This doesn't strike me as very insightful...
Let me start with the most important objection: he's basically advocating for anonymity to protect oneself from violence. Asking the (potential) victim to change their behaviour because of others' willingness to break the law tends to be unhelpful, especially in the realm of political violence, where victims are looking for support more than actual safety advice.*
It's especially egregious considering he's agonising about a problem that's basically solved. At least in the US and Europe, acts of political violence are negligible. And while the few that remain are tragic and deserve further efforts, his attitude of we'll-never-solve-this-abandon-ship seems...off?
Some more unsorted notes:
- If at all, I'd frame this problem more in terms of political dissidents in Turkey/China/Russia/etc. (But yes–this post was apparently inspired by a recent meeting, making the focus understandable)
- Those levels he comes up with seem to be completely arbitrary. I could invent as many such levels as needed: "the safety to order physical goods", "the safety to know that medical information is accurate" etc.
- His "golden" level of online safety comes across as a sort of caricature. Firstly, I'm not sure if anybody uses the term "social justice advocate" without irony or ill intent–but I'm not a native speaker and may be mistaken.
- As one of those people he's talking about, I think the "“safety” most social justice advocates tend to focus on" is the safety of a woman having an abortion, or a poor African-American being stopped by police. But yeah, I guess there are some that get death threats and it's probably not a good life when the mob comes for you.
Let me start with the most important objection: he's basically advocating for anonymity to protect oneself from violence. Asking the (potential) victim to change their behaviour because of others' willingness to break the law tends to be unhelpful, especially in the realm of political violence, where victims are looking for support more than actual safety advice.*
It's especially egregious considering he's agonising about a problem that's basically solved. At least in the US and Europe, acts of political violence are negligible. And while the few that remain are tragic and deserve further efforts, his attitude of we'll-never-solve-this-abandon-ship seems...off?
Some more unsorted notes:
- If at all, I'd frame this problem more in terms of political dissidents in Turkey/China/Russia/etc. (But yes–this post was apparently inspired by a recent meeting, making the focus understandable)
- Those levels he comes up with seem to be completely arbitrary. I could invent as many such levels as needed: "the safety to order physical goods", "the safety to know that medical information is accurate" etc.
- His "golden" level of online safety comes across as a sort of caricature. Firstly, I'm not sure if anybody uses the term "social justice advocate" without irony or ill intent–but I'm not a native speaker and may be mistaken.
- As one of those people he's talking about, I think the "“safety” most social justice advocates tend to focus on" is the safety of a woman having an abortion, or a poor African-American being stopped by police. But yeah, I guess there are some that get death threats and it's probably not a good life when the mob comes for you.