But I do believe them. It's just that they points that they sincerely ( I did not doubt that) made are part of the same set of points that are made in favor of a surveillance state - there is a contradiction here. Instead of assuming, I asked a question.

Quite literally this:

> attempt to understand how they could come to believe those things.

Is it possible that you are not reading my comment charitably ?

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ajkjk 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You asked them "why do you go on making these pro surveillance state arguments?"

How is that supposed to be a serious question? They brought up real concerns. The "why" is obviously that they had real questions--that's the purpose of all questions. So they asked them,and then you implied that, if a person was truly not pro-surveillance, they would not ask such questions. Yet they had those questions. So you think they should have pretended to not be confused? Not asked those questions? Pretended like everything made sense? What was the goal here?

You didn't engage with the content of their questions at all. You just called out the act of questioning. You implied that by asking at all they were on the wrong 'side'.

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yosamino 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Look, I was trying to understand why the op believed the points that they made were not "pro surveillance-state", that doesn't align with what you are interested in reading here, but that's not really my job.

> You implied

I think you are implying that I implied.

Best to end this here, probably.

	▲	ajkjk 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Everyone who writes 'not trying to sound pro X, but... ' is about to follow that with things that sounds pro X. That's what that rhetorical device means. So they obviously knew that the points sounded pro-surveillance. That's why they wrote that disclaimer.