If "no backdoors on e2e encryption" isn't a sufficient definition of blue, if that's just staring at a wall, then what is the hierarchy, specifically? What do I have to believe, in concrete terms, before my support for digital privacy counts?

In one sense: yes. But in a different sense, if their post was about how they were leaving a more left-leaning platform and they dropped in a bunch of examples about how it was important to support gun-rights and pro-life groups and was alienating people on the left as a result, I'd like to think I'd be objecting in a similar way. (I certainly wouldn't be saying that you can't be pro-encryption without converting to libertarianism or whatever.)

>should be treated as pure technical and legal question

I would like that, yes. I remember being super annoyed watching net neutrality become a partisan issue in real time. I believe that ideologues are always going to exist, but for a lot of us, it's our choice to decide whether or not we are going to play that game or if we're going to do the work to persuade the persuadable and build coalitions to get wins where we can get them.

That's why I chose to be vague in some of my language, because I think it's important to be able to modulate how you speak to different people in service of other types of goods. I don't see a benefit of trying to litigate abortion or authoritarianism in a Hacker News thread about the EFF. I do see a benefit in trying to convince people that advocacy groups staying in their lanes, and that it's good to have voices that try to operate outside the left/right divide in the US in 2026.

>roll back

I get that you're saying that because it fits certain definitions of "reactionary". I don't believe in turning back any clocks, even if I might be in favor of bringing back, in some form, policies that have been dropped. If you see that as a distinction without a difference, so be it.

But "reactionary" often has a particular set of right-wing connotations that I wouldn't feel comfortable identifying myself with.

From there you pivot hard into your criticisms of a particular person as well as your perceptions about how he impacts the broader political landscape. As I started to reply to some of those ideas I realized that this is all a pretty different line of discussion than the idea that you originally engaged with me on, or even what the EFF said in its own post.

I can understand frustration at me being "cryptic and vague" - and that's something I could answer for you!

But it seems like you already have an answer to that question, you have made a judgment about my values, and are now calling me insufferable.

I asked you a question in this comment - and I wouldn't mind an answer, which is why I'm not tacking on a "you people" comment or some kind of insult, because I think that would make it less likely that I get one.

https://v1.benbarry.com/project/f8-conference

I ended up learning enough processing to mimic a lot of what he did with the connected dots. It was great.

I'd love to get back into this sometime! Gotta have a reason though...

Have a nice evening!

You seem to be saying that people can't paint together unless everyone agrees on who holds the brush, what brand of brush is used, and what everyone's broader philosophy of painting is.

Is that correct?

I'll ask you then: What are the three main areas of advocacy where you think the EFF has been the most visible and/or effective?

What is your working definition of freedom? I'm interested in replying but I'd like to engage with you on your terms.

(It's also buying into the narrative that X is a ideological monolith. It, of course, is not. But it does lean a different way than other major social media platforms, which means there's a unique opportunity to speak to a different kind of audience!)

Through that lens, I guess it makes sense that they see TikTok, Instagram, and BlueSky as worth their time and presence but not X.

But I'll note that it's super...weird? in the sense that it's like halfway between being both relaxing and excitative, nature and machine. I went in expecting a thrill ride and it wasn't quite that, but it wasn't quite relaxing either (though I'd imagine the more you do it the more it feels like the letter!).

Or are you trying to say that things like

"this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves"

or

"You would imagine that [written speeches] had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves."

aren't actual statements of opposition, or that there are no parallels to that and LLMs?

And to be clear, maybe some things were genuinely lost when we switched to the written word. But I have to believe it was a net gain.

Time will tell if that's true here as well.