Comment by yosamino

1 day ago

I did and then I asked a serious question.

These are arguments that are put forward in favor of mass-surveillance.

That is in direct contradiction to the claim "I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever".

So I was wondering how that contradiction comes about and asked about it.

What would you suggest the charitable reading should be ?

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yosamino

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ajkjk  1 day ago

You believe them. You believe the line "I'm not trying to be pro surveillance state", and then you take seriously the points they made which are completely reasonable things to ask, and you engage critically with them, and discuss how those points are compatible or incompatible with the overall stance. It is easy.

As a general rule: to engage charitably with someone you believe the things they say they believe, at face value and attempt to understand how they could come to believe those things.

  • yosamino  1 day ago

    But I do believe them. It's just that they points that they sincerely ( I did not doubt that) made are part of the same set of points that are made in favor of a surveillance state - there is a contradiction here. Instead of assuming, I asked a question.

    Quite literally this:

    > attempt to understand how they could come to believe those things.

    Is it possible that you are not reading my comment charitably ?

    • ajkjk  1 day ago

      You asked them "why do you go on making these pro surveillance state arguments?"

      How is that supposed to be a serious question? They brought up real concerns. The "why" is obviously that they had real questions--that's the purpose of all questions. So they asked them,and then you implied that, if a person was truly not pro-surveillance, they would not ask such questions. Yet they had those questions. So you think they should have pretended to not be confused? Not asked those questions? Pretended like everything made sense? What was the goal here?

      You didn't engage with the content of their questions at all. You just called out the act of questioning. You implied that by asking at all they were on the wrong 'side'.

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