https://youtu.be/jh8supIUj6c?t=1m29s > A lot of us already subscribe to the mass...

madez · on May 12, 2015

Thanks for taking your time to look up these points.

    > A lot of us already subscribe to the mass psychosis of a all seeing White Man
    in the cloud watching over us.
    
    Erm... really? He wants to bring Religion into this? This isn't the only time
    he references Religion either, but its the most noticeable.

I think this specific connection to religion is spot-on and therefore appropriate. He indirectly highlights the strong connection between humans feeling being watched and their behaviour, and thus why privacy is important.

    > Like these _beautiful_ Nexus phones

    Rather disparaging to owners of Nexus phones. He's pretty much calling you a
    dumb-fuck at this point for buying into Android.

He says these phones are beautiful, and he means it. They are.

But the way he says it is to warn us that their beauty is deceiving us. Basically, he says: "Ignore for a moment how beautiful they are and think about the problem I'm describing."

This seems to be standard rhetoric to me.

I'm an owner of a Nexus phone and I don't feel disparaged. At least not by him.

    On the contrary, if you wish to "Red Pill" a Nexus user, you don't start off
    the argument by calling them a dumb fuck.
    In fact, you need to be sure to NEVER call them a dumb fuck throughout the
    entire presentation.

    And yes, he is calling members of the audience who disagrees with him,
    dumb fucks.

    > Dumb Fucks. And maybe we deserve it.

    Lets be frank here, his point is "If you disagree with me, you're a Dumb Fuck".

These disgusting words are not Aral Balkan's, but Mark Zuckerberg's. He cynically repeats them to make it as clear as possible how the people in power at these companies think about you. They see you as dumb fucks if you entrust them with your data. This is extremely noteworthy.

I think you misunderstand him in that he is calling you a dumb fuck, but in fact the tells you what they are thinking about you.

    But he's so disparaging and elitist it is very hard to actually recommend
    this video to anyone I know.

So, I seriously do not see why he would be disparaging or elitist.

    as soon as you start splitting the crowd up on Religious or
    "WHITE POWER!!!?!?!?" grounds

He was criticizing the huge amount of power a small group of mostly white people have. This is criticism of the current society and neither disparaging nor elitist, quite the opposite.

I think you misunderstand him.

dragontamer · on May 12, 2015

    I think this specific connection to religion is spot-on
    and therefore appropriate. He indirectly highlights the
    strong connection between humans feeling being watched
    and their behaviour, and thus why privacy is important.

I can't say I have traveled the world. In fact, I've only traveled to three countries in my lifetime... two of which are the USA and Canada.

But I have traveled to North Carolina as well as Southern Virginia. I've traveled to Texas and have participated in Methodist Weddings. I have entered said churches and have (accidentally) insulted them by refusing to partake in their rites. (I seriously was just there to see a friend, lol. Gosh... that was awkward).

I have been to multiple Churches, Cathedrals, and Synagogues across this country and have talked to Priests, Ministers, Rabbis. I have devout Muslims who have married into my extended family who would take huge offense at the statement as well. (Depictions of Allah / God are not welcome in that culture... the cartoon is immediately offensive to them)

I can tell you that they in general will find the above comment unnecessarily disparaging, and a non-starter for the start of the talk. I've met people who would have walked out of the talk as soon as that line would have come up.

Which is a shame, because southern conservatism / libertarianism (Rand Paul) is a strong ally in the fight for online privacy. They're a touch religious though, so you definitely need to be cognizant of their viewpoints.

Aral Balkan's opening words immediately isolate our otherwise allies and turn them against us. This is a non-starter in my book. The cause of online privacy is too important for religious politics / bickering to get in the way of things.

    These disgusting words are not Aral Balkan's, but Mark
    Zuckerberg's. He cynically repeats them to make it as
    clear as possible how the people in power at these
    companies think about you. They see you as dumb fucks
    if you entrust them with your data. This is extremely
    noteworthy.

I appreciate your trust in Aral Balkan. But show the talk to someone who disagrees with us on these privacy grounds. "Red Pill" your mom, or just a friend who isn't into these privacy rights politics.

