The power of analogies

[drwex]

Yochai Benkler, writing in the Guardian, noted that the US is suffering from an auto-immune disorder. That thing created to defend the body (politic) from external threats has begun attacking the body itself.

John Kelsey, a cryptographer with NIST, compared the news that the NSA had deliberately compromised encryption standards to hearing that the government replaced all of a vaccine with salt water because some nasty jihadis get vaccinated.

The last time I tried to talk about this I think people didn't understand my view of how serious the situation is. In the intervening two months every piece of news that has come out has shown that things were even worse than we thought. Perhaps some analogies will help?

Comments

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Perhaps some analogies will help?

Help solve the problem, or help people understand your point of view?

[drwex]

The latter. Thank you for pointing out that unclarity - I will edit.

I don't think there's much that we personally can do about this massive and systemic a dysfunction. We are fortunate to live in a state where our reps seem inclined to do what they can. I don't know what more we can do, from an individual PoV.

Once we see which companies are able to take pro-consumer positions I will probably try to vote with my credit card by changing my providers and software/service purchases to those vendors I see as acting positively. But I'm not in the business of telling other people how to spend their money.

[sariel-t.livejournal.com]

pebble.