> I just don't accept the absolutist idea that if anything can be gotten around by any means, that means it can't still be sensible policy

Now on that I agree strongly, there is a crowd on here that believe that technical weaknesses defeat political strengths, and focus all their effort into proving a technical workaround only for the political juggernauts to continue crushing their freedoms.

These are arguments which often flow, "This law is impossible to enforce in totality, therefore the law will fail", which fails to understand what law really is, and how much people abide to even bad laws.

I think we disagree on what's actually needed to defeat the increasing centralisation of the internet, I think it really needs a movement to wake people up, it needs skilled political operators, and it needs passionate orators, to spread the message that we're increasingly operating in a controlled space which every year has greater hurdles to communicate outside of the bounds which those who control it allow, rather than the open internet we used to enjoy and need to fight to defend.

And, most importantly, that that fight needs to be political and not technical. Being seduced by the appeal of technical solutions is unhelpful distraction. Cryptocurrency will not keep you free. Duress pins will not keep you free. It is political will that will do that.

Hear, hear. I could even argue that the dearth of "skilled political operators" and "passionate orators" - at least excluding the ones that seem to be under exclusive contract to the Devil himself - is maybe the worst part of our current era. And it's widespread, and on multiple continents. We haven't seen the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, or FDR, or even JFK or LBJ, in a whole generation. Even a comparison to Richard Nixon, by any measure, makes every presidential candidate and congressional leader in the past 20 years look like buffoons and fools. Terms like "Debate" have become redefined as "Insulting and ranting past your opponents to get cheers out of your fans." No wonder we can't pass any policy that makes any sense with these jackasses in charge.

And in case anyone wonders, on my list of skilled politicians above, I'm only old enough to have witnessed Nixon, so this is not a "back in my day" rant. It's a "it hasn't been ok since way before my day."