And it is always under the guise of anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism or whatever other reason they can find to excuse their inexcusable actions. Take mass government surveillance for example.
Been on this site for a decade. Never seen it this filled with Big Gov and Big Tech apologists.
The way the government has been approaching cryptography and privacy in general is very much "throw the baby out with the bath water, we don't need it". What is happening in the financial privacy space (i.e. developments in crypto) should be alarming to anyone who believes in democracy, in my opinion.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
Edit: I don't get why financial privacy is consistenly presented as a win for the "little guy" against "the man". The "little guy" spends most of his money on necessities and pays moderate to low taxes relative to other parts of society. The parties standing to win the most in a world where any transactions can easily be kept private are those that wield a lot of money, a lot of power, or both. Consider Nancy Pelosi's insider trading and how hard it would be to discover/prove if those transactions could be kept private.
The thing is, most people here don’t think that escaping government encroachment is a worthwhile endeavor. Which is pretty much the antithesis of the word “hacker”
You are assuming that the government is tech-illiterate/tech avoidant. As it stands, several US government agencies are way ahead of civilians on tech, and not for the purposes of escaping the government. Technology is just a tool, it can be used to further any end the wielder chooses
At this point, the majority of the comments I read sound like a CNN anchor script. Ha, maybe it's their web developers.
Yep. I could see why you would think that.
> Now the counter-culture seems to be non-existent, and actually looked down on.
What changed?
> At this point, the majority of the comments I read sound like a CNN anchor script.
There it is. Your attitude. Your comment.
HN is still mostly what it was when I first joined. The issue isn't that HN isn't counter-culture.
Rather, you aren't.
My hypothesis is that each of these groups come here after being kicked out or pushed out of wherever they usually hang out. The ones that remain on HN after a period of time are the ones that dang doesn't wear out via moderation or haven't been outright banned. They eventually learn to be good HN members and then stay.
No.
> Been on this site for a decade. Never seen it this filled with Big Gov and Big Tech apologists.
Probably because you disagree with tech/gov right now. It's really a case of "the leopard ate my face." HN has a long history of supporting "Big Tech." The issue is, you don't like how big tech is using it's power now, but were fine with it using that power years ago.
> Never seen it this filled with Big Gov and Big Tech apologists.
It's always been that way. You just refused to see it because it aligned with your views.