The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism • Hacker News Board

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#231

Post by wat10000 » Sun, May 10, 2026, 1:55 AM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #128

kortilla wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paradoxically, "developed" nation inequality has hit 1920s levels. That’s not a paradox. Inequality is a completely separate measurement that emerges anywhere there are extremely wealthy people despite the average population doing really well. A high density of tech billionaires in California doesn’t prevent a regular family in Tennessee from putting food on their table. Poverty rates would.

>A high density of tech billionaires in California doesn’t prevent I put this in the case of 'eh, maybe'. Not a definite yes or no. The particular place where this breaks is asset ownership and other forms of VC fuckery that start raising the costs for everything around the country.

Money is power. Extreme wealth means extreme power. That power can be used to screw people over even if their income looks nominally decent.

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#232

Post by JKCalhoun » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:01 AM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #221

lc9er wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Cassettes are the worst way to listen to music ever invented. >Except for creating portable playlists, sure. I think it was the frontman for Phish that said something like “metal sounds great on cassette”, referring to 80’s thrash, and I have to agree. I’m sure part of it is nostalgia, but I feel like 70’s rock/prog sounds perfect on vinyl, and 80’s thrash sounds great on cassette.

I have been converting old tapes to digital and they do sound both different and better. I think there's an aspect of this format having been a target for professional mixing. But there's also the background hiss and the warping of rolling tape and the low fidelity of the heads... It all mixes together nicely for a dirtier sound.

Unfulfilled desire: a reel-to-reel machine.

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#233

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:02 AM UTC

yw3410 wrote: post #203

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't download random business apps, and I live in a pretty tech heavy area, but I've never encountered a parking lot where I couldn't pay at a kiosk or booth. What I do encounter sometimes are friends who "have to" download the app because they're used to the convenience of app-based payments, or because they don't feel a need to carry cash. I strongly feel that the convenience vs. annoyance is heavily tilted towa…

Then I think you're lucky; I live in a major city (London) and can attest that there are parking spaces where the kiosk and booths are gone and the app the only way to pay.

Interesting. Perhaps it's a European thing?

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#234

Post by erelong » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

A lot of the problems have stemmed actually from a lack of freedom, not too much of it (all of the issues created by the "fantasy of cyberauthoritarianism", rather)

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#235

Post by widowlark » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

stogot wrote: post #211

> I was young enough that I also thought "Snow Crash" was a serious political document. Is snow crash worth reading in 2026? I bought it forever ago and it’s sitting in my shelf

not only is it absolutely worth reading, but the author belittling it's political commentary is foolish and incorrect.

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#236

Post by Nasrudith » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

schoen wrote: post #127

mrexcess wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The revelations that Epstein had interest and involvement in the development of 4chan really makes me wonder what we would find behind the curtain at next iterations like KiwiFarms, etc if we looked hard enough. Not to sound an overly conspiratorial note, but sewing division within a foreign culture is one of those things that intelligence communities excel at, might match some patterns we’ve seen, and would serve to…

There is a theory that some skeptics of tech optimism have advanced for a while, that governments like Internet freedom and widespread availability of ICTs in rival nations because it either (1) makes people there hate and fear each other, or (2) makes them easier to propagandize. In this account the U.S. State Department's Internet Freedom Agenda (which many of my friends and colleagues have been directly funded by)…

That idea sounds like it is a Freudian slip of sorts of an authoritarian mind. Basically, involuntary ideological tells from patterns of their thinking that slip through into their speech. The sorts of things which would give a spy away.

The idea you mentioned is the mark of an authoritarian who considers expressed dissent a sign of weakness instead of a crucible for the strength of ideas. That they literally cannot conceive of a purpose of it other than propaganda or division because they see democracy as inherently a weakness and they think that a 'strong man' is needed to create unity.

It is a similar tell to bigots who cite 'homogeneous society means' as being inherently socially cohesive or responsible for low crime because they cannot comprehend a cohesion based on something other than ethnic unity.

Or reflexive deceivers promising to 'restore a sense of trust' because the thought of being trustworthy even never comes to mind as something to promise as a lie. I have seen that one in officials in response to corruption or abuse scandals far too many times. A cousin to that is expressing fear of 'turning into a low trust society' where they promise parades of horribles to try to poison the well against people rightfully distrusting them.

