[eevilspock]

I have an Obama "Yes We Scan" image as the banner of my Facebook page. And yes, I see the irony of me having a Facebook page. I use it minimally, and to post social criticism rather than baby and cat pix. Fighting fire with fire.

I am cynical about human apathy and selfishness. Which makes me cynical of your cynicism, which is directed at people's taking a stand :(

[fennecfoxen]

> Which makes me cynical of your cynicism, which is directed at people's taking a stand :(

I'll cop to that.

Once upon a time "taking a stand" meant something: risking your life when our imperial British overlords marched into town; risking imprisonment to help slaves escape the antebellum South; risking social alienation, unemployment, or arrest to undermine segregation laws -- or even just expending hours of inconvenience and exhaustion walking to work instead of taking the Montgomery public transit system.

Today, when people "take a stand" on an issue, it generally looks more like GamerGate: piling on to the Internet's latest episode of the Two Minutes' Hate, doxxing some poor pizza-baking morons in Indiana, and issuing them death threats. For this the mob encounters no risk to life, limb, or prosperity, little inconvenience save the time they choose to invest, and are often lauded in their own communities for their "bravery", or cited as paradigms of what a push for social justice looks like today: impassioned young people TAKING A STAND. In other news, up is down, freedom is slavery, and the White House goes around trying to "speak truth to power".

There are a few good exceptions, sure, but even Ferguson was marred by looting.

[eevilspock]

Dude, I'm totally with you (I think the U.S.'s use of a volunteer army and more so drone warfare is very bad, and I lament our Facebook Like- and Twitter Retweet-based "viral protests" and fashionable ice-bucket challenges, and superficial hipster counter-culture), except...

> Once upon a time "taking a stand" meant something: risking your life when our imperial British overlords marched into town; risking imprisonment to help slaves escape the antebellum South; risking social alienation, unemployment, or arrest to undermine segregation laws -- or even just expending hours of inconvenience and exhaustion walking to work instead of taking the Montgomery public transit system.

...is a kind of straw man. You're basically saying that the only fights worth fighting are the epic ones with the costs you describe. (btw, most recently I took part in shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the racist police departments and the killing of Micheal Brown, Eric Garner and many others).

And there actually is a significant cost to being principled about the software and services you use. Most people don't actually have anything to hide from the NSA, so denying oneself the convenience and zero out-of-pocket cost of Dropbox or Gmail and choosing often fringe alternatives, is usually all sacrifice, no personal gain. The only gain is the promise of the greater good if your protest ultimately prevails. This is analogous to the "inconvenience and exhaustion walking to work instead of taking the Montgomery public transit system."

By the way, what is your current protest (this thread) costing you?