Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

Someone got rightly flagged for making a call for vigilantism. I'd like to respond to them in a non-flagged comment.

To the person apparently so frustrated that they were brainstorming vigilantism-- I'd suggest first at least trying the one thing that HN is allergic to-- getting engaged with politics. Few to none of the respondents here who are vaguely complaining about lobbyists (at the Library of Congress, of all places!) have any experience whatsoever organizing politically.

There is a pair-- literally, two humans-- who were able to get legislation passed in a state that is of general benefit to a) an industry where they weren't big players, and b) to society in general. They weren't oligarchs or billionaires or whoever HN thinks controls the keys to the kingdom. They were just interested and diligent enough to attempt the work. (Well, one of them had enough free time to go and meet with nearly every representative-- I'm not saying it's easy or quick.)

Think about the number of times a bugfix can fail to compile before you finally get it to work. If you apply that discipline and focus to find real, lasting legislative protections to projects like the IA or Sci-hub, you're way more likely to end up making positive changes than through vigilantism.

And of course if you're successful, HN will still criticize you for failing to solve the problem with a fast, homomorphically-encrypted, decentralized, statically-linked, non-Electron, portable executable. I guess you'll just have to accept the tragic ending that the most intelligent people in the world won't understand what you achieved. :(

>> There is a pair-- literally, two humans-- who were able to get legislation passed in a state that is of general benefit to a) an industry where they weren't big players, and b) to society in general.

What is this in reference to? Maybe I missed that part.

I don't see how this applies here. This is a zero-sum game - you are fighting against the money of IP interests, and they have way more money than you. How would anything positive happen out of this?

Vigilantism is immoral, and is not likely to work, but that is still more plausible to do something than trying to out-spend large corporations in lobbying.

Or, move the whole operations to a country which doesn't give a damn about all of this, that's also a way of solving the lawsuit problems.

Politics is not decided by money. Money is a huge factor, and you can't do much without at least some money, but it's not the final word. Politics is determined in large part by how politicians read the mood of their voters, how they personally feel about an issue, and whether what the lobbyists are saying seems to make sense.

There is a grimy call center where politicians go to dial for dollars. Call books, now databases and dialing programs, filled with people of means, are used to connect people with money to politicians.

There are handlers too. People who make sure those calls get made.

The DNC, and likely the RNC, has a party quota, and that runs in addition to whatever getting reelected will require.

On those calls, everyone knows what needs to happen:

Those people of means need to be heard. They also want stuff to happen.

The politicians need dollars, favorable press, testimonials and help paying for staffers who take the incoming calls, faxes letters and whatever else comes in from the/ public. Those staffers often write laws and do research too.

The lobbies play off all that and are able to bring money and whatever else may make sense into the equation.

You are right in the strict sense of dollars not driving choices directly.

The system that does drive choices is packed to the gills with grift, old money, corruption, and in general, people of means and corporations driving most decisions.

Transactions called bribes, that are criminalized in much of the world, happen here daily!

We are among the most propagandized people in the world too.

I forget the study, but it basically showed how voters feel about an issue can count, except economic issues where we basically do not count in all but the most extreme sense.

My take after a good decade of activism and some access to this stuff is a fair bit less charitable.

And yes, we both miss the mark, and that is not good news.

The reality is likely more insidious and toxic to ordinary people.

you're right that it's usually not practical, but i just wanted to point out that a $30k lobbying budget can and has beat a $3M lobbying budget in some cases when there's enough public support. Money in politics is a huge deal and politicians in the US are corrupt as hell and yet somehow the previous sentence sometimes holds true, so all is not lost.

Hold up, what's immoral about vigilantism? That generally only happens when the system fails to do its job.

I'd say the belief that 'the system' is correct by default is more dangerous, mainly due to being rooted in dogma moreso than defensible reason.

I only included that to not get flagged immediately tbh

It is inherently immoral to go against the system because good and evil are defined only by the system.

I guess philosophy and religion don't exist, then? Even children left to their own devices will form ideas about right and wrong, without any formal system needed.

The system (AKA government) can only control what is legal and illegal. Law is a religion of the ruling class. Many evil and wrong things have been committed in the name of Law, with consent of rules written by man. Innocents have died due to actions of the system. By that fact alone, it cannot be considered a moral entity, or to have a superior moral view of others, because it gets it wrong sometimes.

I forget the original quote, but it goes something like "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." Laws are formalization of values, and if those values do not align with a healthy and fair society, they have no right to exist or be given credence. No entity is entitled to the domination or subjugation of another, be it government, family, or $DEITY.

I can't tell if it's a matter of direct calls for vigilantism being against the TOS*, or a matter of comfortable people seeing the potential to get caught up in a shift towards that vigilantism, but flagged or not, I don't disagree with them. We allow for all kinds of preventative and punitive measures to be taken against people who cause harm to one, physically; I would argue that attacks on one's spiritual and intellectual well-being are similarly grievous. What the flagged comment calls for is, essentially, accountability for those who seek to deprive the public of cultural goods. You can go to jail for years for a single instance of robbery, and this is called accountability; but the law and norms say that to keep thousands from experiencing the enrichment of a particular piece of art, a substantive infringement of their human rights, deserves a six-figure salary. Civil disobedience is an ethical option.

Many posters are Americans, where gun ownership (to protect oneself from others with guns), big trucks (to protect oneself from other with big vehicles), and MAD are accepted facts of life. Personal harassment that disincentivizes antisocial behavior isn't radical, it's evolutionary.

*BTW, this is not one such direct call. It's a musing on its appropriateness. Feel free to rebut.

Hey but a fast, homomorphically-encrypted, decentralized, statically-linked, non-Electron, portable executable would be nice

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