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Comment by themitigating | Hacker News Reader

How about standing up to the people who implemented the ban and their supporters. I don't understand why we are working around oppression.

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Technical workarounds and social activism aren't mutually exclusive; given how long the latter can take to achieve results, it's often useful to have the former in the meantime.

By bypassing the block you lessen the need for social activism

Or just self-host your repositories and don't deal with centralized Git services given that techies here are hyping around how 'easy' it is to spin up Mastodon instances.

Should be even easier to self-host a Git repository then, just like a website.

your goal should be making these impossible to enforce, social activism is not an end in itself

This doesn't add up. Should the `work around` not be used because it lessens the need for social activism ?

One does not negate the other.

So much the worse for social activism then.

Bypassing the block renders the authoritarian control measures ineffective and/or void. This is an act of resistance in itself. Why do you think bypassing the ban is conforming to authority?

You bypassing the block remedies the situation for you. The thing is, not everyone is a super techy like you. The problem is everyone else who isn't you having access restored.

While F you, got mine is tempting, you gotta remember the follow through. Always punch up.

Why do you assume those who know how to bypass the block won't share it? Contrary to your expectations, people don't exist as isolated entities in vacuum.

You're assuming that even if the method of bypassing it is widely available everyone can figure it out or has access to help

Bypassing authoritarian control measures isn't mutually exclusive with social activism. Your entire premise was false to begin with.

Again, it can be exclusive. People who are able to bypass the restriction might not feel the need to fight it

Why do you feel the need to keep inventing false premises? You literally have no point here.

What is a false premise? You're saying that it's not possible a person who disagrees with this block won't fight to overturn it if he can find a work around?

This is called "accelerationism". It does not work. It is a maladaptive thought-pattern, nursed by people on the political fringe.

The theory is that as things get worse and worse, there will come a moment when everyone suddenly "wakes up", and acts in unity to overthrow their oppressors and build a better system (under the command of the enlightened few, of course). This happens approximately never (see: Qanon), and when it does, the chances of a good result are even more remote (see: Bolshevism).

It serves a useful emotional purpose for the adherents: you don't have to do anything, make friends with anyone, understand the world around you. Just wait for the apocalypse, for the day when the Elect will seize power and shoot their enemies etc etc.

Back in the real world, here is how you build a large effective political coalition: by solving people's problems in the here and now. This is how the Fabians built the welfare state.

> This happens approximately never (see: Qanon), and when it does, the chances of a good result are even more remote (see: Bolshevism).

I would also count Russia in the current war into the "never bucket". Many expected them to overthrow the dictatorship, but the internal situation only became worse since 2022. If anything as more people leave, system becomes more homogenous and even more supportive of current status quo.

...I'll guess you've never been hit by an indian policeman with a stick? And they don't wear bodycams. My point being: your words are empty if you're not actualky there. Just imagine what happened pre-body cam (USA/ UK etc) and multiply that by many, throw in a LOT of judicial corruption and 'standing up to' becomes a little more difficult than it would at first appear. Circumnavigation may be the best option at the moment.

It seems to me that modifying the world so that the oppressive policy becomes irrelevant is always preferable.

And when that's not possible, heck yeah, stand up to power with truth in hand.

What would be your favorite way of standing up to the people who implemented the ban and their supporters?

Punishing them financially through boycotts, cutting off friends and family, voting them out, and terminating their employment.

Whatever can be done obviously

How, exactly, do you propose doing that? Do you mean hiring lawyers to try and get the court's decision reversed? Or lobbying to get legislation passed to prevent courts from being able to do things like this in the future? And if the court's decision doesn't get reversed and/or the legislation doesn't pass, what then?

Go after the supporters of the people who implemented the ban.

There's probably quite a lot of them. Modi-style authoritarianism is extremely popular in India.

And it will continue to be if people ignore things like this. In a democracy the voters are responsible for the actions of the leaders

>In a democracy the voters are responsible for the actions of the leaders

The corollary being that citizens of democratic countries have the leaders they deserve.

Any responsibility on voters tends to be greatly attenuated in anything but the smallest of democracies.

Unfortunately yes. Every democratic country deserves the government they get. However, in the case of India, it seems that it is slowly sliding towards authoritarianism and maybe soon Modi and co. can elect themselves without asking the people. Though India is not alone with this and it is happening in multiple countries. Usually the end of credible opposition, being crushed, marks the beginning of the end, like we have seen with Russia and Belarus.

Here are some red flags from India:

https://scroll.in/article/1027566/opinion-indian-democracy-i...

And they are very powerful on the internet as well as migrants in western countries of the majority so-called-majority-religion-of-india support them. Hate speech on the internet against non-Hindus is common in the country and even here they are trying hard to remove my comments fearing many people will see their true faces. It's only social media and whatsapp that's required by you-know-which-majority-religion terrorist accounts to spread venom and hate speech against other communities. source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61090363

> Go after the supporters of the people who implemented the ban.

I don't know what you mean by this, but if you mean persuading them to change their support, that's a very long timeline, certainly not something that fits into a development sprint...

And if you mean "attack" supporters of the people who implemented the ban, that's a terrible idea.

"go after" how exactly?

In order to stop "the right " you need to be worse than them

That's definitely worth doing, but you still need a workaround in the meantime.

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