Comment by snapcaster
16 days ago
I think maybe we're talking past each other. I'm saying that when advocating for privacy, an effective framing (if winning privacy rights battles is the goal) is to make it "us" vs. "them" instead of some kind of party based push.
If it's associated too strongly with a specific party it alienates too many people to ever get mass support and become a fundamental value that "everyone" agrees on
I do see what you're trying to say. It's just that authoritarian supporters of privacy are a bit of an internal contradiction. Either they're fooled or are being disingenuous.
It's no good having people arguing for "privacy for me but not for thee", which is what it will boil down to. Ultimately authoritarians will use anything which gives them influence and control, with digital privacy violations being one of the easiest to rationalise (no violence, no physical theft).
So I don't see it as worthwhile trying to include such individuals in such a consensus. It's like trying to include foxes in a discussion about how we should best secure hen houses.
Yeah that makes sense, can't really disagree. i'm just always wary of othering large swaths of the population as beyond hope. I think so many powerful groups are invested in making us all hate eachother and in my experience we're all a lot more similar than we think
Yeah I do actually relate a lot to what you're saying. I should emphasise though that such individuals may still be worth reaching. I don't think most people stay lost causes indefinitely. But you have to break down the desire to support authoritarianism first before it makes sense to tackle digital privacy.
Unfortunately that just means there's a lot more sticky work untangling the kind of tribalistic politics we find ourselves in today.
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