Comments on: Annotated 34-3

By: Zak McKracken

Zak McKracken — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 10:21:42 +0000

I think that’s not quite what Xan does. As I read it, he’s well aware of the increase in government surveillance these days, very suspicious of it (which I can absolutely get behind!) and counters it with a generous dose of caution when dealing with the government. He’s probably also got some violations of the DMCA to his name, and some other things related to intellectual property and attempts of translating physical property concepts to digital things. So he probably has a very low opinion of such laws. But I can’t imagine he’d be the person to violate speed limits and then claim to the police officer who stops him that “your laws don’t apply to me!”.

He’s a digital outlaw in the sense that many security researchers have been made outlaws in recent years. He may also have knowingly committed a thing or two which he may not be so proud of, and he may be concerned about on constitutionally-questionable government surveillance more than most people, but he can actually back up his beliefs with published fact, as we’ll see later. And as you note, that attitude is going to turn out to be a life-saver.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 07:34:57 +0000

To be fair, this cartoon is from before libertarianism openly admitted to just being about racism.

Today the same effect could have been had through the ACAB adage.

By: Penn

Penn — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 04:31:53 +0000

I read him more as a passive resistor to the government as opposed to a Sovereign Citizen. He’ll make them go do the paperwork and make sure everything is completely in order before he’ll give an inch, and he will not cooperate. Honestly, I can’t blame anyone who does that. After all, honest cops say to never talk to cops other than through a lawyer.

By: Beroli

Beroli — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 18:24:51 +0000

(pseudo-editing to add to the end of my post: “and only has issues with ‘geeks’ if ‘geeks’ describes very close to everyone else in the human race; even Shanna needs to be furiously trying to defend herself to be as overt in her reputation of imagination as she is here.”)

By: Beroli

Beroli — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 18:19:44 +0000

As T has mentioned, she does in fact oppose the other things you mentioned, and was doing well not to immediately walk back “I go to the movies” with “documentaries, of course!” As presented, she’s actually responded to her mother’s mental health issues by becoming opposed to imagination, which is why I’m bemused when T describes her as someone who has issues with geeks and kind of has a point: the character on the page is just about as messed up as HR.