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Comment by ShroudedNight | Hacker News Reader

This is so awful that it strikes me as likely being a door-in-the-face[1] proposal designed to make a more 'reasonable' proposal that is still vile on its own merits seem palatable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique

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Don't you think it'd be better to ratify the most vile proposal while the ideals of freedom still have majority reign? To create a fiasco so enduring it won't soon be forgotten? And before tools of mass manipulation become any more technologically sophisticated?

If I'm reading [1] correctly, we're just picking up momentum down a decades-long slippery slope.

1. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/FIW_202...

I expect initially only those who are unpopular and unlikely to be defended by the public will be prosecuted. Then over time more political enemies (probably starting with "trans women aren't women" activists) will be prosecuted and the slow slide begins...

The law of large numbers means that the vast majority won’t be prosecuted so nobody will really care. See: patriot act.

The proposal does outline Options A-E, and of course decides that Option E, the most aggressive one, is the way to go. Maybe they plan to fall back on D or C, if E gets rejected.

Interesting that it has a name, to make "Door in the face" akin to the opposite "Foot in the door".

It is discussed by Charlie Munger as part of what he calls the "reciprocation tendency", after the studies from Robert Cialdini in the practice of "«ask for a lot and back off»".