I understand that is what he's _trying_ to say. But he says it in such a way that it is easy to misinterpret.

You aren't misinterpreting it because you agree with him. But if you start off hostile (ie: if an especially religious man was sitting in the audience at the beginning), they'll interpret these words as hostile later in the speech.

A speech is communication. And good communication requires you to understand different perspectives. The fact remains: Aral Balkan's speech is one-sided. It preaches to the choir. The only people who will find him agreeable are the people who already agree with him before he started his speech!

Which makes his speech useless in my perspective. A good speech brings together different people, unites the cause with unlikely allies and provides us a constituency for change. We live in a Democracy, if we can convince enough other people to agree with our privacy concerns, the Politicians will be forced to change the laws towards our favor.

I think I can say that Aral Balkan's speech is decent at rallying the base. But my standards are higher than that: almost anyone can rally the base. The mark of a good speech is one that gains allies to the cause.

    I think you misunderstand him.

I understand him perfectly. I'm trying to argue that he's easy to misunderstand.

madez · on May 12, 2015

    Aral Balkan's opening words immediately isolate our otherwise allies
    and turn them against us. This is a non-starter in my book. The cause
    of online privacy is too important for religious politics / bickering
    to get in the way of things.

I can understand your standpoint of viewing others as potential "allies", but I don't share it.

People have different opinions in different topics. In some topics they may share my opinion, in others they maybe don't.

I don't like stop representing my opinion in one topic just so others help me with another topic. It'd be selling part of my opinions to buy other peoples support. That's Realpolitik and I consider it as a kind of dishonesty.

Aral Balkan chose to state his opinion in more than just one topic in the same talk. He could have hidden his convictions about religion, but he did not. It may not be the most pragmatic approach to solve this one specific problem of online privacy, but maybe it advances us in other ways. Even if it was of less value overall, I value his honesty a lot.

    You aren't misinterpreting it because you agree with him. But if
    you start off hostile (ie: if an especially religious man was
    sitting in the audience at the beginning), they'll interpret these
    words as hostile later in the speech.

I consider strong religious belief a psychological condition, though, it often doesn't require treatment. If you'd consider me hostile and we couldn't rationally and constructively discuss anymore another topic because I stated this last sentence, then I believe we'd have bigger problems than online privacy to solve first.

I genuinely doubt that people would not get that Aral Balkan is cynically repeating the words of Mark Zuckerberg as a warning. Therefore, besides the critique of religion, I don't see why his talk would be considered disparaging.

If his talk was disparaging for someone, then maybe the problem is with that person, not the talk.

Looking at the goal of online privacy, this debate (apart from the question whether he was hostile or others are too sensitive) boils down to pragmatism versus idealism. Are you willing to silence other maybe even more important critique you have to advance one point? I am not.

dragontamer · on May 12, 2015

> I don't like stop representing my opinion in one topic just so others help me with another topic. It'd be selling part of my opinions to buy other peoples support. That's Realpolitik and I consider it as a kind of dishonesty.

I can tell you're young and ideologically pure. I'd suggest you go out to the world and meet lots of people: people you disagree with, people with vastly different cultures than you, and people that you deride as having "psychological conditions".

You probably have something to learn from them. And they have something to learn from you.

If you're unable to work with others because of these (virtually) irrelevant identity politics, then that is your fault as much as theirs.

That's all I'll have to say on the subject, because I definitely don't have a high opinion of this manner of thought. I've come across it plenty of times before, from southern bigots to leftist marxists and militant atheists. Its all the same to me: bigotry and identity politics that get in the way of real workers who are looking to make the world a better place to live in.

Its a big world out there dude, lots of people are going to disagree with you and live their lives in ways you despise. Yet, it will prove beneficial if you learned to work with them. And one point is to ignore the irrelevant identity politics that only serve to divide us.

madez · on May 12, 2015

Sigh, the obligatory personal judgment about the other. Though, this one was one of the kinder ones. Some things you concluded are right, others not so.

Text-based communication is too prone to misunderstandings. I didn't do identity politics, and I certainly didn't mean to.

