Dear Neighbors, My mind boggles as I realize that next year there will be people who will be old enough to legally drink alcohol (in the US) who were born after the Patriot Act became law. That time already came and went for the DMCA. For us old farts, this means the next generation has never known what it’s like to have the freedoms that were stripped away with those horrible pieces of legislation. Having to worry about saying something publicly online that could “get you in trouble” is a way of life now. The mere fact that we are having a discussion amongst “hackers" about information that’s “too dangerous” in an un-ironic fashion is quite fantastic to me. My knee-jerk reaction is a hyperbolic/sarcastic response, but over the past few years it’s become impossible to say something that’s too crazy to be seen as obvious sarcasm so I refrain.
People often forget the other half of what makes Freedom Of Speech so important: it allows you to identify people you may wish to not associate with more easily. What also comes along with this is more frequent exposure to opposing opinions to your own. It has become fairly dangerous to express a dissenting opinion publicly on certain topics even before 2020 blew through town. It’s now “normal” to be outraged at a dissenting opinion which is now usually followed with the need for activism against these ideas. Other cultures have experimented with this to horrifying effect, I’ll refrain from saying more. The “system” of HPR works fine as-is, it doesn’t need special rules for special topics. If you dislike what another author is saying that’s fine. Please feel free to submit your own episode making a counter argument. Better yet, why not engage the author of the episode that got your attention, maby you can do an episode together. HPR is not a large faceless corporation so resorting to the same methods as one seems like a poor choice. The hard thing in all of this is that it’s easy to take your own natural side. What we often miss is that usually both sides can be right and wrong at the same time. If you can’t go into the conversation with that in mind then it won’t work well though. It’s amazing what you can learn when you really try to wear the opinion of someone you oppose for a while. -dosman
signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP
_______________________________________________ Hpr mailing list [email protected] http://hackerpublicradio.org/mailman/listinfo/hpr_hackerpublicradio.org
