not to say people don't allow themselves to become affected by language --but one can be negatively affected by lots of language that isn't "hateful" but may be truthful or carry unwanted information.