On 11/19/14, Andy Isaacson
... Have you heard of the phrase "harm reduction"? You can't solve a social/technical problem by insisting that only perfect solutions are acceptable. You must provide incremental solutions that can be part of a broad based move from the horrible place where we are now, towards a more safe future.
i used to agree with this, and then i realized this is bad advice if incremental improvements are resulting in less security over time. said another way, if you are currently falling behind quickly, by not moving, then moving ahead at a walk just means you fail less soon than others. everyone ends up in fail, however.
I mean, *you* can do whatever you want, but users are going to ignore solutions that don't connect to where they are today. "Incremental steps with continuous improvement" is a model for advice that actually works in improving outcomes for real populations. "Burn everything to the ground and start over" is a model for advice that lets activists maintain ideological purity without dirtying their hands with actual people's actual problems.
i think this is only true if the magnitude of broken and incompetent crushes you into inaction. if instead it spurs you to build, for years, on something of a solid base, then criticism must be deferred until that base is put to the test. of course, my time spent writing rebuttal subtracted from the time best applied proving or denying in practice, arm chair theory inviting as it is... best regards,