[FRIAM] where are the "patriot hackers"?

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

Just to be clear, the inner-truths context is way less important than the where-are-the-patriots part. I'll talk a bit more about it if I get time to respond to Jon's contribution.

In the current context of right-wingers' criticism of deplatforming and left-wingers' criticism of platforming, it seems like some kind of citation of "hacktivism" is warranted. Are, say, DDoS attacks on The Epoch Times morally justified? Is it right to dox fascists? To hack and publish their Discord chats?

As for insight vs. opinion, it depends on how well curated the opinion is. For instance, I regard one part of your post as truly insightful, the distinction between scientist and engineer and the "manipulative model of mechanism". When saying that hacktivists have an impulse to *manipulate* the world (modified from your "disrupt", though "perturb" might be a better choice), you're making a fairly clear statement about those people, about their tight coupling with the (machinery of the) world around them. I.e. they are engineers, not scientists. And science, for the most part, precedes engineering ... at least *responsible* engineering. How can you go about *making* the world if you have no idea what the world *is* to start with?

Hackers, as distinct from hacktivists, may well simply want to disrupt the world (or make money off it). But hacktivists seem to require some understanding of the world (even if false).

On 12/29/20 10:12 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> 
> uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ -
> 
> I'm not clear what the intended connection between these two topic you
> raise is, but I share your curiosity/fascination with both:
> 
>> And I'm wondering, where are the "patriot hackers" and Anonymous?
>>
>> What happened to all that rigmarole about protecting the world and the internet from insidious sh¡t like The Epoch Times? Is it that ostensibly white hat members are combating shallow techniques like DDoS so well that the script kiddies who used to claim to be Anonymous are outmatched? Maybe Assange siding with Trump fractured the group? And what about the Jester <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jester_(hacktivist)>, who was arguably more capable than the large majority of hacktivists? Was he hired by the NSA and now works alone in a steel cage? Or has his mind been infected by the attractive conspiracy theories and persecution complexes we dorks are so susceptible to?
> 
> I also wonder about this.   Is it merely a "delusion" of mine (ours?)
> that some singular (or small group of) individual can come to town and
> clean up the rabble?  Too many Westerns or modern
> military-action-revenge movies?   I do believe that systems are only
> robust within the embedding space they emerged within or were designed
> for.   This is the stuff of punctuated criticality...    Elements within
> a dynamical system remain in their comfortable/familiar orbits, their
> basins of attraction for long periods of time (relative) until they
> excurd (is that a word?) outside those (dynamic) equilibria regions and
> then (from the perspective of the rules-of-thumb characterizing those
> regions) all hell breaks loose.
> 
> What does this have to do with Hacktivists/ism?  If humans are loci of
> consciousness with one or more qualities than the myriad other loci such
> as animals, plants, other life, and perhaps seemingly less complex (or
> more slowly evolving) systems such the geo/cryo/atmo/biosphere as a
> whole, then perhaps this ability/propensity to build models of Life, the
> Universe and Everything and attempt to play God(dess) with it, to muck
> around with it, to engage in hypothesis testing and generation, to
> attempt to control it, leads us to the inevitability to (try to) do so.
> 
> Whether Black/White/Grey or Green hatted, Hacktivists would seem to be
> none other than aspiring alchemists, magi, shamans, warlocks who attempt
> to transcend the mundane and bring actions which are disruptive
> (disruptive of *what* seems to define the color of their hats?).
> 
> Is there a complex-adaptive-system formulation of the battle of good and
> evil, the (illusory/delusory?) distinction between the light and the
> dark?   If not to explain or side with one "side" or another, to
> recognize how this symmetry arises, or is fundamental and how they play
> off of one another.   We shall know our chirality?
> 
>> I feel confident that some of you have some insight! Please share.
> 
> Done,
> 
>  - Steve
> 
> ?? what is the difference between an opinion and insight ??

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