Part 2: Cryptography vs. Big Brother: How Math Became a Weapon Against Tyranny - YouTube

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 11:14:06PM -0300, Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2020 11:30:24 +1100
> Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:
> 
> > Given how vehemently, persistently (even "religiously") that "the left" targets the removal of guns, the removal of the second amendment, it looks to some like guns ARE a thawn in the side of the empire.
> 
> 	No, it's just another pointless, idiotic, partisan 'issue'. Like, say, abortion.
> 
> 	And of course you ignored what I said. The kind of assholes who have guns in the US are the same assholes who love cops and love to shoot brown people. 

Now you're into Karl's old position of "Whites killing Blacks for sport".

You seriously need to start backing that up (at least, if you want to be taken seriously) and perhaps also consider narrowing your target down from "all people who own guns", since such generality simply isn't taken seriously - it's the kind of argument that leads Oxdynamite to label the maker of such an argument "a shill", and his labelling is frankly more compelling than "the argument".


> > It makes no sense for "regular folks" to give up their guns, just as it makes no sense for regular folks to give up their crypto (no matter how poor it is).
> > 
> > And again to brand us all "fascist bigots" does not sound like an argument, but sounds like an ad hom.
> 
> 
> 	https://blog.jim.com/crypto/silk-road-2-0-goes-down/#comments
> 	jim says: 2014-11-09 at 21:29 
> 
> 	"Consider Trayvon Martin. His abuse of over the counter drugs caused brain damage, resulting outbursts of irrational violence. But should we therefore ban Robitussin for everyone? No, we should only ban it for blacks.
> 
> The kind of people who buy drugs on the Silk Road are not the kind of people who cause problems by their drug consumption. Superior people need freedom. Inferior people need supervision."
> 
> 
> 	to state the obvious, you cannot take anything said by a bigot like James seriously. 

I'm hearing what you're saying. Are you hearing what he is saying? If you suggest there is no possible "truth" in that quoted statement, perhaps there is none, but perhaps we (and by "we" I mean values of "we" which correspond to "you") ought look a little deeper than the superficial reactive:

Could there be a correlation between IQ, and ability to handle the side effects of Robitussin?  That is, could it be true that those with low IQ are more likely to "lose it publicly" than those with a higher IQ?

(To be sure, I do not know the answer to that question, I'm just considering the possibility...)

And if that question can be answered in the affirmative, can we then "give reasonable meaning" to the phrase "inferior people" by substituting it with "low IQ individuals" ??

The mind of open inquiry does not dismiss such questions merely "because they are distasteful" - facts are facts, and our job is to discover them.


> > "Work with what you got", surely?
> > 
> > Our guns are under attack, so we use that attack, really -use- that attack as Judo pros (well, we might not be very professional about it :D ).
> > 
> > Govcorp wants to backdoor crypto by statute?  Sounds like an attack by the empire against another thorn in its other side - let's use more, not less, of that thorn.
> 
> 	Notice how you flip like a pancake. Yesterday you pretended to understand the problem, now you're shilling for more 'technology'.

Notice how you're trying to hold me to a dichotomy:

   1) I'm "allowed" to understand one of the problems of technology.

   2) I'm "not allowed" to consider that a dissident using tech for his dissidence, is still useful.


Disallowing your target (in this case me) from holding these two positions simultaneously, can be called trying to hold me to a dichotomy.

Now, if those two statements 1) and 2) truly are mutually exclusive - that is, only one, or the other, can be true at the same time - then yes, it is appropriate to hold me to that dichotomy, to help me clear my muddled thinking.

But if those statements can both be true at the same time, then to hold me to choose only one of them to be true, is what we obviously call a false dichotomy.

I suggest that in this case, you are attempting to hold me to a false dichotomy.


> > The challenge and quantum of the problem, does not mean we ought shirk the fixing.
> > 
> > Yes, we -should- remain on high alert to how to maximise "the people's" use of various tools, be it guns or crypto.
> 
> 	yeah let me know when the US right-wing nazis use their guns against their beloved government. Until then, the fact remains : they are enslaved fucktards who pretend they are 'free' because 'uncle sam' 'protects' them from muslamic 'terrists'. And 'child porn'.

Thats another (possibly) false dichotomy - on a cursory view, it looks to me like a false dichotomy ("except that the US right-wing nazis use their guns against their beloved government, they are enslaved fucktards who pretend they are 'free'").  At least, it looks false to me.