Post-privacy society vs. the BNP
Nov. 18th, 2008 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andygatesThe panopticon isn't always a bad thing. The BNP's* membership list has been leaked online. You can even check it yourself and see just how many knuckle-dragging racists there are in your town! And for giggles, here's one of their blogs: you can smell the panic among the big strong boys who sign on as "anonymous".
Bless. They're worried that they might lose their jobs (plenty of jobs formally preclude political activism such as party membership). Give 'em a week and they'll find a way to blame it on the Muslims, darkies or Poles, you bet.
Yes, I'm gloating. Light exposes cockroaches. You see, I'm a kind of tolerance-fundamentalist. That means that I'm fiercely antagonistic to intolerance. This has to be the case: if tolerance tolerates intolerance then it gets swamped and less tolerant; to be maximally tolerant, it must be maximally intolerant of intolerance.
No, I won't repeat that three times when drunk.
How could this secret club have done better? Well, they could have encrypted everything, but this looks like a deliberate leak: someone with a grudge published the list. Can't really defend against that one. How does this affect other secret clubs which, maybe, don't stink as much? Will my Sea Shepherd sponsorship come out? Or my Masonic Lodge dues? Maybe it's time for real secret societies to come back: ones with handshakes and deadly vows, and no access to email. I don't think it will work.
So: don't join anything you'd be embarrassed to be identified as a member of. Anywhere. Ever.
Meanwhile, I have to work out what to do to the three scaredy-cat thugs in my town. Suggestions?
* Basically homegrown nazis, "send-em-home" Little Englander racist cretins. (wiki)
Bless. They're worried that they might lose their jobs (plenty of jobs formally preclude political activism such as party membership). Give 'em a week and they'll find a way to blame it on the Muslims, darkies or Poles, you bet.
Yes, I'm gloating. Light exposes cockroaches. You see, I'm a kind of tolerance-fundamentalist. That means that I'm fiercely antagonistic to intolerance. This has to be the case: if tolerance tolerates intolerance then it gets swamped and less tolerant; to be maximally tolerant, it must be maximally intolerant of intolerance.
No, I won't repeat that three times when drunk.
How could this secret club have done better? Well, they could have encrypted everything, but this looks like a deliberate leak: someone with a grudge published the list. Can't really defend against that one. How does this affect other secret clubs which, maybe, don't stink as much? Will my Sea Shepherd sponsorship come out? Or my Masonic Lodge dues? Maybe it's time for real secret societies to come back: ones with handshakes and deadly vows, and no access to email. I don't think it will work.
So: don't join anything you'd be embarrassed to be identified as a member of. Anywhere. Ever.
Meanwhile, I have to work out what to do to the three scaredy-cat thugs in my town. Suggestions?
* Basically homegrown nazis, "send-em-home" Little Englander racist cretins. (wiki)
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-18 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-18 11:24 pm (UTC)Only to find you'd already put it up. That'll teach me to only browse my friend's pages :P
Still, you'd be amazed how hard it is to track that blighter down if you DIDN'T know about wikileaks. Anyone would think people are trying to bury it...
no subject
Date: 2008-11-19 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-19 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-19 02:04 am (UTC)