By this logic, we should never try to escape our abusers or resist our oppressors: we should just capitulate now, give them everything they want, and that way they won't escalate to (more) violence.

In a nutshell, this is bullshit. Bootlicker bullshit.

In a democracy (which our Western nations are certainly supposed to be, though that's become less true over time), if the people in government are doing things that are counter to the interests of the people, the appropriate response is to replace those people. Protest, contact your representatives and senators, contribute to campaigns that oppose what they're doing, etc.

And, of course, in an authoritarian state, if they decide they're going to add in backdoors to our phones, or ban encryption, or take whatever other draconian measures, then it doesn't matter a huge amount how we, the people, express our opposition to this; it's extremely unlikely that we have just enough collective strength and will to prevent them doing A, but not to prevent them from doing B instead. Either we can stop both, or neither.

So our strategy should be to shut down AI so it leaves vulnerabilities everywhere? Not sure what you are saying. Fixing security bugs across the world's software isn't some single policy action that we can vote on.

Governments should behave. I know they don't, but they should, and the population should do everything in their power to force them to. What other choice do we have?

Please demonstrate your powerful faculty of critical thought and explain what we should do instead.

I think "nope" is in reference to "hacking" system. The point of the article is that hacking by software vendors that sell to law enforcement was a pressure relief valve that deflated the movement that the FBI was pushing at the time to have Apple (and others) build backdoors into their systems. If the phones could be hacked, and backdoors were not necessary the FBI could back off and still get what they want. If the FBI can't get what they want, they can either pressure the companies like Apple, or they can pressure congress to make laws requiring this. The phone makers could stand on principle, go to court, but the courts in the US are not very tech savvy, and usually deferential to law enforcement. Other countries may be better than the US, but some are definitely going to be worse.

So is a backdoor worse than a security vulnerability? I don't know but that is what this article is about.

What do you mean "Nope", you mean "Yep" right? What you are describing is precisely "more authoritarian and aggressive"

It sounds like we should be gearing up for that fight then, so we can win it.