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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

"I feel like this article isn’t making good faith arguments."

The EFF is an advocacy organization. It definitely "advocates", and does not generally make "rational" arguments. If you always like everything they do, you may have a hard time seeing this, but if you've ever seen them speak about something you are either ambivalent about (probably a lot of people on this matter today) or even outright disagree with them on (as I have), it becomes clear.

I'm not particularly trying to be critical of them here. They advocate; it's what they say they do, it's what they are set up to do, and they're generally in a space that nobody else is even close to advocating for. But I do think it's important to understand them for what they are.

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I don't have an opinion either way about the EFF especially, but I disagree that being an advocacy organization means you don't / can't make rational arguments. I think rational arguments should be expected of everyone; if you're part of an advocacy organization then presumably you think the arguments in favor of that organization's positions are winning, and so you should present those arguments.

Not every position needs to be advocated for.

I generally feel it hurts an advocacy group's credibility when they advocate for something without a rational argument. (And it's not just the EFF that do this.)

It's an interesting dynamic in the role of advocacy...

You can make rational arguments, but the rational advocacy organization quickly learns that it's a great deal less effective than hyperbole and emotion.

And if you want to bemoan that, hey, I'm right there next to you, but, here we are....

Sincerely, I thank you for this post. In our current era, many people blindly follow what their echo chamber has to say. Your post is a refreshing reminder on the difference between advocating a position, as opposed to merely presenting one. The nuance is lost on many.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought, without fully accepting it" is an axiom I always have to remind myself of (and sometimes, frustratingly, others when discussing contentious matters).

Just because one is able to dissect and understand a position that exists and how it functions logically doesn't mean it has their support. After all, I hold the opinion that if you can't articulate a counterargument to your own and truly appreciate its structure, it's probably not the "hill you want to die on".

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