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Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

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Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#301

Post by southerntofu »

celu wrote: post #282
southerntofu wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does far-right just mean non-progressive and conservative? It depends how far you go. Does far-left just mean non-conservative and progressive? There's of course a subjective element to the answer, but there's objective arguments to be had as well, but in a specific context and timeframe. For example, being opposed to abortion rights was once considered normal except in far-left circles where anarchists such as Emm…

Excuse me, if being against abortion rights is far-right, most of the right is far-right

Note that i'm writing this from the french cultural/political context, but i don't think this is true. Or at least it's not universal. Here even most of the far right would not dare question reproductive/abortion rights. Even Marine Le Pen has proposed to make abortion a constitutional right. The only question on the conservative right here (except for marginal catholic sects such as La Manif Pour Tous) is to oppose extending the incubation period during which abortion is legal.

In the United States the situation is different, mostly due to decades of political lobbying and public disinformation against abortion orchestrated by fascist billionaires associated with various christian churches. But still, i'm guessing some parts of the right wouldn't dare question abortion rights. Despite the democrats being from an outsider's perspective a right-wing party (capitalist and rather conservative), let's pretend for a second the republican party are the entirety of the right, it's still not clear that all democrats stand for abortion and all republicans against:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/17/a-closer-...

Still, i think there is truth in what you say. As much as some issues such as gay/trans rights have advanced in the past decades, the political spectrum has shifted massively to the right in the Global North. Anti-immigration doctrines are far more common, and abolition of capitalism and wage slavery has almost become a taboo even on the so-called left. It's always both funny and sad to see people call Mélenchon or Sanders "far-left" when their social program is rather centrist and not more ambitious/communist than historically very right-wing programs (such as De Gaulle's after WWII).

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#302

Post by dools »

anonym29 wrote: post #184
dools wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't really have to be a moral basis nor does there have to be consent. You can refuse, and you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult, but you have the choice. For many, society doesn't provide any advantages and so they choose non-compliance and all the consequences that come with it.

You cannot choose to live outside of society. See: Waco, Rubgy Ridge, etc. You cannot even choose to renounce the citizenship that you did not want, never asked for, and never consented to, without getting another citizenship first. The social contract is the only contract in the world that you can be legally bound to the terms of without ever having agreed to it. In this way, the government acts very much like any o…

There are plenty of organised crime syndicates who live outside of society. They sometimes get caught by law enforcement and sometimes they get caught by rival gangs.

I didn’t say you can live outside of society peacefully in such a way that everyone will just leave you alone but a life of crime is a choice available to everyone.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#303

Post by dools »

gcanyon wrote: post #292
dools wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't really have to be a moral basis nor does there have to be consent. You can refuse, and you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult, but you have the choice. For many, society doesn't provide any advantages and so they choose non-compliance and all the consequences that come with it.

> you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult Try "impossible". No person reading HN is prepared to forgo all of what civilization provides. There are probably a very few people on the planet, who are already living in an extremely isolated tribal setting, who could go it alone, but if they're reading HN I hope they'll speak up now, I'd love to hear their opinion on this.

It’s not impossible at all there are millions of people who live lives of total lawlessness.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#304

Post by dools »

foo-bar-bat wrote: post #155
dools wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't really have to be a moral basis nor does there have to be consent. You can refuse, and you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult, but you have the choice. For many, society doesn't provide any advantages and so they choose non-compliance and all the consequences that come with it.

"Live outside of society" has a nice ring to it, but the meaning of those words when choosing to disobey court orders converts via bailiff to residing in jail cell. That's not living "outside society" or its constraints. It's very inside of them. If you want to actually live outside of society, perhaps the only way to do that is on a simple sailboat like Moxie did for a while: https://archive.org/details/holdFastADoc…

There are millions of people who live totally lawless lives. Sometimes they get imprisoned, also sometimes they get killed or tortured. But living a life of crime is a choice available to everyone.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#305

Post by Klonoar »

mc32 wrote: post #220
Klonoar wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abuse…

No, censorship would be nobody being able to discuss these topics period on those platforms. That is fundamentally not happening. We've simply entered an era where you need to do it respectfully, which isn't that hard.

Furthermore, language is demonstrably harmful by way of the weight we've given it over the years. We've also made strides in society in recognizing how to avoid using or enabling it in ways that harm marginalized groups.

This isn't rocket science.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#307

Post by rhinoceraptor »

WeylandYutani wrote: post #247
foldr wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to tell if you are asking in good faith, but the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page has a perfectly serviceable definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics >Far-right politics, or right-wing extremism, refers to a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies. The name derives from the left…

Fascinating. By this measure de Santis and practically all Republican mainstream candidates would be considered far right.

There are certainly many issues where a conservative of fifty years ago would be considered much further left than modern day conservatives, if not actually further to the left than modern day liberals.

Contrast this clip of the George H.W. Bush of 1980 [1], to the rhetoric DeSantis uses in regards to immigration[2]:

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Y-CtN8Qi0

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#308

Post by tptacek »

kaliqt wrote: post #187
kasey_junk wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea seems to rely on the flawed assumption that you can’t security audit closed source software. This is not an assumption I’ve ever seen an actual security researcher make. Quite the opposite, they start with techniques they work on the binary and only use the source (if available) as a helpful reference. Hiding back doors in source has a long and storied history so relying on it to audit security has long bee…

What are the best ways to test for backdoors though? Phoning home I get. But what about just breaking in because there's a backdoor left in for when "they" single you out for persecu- I mean investigation.

You read the compiled artifact. It's not complicated. Source code gives you valuable added context about programmer intent, which is helpful to understand how a program is structured, but you can't trust that intent if you're looking for surreptitious code anyways, and you don't need to to work out what the program is doing.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#309

Post by southerntofu »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #228
southerntofu wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clickbait if the actual Signal people claim the anarchist label, like m0xie does. Despite all my political and technical disagreements with him, i must recognize he is an anarchist and it's nice to see for once a press article not trying to wash his political engagement away.

The difference is the context. Signal's target is more likely to understand the more true and subtle aspects of the word. But most importantly, Signal doesn't make money from ads. Ads that need eye-balls. So in that context, the word is definitely bait-y.

I understand your point, but as i read the article from Tor Browser using safest mode i had no idea advertisement was involved. I tend to forget people actually place ads in places. Trying to refrain myself from using stronger, more judgy words.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#310

Post by komali2 »

kelnos wrote: post #98
komali2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time I hear this is when people refer to it. I've yet to find examples of it myself, bearing in mind that companies choosing what can and can't be said on their platforms doesn't constitute censorship (unless we're willing to admit that platforms have a monopoly on public communication).

It absolutely is censorship. Whether or not that censorship is illegal depends on who is doing the censorship. But the act of suppressing speech is censorship , no matter who does it.

I don't understand - you're not allowed to submit blog posts to my blog, am I censoring you?
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