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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

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Not all privacy desires have their foundations in criminality and kiddy porn. Villainizing E2E encryption and truly private spaces as exclusively the domains of ne'er do wells is the exact same tactic people use against guns to win the culture war. Carrying a pistol doesn't make you a paranoid asshole; it means you're vastly more prepared for a rare occurrence than someone who doesn't.

Just to be clear, as I mentioned elsewhere, I'm not villainizing people for using E2E encryption. Just pointing out that E2E encryption is an absolute gift to villains while everyone else using it LARPs as an enemy of the state.

As someone who has guns himself, my view is

  1. it would be best if society had no guns in it
  2. but our society has guns
  3. criminals exist and are incentivized to crime
  4. police cannot stop them from doing crime fast enough
  5. therefore, I should have guns myself

Perhaps if police response time in my town was 90 seconds and not 20 minutes the economics of crime would change, but it's not so I need a gun.

Anyway, I agree given the circumstances handgun ownership makes sense. Is the claim for E2E messaging even this solid?

I want to be able to talk about the government without them listening. I want to be able to talk about psychotic leftists without them getting me fired, and I want to watch exotic pornography without pyschotic rightists getting me fired. I don't trust any convenient megacorp to safeguard me from any of these actors or themselves.

I don't quite follow. You want to be able to do this stuff under your real name without every adversary finding you? Or... you want to be able to do this via an anon handle without being easy to doxx?