Comment by vector_spaces | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vector_spaces | Hacker News Reader

I mostly agree with this article and I'd love to share it with my circle, but I can't get past the condescending tone this article uses towards non-technical folks.

> These are the online serfs who are completely unaware and will never become aware that their freedom and their money is being stolen by their masters, the lords of technology, who they serve unwittingly with their data and monthly fees. These are the instant messaging and cat video addicts whose only concern is that computers be easy enough for toddlers to use. These are the techno-toddlers who refuse to grow up...

Believe it or not there are plenty of extremely intelligent non-technical users who are aware of these issues. And comparing users who are unaware of these issues to toddlers (while at the same time comparing the cognescenti to rebel fighters, even if tongue in cheek) is incredibly obnoxious.

Google, Facebook, and Apple invest ridiculous sums of money in the interest of making their platforms accessible in just about every way you can imagine (and many more you might not). If you want to have a single hope that your message will be heard, you have to think about accessibility (of your message). In particular, don't make people feel stupid. That is the kiss of death in the business of winning hearts & minds, and it's also the number one reason why I personally avoid most free software (and related) activist circles.

Three full pages of insults and (not to us, but still) jargon before the problem is described clearly.

Another full page before it talks even vaguely about what "taking a stand" means to them, and puts them in prose instead of just listing ideas.

Title of the article is "Taking a stand" yet there is no author attributed.

No, I don't disagree with them, but I have to agree with you about it not being the right one to share with less technical people.

The systemd line is weird too. People who use systemd are probably in agreement with you here, any privacy issues there are a different breed than platforms controlled by large companies.

Also the claim that MacOS and iOS run on linux. Even with the correction, it seems odd to know that MacOS is based on Unix, but not know the difference between Linux an Darwin.

It would have been far better if the article had expressed this as a tradeoff: it's entirely valid to choose more time and less frustration over digital sovereignty. You can't assume what other people's situations are, or what a smart choice would be in their situation!

I disagree, it's not valid. People have shown they're fine sacrificing their privacy, their digital rights, their morals in some cases, for the sake of convenience and lower prices.

Taking a stand means at some point saying "It might be your choice but it's wrong." And I know it comes off as preachy and arrogant and better than thou, but if we (arguably the most technically literate people there are) are justifying immoral corporate behaviour in the name of convenience, I have no hope for the future of computing.

if anything it's more damning of toddlers, whom many of the current generation will have the "turn it off and on again" hard reset hard-coded into their early minds, not only surpassing their parents' technical troubleshooting but also their buggy device's first tier support's

Maybe I would try to rewrite the article in a less condescending tone, then share that instead.

Agreed. Statements like "On one side are the lords of technology ... and the unseen ones who control them." don't help, either. It raises an antisemitism caution flag whether the speaker intended to or not.

I would argue that assuming by default that "unseen ones who control them" is referring to Jews is closer to antisemitism.

The OP is simply recognising language commonly used by antisemites. They're not assuming by default.

It's irrelevant to the parent post and discussion.

I wouldn't. For work I end up reading a lot of antisemitic text, and secret control is a major theme. This goes back a long way, including the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. [1] It has stayed solid through the years, as in the claims of secret control of the Federal Reserve. [2] There are notable QAnon elements that parallel classic antisemitic tropes, [3] so it's no surprise that a Q adherent also believes in Jewish space lasers starting forest fires. [4]

In this case, I don't think the author is antisemitic. But when common antisemitic themes come up in a text, you can bet that some readers, me included, will perk up and start looking for other ones.

[1] https://www.adl.org/news/op-ed/the-protocols-revisited-the-f...

[2] https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/jewish-control-o...

[3] https://www.adl.org/qanon

[4] https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/jewish-space-lasers-funny-mar...

But you might be biased by your work.

For me (and, probably, many other people), who doesn't daily work with antisemitic pamphlet, ‶secret control″ evokes more some shady secret service shenanigans (à la Hoover files or MK Ultra) rather than a nebulous international Jewish plot :)

I sometimes wonder whether the world would actually be better off being run by a secret Jewish Cabal.

We already have silicon valley sucking up all the engineers, and wall street absorbing all the math guys.

The last thing we need is a secret jewish cabal to take all the standup comedians off the market.

> I sometimes wonder whether the world would actually be better off being run by a secret Jewish Cabal.

It might look something like: https://web.archive.org/web/20110106011917/http://internatio...

anyone who could manage to secretly run the world would probably be better at it than the clowns we’ve got publicly running the world.

At least in some countries.

There are still a few better runs left.

I assume there would still be a side show to keep us distracted from the important things. And if current politics is good at one thing, it’s keeping people distracted with unimportant outrage.

Sure, that's the point of language like that. If somebody comes right out and says "Nice to meet you, let's KILL THE JEWS" then they get rebuked and shunned. So it gets toned down enough that there's plausible deniability. Instead they talk about the Rothschilds and Soros and (((them))). And "unseen ones who control them", of course.

I get that the language doesn't bother you. But there are plenty of people out there who lost family members due to pogroms brought on in part by antisemitic conspiracy theories. I, and presumably you, are not at the same level of risk, which makes it much easier for us to blow it off. But if your point is, "The experience of Jews reading something doesn't matter as long as I don't see a problem with it," that's a pretty weird stance to take.

The very narrative of secret powers controlling the world is historically tightly connected to antisemitism. Sure, there are alternatives like reptiloids, pedophiles, freemasons, etc. but Jews normally arise at some point in these theories.

If all you can hear is a dog-whistle, you might be a dog.

If that's all you hear, I'm thinking tinnitus.

At that specific frequency, I'd think Tin-Tinitus

Or have some deep trauma with dogs.

But either way, one should not go around accusing people at random.

Who do you believe made an accusation here?

The people accusing the OP of antisemitism before the thread got rewritten and also, the people accusing back the original accusator.

The exact names are not worth hunting down, it appears to be some overreaction caused by tunnel vision with no malice intended from any side. The important thing to note is that both one should not jump to conclusions based on a short bad behavior, and that just because you are hurt, it does not give you the right to go after innocent people.

I don't believe anybody accused the OP of antisemitism. What I see is, "It raises an antisemitism caution flag whether the speaker intended to or not." That's manifestly not an accusation. Do you see something different?

It most likely just refers to venture capitalists or other absurdly wealthy investors, who do indeed exert quiet control, despite not doing any of the actual work.

Not sure why you had to bring Jewish people into the discussion like that. To be honest, I find it quite rude.

reminds me of Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum' and the measures of the Parisian newsstand that refer to the Cheops pyramid and the universe.

If you look hard enough for clues, you will find some.

However, they did not appear to me.

Antisemitism is an ancient thing, so just about everything you could think of has been used as an attack. The point of coded language is plausible deniability. It's impossible to know without a pattern or a mask-off moment. This doesn't seem to represent either.

If you're trying to imply that some language and concepts aren't more common in antisemitic writing, you're definitely wrong. I explain more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245719

No, I'm implying that the post doesn't have enough context to say one way or the other. That said, I do personally avoid language like that for exactly this reason. Avoiding ambiguity is just good writing, and I've had enough "[marginalized group], right?" encounters to not want to give horrible people any notion that I might agree with them.

Actually, I think the post has plenty of context to make clear he's not going for anything antisemitic. Which is why I think it was reasonable to point out specific tropes frequently used in antisemitic writing.

I don’t agree with this at all. It sounds like bullshit. And bullying.

“whether the speaker intended to or not“, is the really messed up line here. Intent is pretty important. In fact, IIRC it’s the pretty important even when deciding if there’s a violation, legally speaking.

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