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#237

Post by avazhi » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

Duggan is all over the place with this one. We even have some hints it’s AI-Slop by the end.

Not sure what to tell this guy other than that there’s a universe where parents parent better (ie, by keeping their 10 year olds off the net), and people like him are a little less sensitive, and the internet with all its horrors and wonders does just fine. It really isn’t difficult to not see things that bother you on the internet. For example, it’ll never not be funny to me when moderators cry about getting PTSD by what they see - don’t be a moderator then, genius.

The biggest threat by far to the internet is censorship and regulation, because those things take away the choices for everybody. In a quarter century of using the net heavily I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen something I wasn’t expecting to see that shocked me, like a beheading video or something. It is exceedingly rare if you’re not a dumbass to come across unexpected and shocking material. And if Mr Duggan wasn’t so sensitive, even seeing things he finds disturbing wouldn’t be such a big deal.

I’ll just chalk this post up to more intellectual and emotional infantilisation that is so prevalent these days among these particular types. ‘Handle with care’ emotional maturity stuff.

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#238

Post by bigfatkitten » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC

washingupliquid wrote: post #196

JKCalhoun wrote: post #191

Also old enough to have been pre-internet: > Paper maps were absolutely horrible… No, and still not horrible. I jeep a trucker's atlas in my van for road trips. Siri and Google Maps (Gigi, we call her) don't seem to realize I want to stay on interstates making distance. Wandering some two-lane country road diagonally through Kansas might save me 10 minutes but having oncoming traffic and the possibility of a rock int…

I've stopped submitting quality reports to Apple Maps because they're all met with "while we couldn't make the change you suggested, we hope you continue to waste your time reporting these". The issues are egregious too, like blatantly incorrect lane guidance that would send you in the wrong direction, or diverting me off a highway onto an unmarked, narrow country road that no one with any knowledge of the local road…

Google Maps isn’t much better. Outside of major population centres, you have to fight with it to keep you on major highway.

Google and Apple both prefer “efficient” routes with unsealed roads that are 4WD only, impassible when wet, have no services, no mobile coverage, and where if you need medical help it literally comes by aeroplane.[1]

[1] https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#239

Post by Nasrudith » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:53 AM UTC

tempaccount5050 wrote: post #147

szvsw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why petrochemicals and trees ie hydrocarbons are any more or less absurd than the silicon, metals, etc quarried and mined from around the world needed to store information digitally in data centers (or mobile devices). Storing data of any kind in plastic as opposed to silicon metal seems like a meaningless distinction that only comes about from imagining that there is some disembodied, ethereal and platonic…

Because a billion people can share the file at once. It's tough math to do, but I can't believe transporting physical media all over the world is really better.

It reminds me of the inane motivated reason backwards reasoning from people desperate to cast Amazon as a villain and nonsense they claimed. About how online shipping was a carbon villain. Acting as if goods are simply teleported onto store shelves and they aren't delivered using trucks and then picked up by consumers with their own vehicles. While pretending that every delivery consists of only one package per truck on a route.

About the only worse case of motivated reasoning I have seen are from NIMBYs straining their brains to claim how any new development would be catastrophic. One notable example being a claim that adding trains would bring in more criminals to the neighborhood and lead to more burglaries.

Re: The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

#240

Post by flomo » Sun, May 10, 2026, 3:00 AM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #101

jancsika wrote: post #99

> Once when driving from Michigan to Florida I got so lost in the middle of the night in Kentucky that I had to pull over to sleep and wait for the sun so I could figure out where I was. Not sure what's going on here, but this reads like 90s cosplay. First off, GPS-guided trips had not yet eroded people's sense of direction because they did not yet exist. Second of all, the (odd-numbered) interstate(s) that flow from…

Also, you have a compass. Just drive South until you reach the Gulf of Mexico, then drive East until you reach the Atlantic ocean, then drive South until you reach where you're going ( it will be daylight by then ). /edit i guess it could be possible to drive South and end up in key west but it will be daylight long before you run out of road.

Did people really carry a compass? (and did it even work inside a car? I think you could get one to stick on the mirror.)