I guess I'm just more critic towards religion than you, and thus I favored - in contrast to you - Aral's attack at the Abhramistic revelation-based religions.

I'm really curious about what you think about Carl Sagan's, Richard Feynman's, Richard Dawkins' and Richard Lawrence's view towards religion. Their attitudes went from derision over serious and aggressive critique to not putting up to talk to them. Do you think they did identity politics?

dragontamer · on May 12, 2015

    I didn't do identity politics, and I certainly didn't mean to.

    I guess I'm just more critic towards religion than you,
    and thus I favored - in contrast to you - Aral's attack
    towards the Abhramistic revelation-based religions.

By supporting Aral's attack on Abrahamic religions, you are participating in identity politics. Indeed, by making them the entire point of your last post, you are participating in identity politics right now.

I appreciate that you're trying to work with me here, but there's a distinct irony that our conversation has left the realm of online privacy (which IMO, was the thesis of Aral's topic), and into the realm of identity politics.

My point is that these identity politics issues are distracting, and take focus away from the primary point of Aral's speech. Do you not agree with me, that our current discussion is completely irrelevant with respect to Aral's primary point?

And why have we moved into this absurd direction? Was it my fault? Yours? Frankly, I blame neither of us. I blame Aral for bringing up the unnecessary attack, dividing you and I on the subject.

Worst part? You and I agree with each other. We agree that online privacy need to be reformed. And yet, here we are, bickering and wasting time with each other because we disagree on some minor identity politics issue. Do you not understand how the words Aral used are unnecessary, divisive, and detrimental to the cause?

    I'm really curious what you think about Carl Sagan's,
    Richard Feynman's, Richard Dawkins' and Richard
    Lawrence's view towards religion. Their attitudes went
    from derision over serious and aggressive critique to
    not putting up to talk to them. Do you think they did
    identity politics?

I don't think their thoughts are relevant to the topic of online privacy. Indeed, their very existence has derailed our discussion about online privacy and has now focused on identity politics.

This thread of discussion has failed. Be it your fault or my fault, it has failed. Because of identity politics. Why are we talking about Abrahamistic religions? Why aren't we talking about the pros and cons of online privacy?

Because Aral's attacks are distracting. They are unnecessarily distracting to his primary point. I hope you at least agree with me about this basic fact.

Aral's discussion would have been better without the attack. And maybe in that other, hypothetical universe where he held back a little bit more... you and I would have instead discussed Aral's "online privacy" argument directly, instead of the manner that we discussed it here today.

But sure, you can go ahead and continue to ask me questions about religion or whatever. But I'm probably going to stop talking to you if this thread continues in that trajectory. I hope I've made it clear that identity politics bore me, and I don't really want to partake in them.

Indeed, I make it a point to understand different cultures and different people. People are prideful of their identity: African Americans, Southern Baptists, NeoNazis, Iranian transfer students, Militant Atheists, Marxists, Libertarians... I have met many different people. And as long as I just have an _ounce_ of understanding of them, I can prevent discussions from becoming useless identity politic squabbles.

You can go ahead and play atheist and assert your right to criticize Abrahamistic Religions. Indeed, it is your right. But excuse me while I sit on the side, deride you for it, and look down upon it as a petty squabble.

I only hope that one day, you will see the futility of that and learn to work together with religious folk. This isn't "Real Politk", this is basic politics frankly. And you're not going to get much accomplished or rally people behind goals unless you learn to work together with people who fundamentally disagree with you.

madez · on May 13, 2015

I beg to differ that this discussion failed.

See, I learned about identity politics, which I've never had heard about before. I think the concept is interesting, so I'm naturally curious. But I have doubts about it. Lets change the roles, assume an atheist said something related to the snooping at Facebook and Google in a speech about atheism, would that be identity politics, too?

Also, this discussion's made me think about "allies" in political movements and compromises. So, at least for me, this discussion was valuable. Thank you.

This discussion did not derail. Mind you, since the start we weren't talking about online privacy because there never was disagreement about the need of it.

We are in totally different mindsets. That's not bad but good, because we could learn from the others perspective. HN is however not a good platform for longer discussions. I invite you to mail me at christian madez de.