Please don't post generic ideological comments to HN. It leads to generic ideological discussion, which leads to repetitive flamewar, which is tedious, which is off topic here.
This comment seemed like generic "doesn't affect me" flamebait at first; after a 2nd reading I'm not sure if that's the right interpretation. The format of 3 repeating dismissive statements followed by a final statement about falling victim to the previously dismissed problem could be interpreted as a variation on Martin Niemöller's famous poem "First they came ..."[1]. In this interpretation, the comment in line #4 about "those Union meetings" might be a clever reference to "Then they came for the trade unionists" in original poem.
It's always nice to know that someone here will get the reference even if I go to bed right after posting. It's important that this crowd here knows these things.
I'm sorry to be critical, but that reference is not just obvious, it's an internet trope that passed being a cliché years ago and is an implicit Godwinning of the thread. Comments of that form are intrinsically off topic here.
I don't think that's an accurate reading of the comment you're responding to. On the contrary, the poster seems to be making a slippery-slope argument about the specific issue the article is about: the bleedover from surveillance capitalism to empowering law enforcement, and the reasons people might support this now but regret it later.
I don't see how this is ideological but the other top comment in this thread isn't. They both convey an emotional sentiment without any real information or substantive insights. Why do people who make blunt but direct posts get chastised while people who are parroting alarmist talking points without adding citations or evidence get a pass? It seems like an obvious enforcement bias.
Hmmm... I'm not sure if you're attacking or defending my statement here. :P
But I'd like to say I disagree with the "without any real information" part of your argument.
Looking at these things without taking into account prior similar cases will lead to sub-optimal decisions, because if you don't take into account that similar stories have played out before, you'll have to take the industry's word for it that "this data will only be used to sell you stuff." And later you'll have to take the government's word for it that "we'll only use this to defend the border." And so on.
But we have seen these things play out before. That is why "First they came for..." was written. We can already predict how this going to go from here. And personally, I don't like the way it's going.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...