zlacker

>>syness+(OP)
I have two unrelated thoughts.

"Chilling effect" has always been a profound term for me, because I imagine the "cold" (numbness really) sensation a human body often senses when something truly awful (disembowlment/dismemberment) occurs. The body's way of protecting itself is to go "cold", and in many ways that's exactly the effect taking place here, as well.

There's also an undeniable part of this conversation that rarely gets addressed simultaneously, and I'd like to see it sussed out more in concert; what about the folks who are doing Evil in these private channels? It's unacceptable to me that TOR gets used for child pornography, and it's unacceptable to me that my government finds out I'm gay before I come out to my family.

I don't want to provide those who would do Evil any safety or quarter. I also want to give people a powerful shield to protect themselves against judgement and persecution from the public and sometimes the law.

We should talk about achieving both of these goals, but we generally don't.

>>Laaw+5a
what about the folks who are doing Evil in these private channels?

Evil is agnostic of location. Your question is of no significance. You might as well be perturbed over "Evil" people living in houses or eating food. Unsurprisingly, evil people are people and will tend towards the same activities people generally engage in.

>>vezzy-+ya
Yours is a defeatist attitude, I think, and there is plenty of evidence that Evil can be stopped/averted in many cases. It's beyond obvious that there is no complete solution for Evil, but if you keep ignoring this question/problem, then people will continue to pick the "no Evil/no privacy" option over your "Evil/privacy" alternative, which is ultimately devastating to everyone.

We need to talk about how to create "no Evil/privacy", or at least how to approach something of that kind, even if an absolute version doesn't exist.

>>Laaw+Sa
I'm really curious what you think evil is since you keep capitalizing and speaking of it as some spiritual essence that can be eradicated.

You have not established the slightest bit of an operational definition, and resort to pathologizing neutral transmission channels as hosts of "Evil". This is a complete non-starter and not worthwhile to deliberate. "Evil uses Tor" is as useful as "Evil uses paper".

>>vezzy-+kb
But evil uses paper is probably going to do less harm than evil uses Tor or a gun or a nuke. Societal control must adapt to the medium on a regularly adjusting basis depending on the perceived level of evil.

>>tdyen+xj
Do not underestimate the power of paper. Because with the right amount of legal framework (on paper) I can evict people from their houses, sell these of for a nice profit and not have to care for the fate of said people.

I could rob whole countries of their future (say Greece) with paper treaties.

I can rob people of most of their democratic power (see lots of tries at treaties like TTIP or some things like this).

All on paper and in my eyes tending to the evil side.

The problem with evil though is, that it isn't an objective term, it is not empirically measurable and it has so many definitions and perspectives, that it has none.

Evil is a weasle-word, is propaganda, nothing more. So we really need a better word, a better definition. And breaking the law or something like that does not work either, as for example the laws in Germany, the US or Saudi Arabia or China tend to differ massively. They are ideologically tainted and do not provide an objective framework/reference either.

So we should work on a actionable and helpful definition first and not go partisan on the medium to be controlled.

>>sdoeri+rk
The issue here is more or less. A kitchen knife is bound to cause less casualty than a machine gun in the hand of a psycho, hence we require licenses for gun. It's not to eliminate death through violence, it's to reduce and deter it. We don't want people to reach for the nearest machine gun whenever they have a domestic quarrel (obviously we don't want people to reach for a knife either, but I hope you get my point) or when their neighbor's dog poops in their yard.