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Comment by khawkins | Hacker News Reader

Clearly, the goal of this article is to shift power into the hands of the author and her ideologically aligned community.

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Hey it is a good thing that a grassroots, poor NGO like Stanford University get more power.

Well, yes. If you don't like those that wield power you must contest it. Anyone that aims to accomplish a particular goal, such as more equitable AI, will need to challenge the ideology of power and seek to impose their own view.

Generally people accomplish goals by presenting intellectual arguments why the goals are good and should be worked towards. Engaging in power struggles to impose one's view by force is certainly an option that exists, but it's generally seen as toxic behavior and I do not think we should encourage it.

If we read the same article, nowhere is there a suggestion of "[imposing] one's view by force".

Your comment seems to suggest otherwise.

"Impose their own view" comes from the comment I was responding to, and the commenter did not seem to be suggesting an imposition where "those that wield power" would have a choice in the matter.

I don't think you're reading their comment charitably. They're using "impose" in the context of politics being a contest.

Winning a democratic election necessarily "imposes" upon the losers some decisions of the winners, eg. higher taxes. That's not authoritarianism, that's just politics.

>Winning a democratic election necessarily "imposes" upon the losers some decisions of the winners, eg. higher taxes. That's not authoritarianism, that's just politics.

This doesn't change that it's the majority imposing its will on the minority by force.

This is all true, and it's also true that those in power use power to serve their own interests and the interests of their group. That's why power must be contested. If you're neutral, power is serving you or else you'd be incensed.

No, I fundamentally reject the framing. I don't divide the world into things that serve me and things I'm incensed about. Neutral institutions regularly do things that go against my interests, and I don't get angry or seek to overthrow them every time it happens.

Responding to the comment below: Well, then the stakes for you are low enough that you don't care, you feel too powerless to protest, or the decisions are in some sense fair. Very often people are subjected to decisions that are not fair and they should dissent.

Power inequality is rarely solved by “intellectual arguments”. The NSA didn’t have to debate the American public before wiretapping thousands of citizens, the government used its power to hide and subvert, simply became it was the easiest way to collect such data. They didn’t have to ask each and every person if it was okay to use their cell data before doing so, that’s the power dynamic.

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