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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.