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Comment by toyg | Hacker News Reader

Yes, let's compare RSS and Javascript to international diplomacy and totalitarian government surveillance, they have a lot in common. Look at all those people killed by ambiguous standard specifications! People are starving! GIVE ME YOUR F*ING MONEY!

... why do people keep reading Dave Winer, again? Is it something about age, some sort of rite of passage when you're 21 and naive? "Oh yeah, back then I survived on ramen and read Dave Winer. I know, crazy, right?"

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Dave Winer writes about what he knows. Everyone has a rather narrow perspective. You could ridicule him for his narrow perspective, or, you can read the sentiment he's trying to convey and respond to that.

Is being unable to discern between a text's major point and its inessential detail a sign of maturity?

No, Dave Winer writes in order to get attention to what he does. Now he's dabbling in javascript, so he drops javascript in everything he can; if the topic of the day were the cup size of Miss Universe, he'd write that javascript was invented to measure breasts. And of course, since RSS is his main claim to fame, that also must make it in the conversation at some point.

No that's not why I write. You don't have any clue about it.

I guess nobody has, to be honest. Maybe the WinerWatcher would have helped, in that regard.

Technology is relevant in the discussion, because it is what makes surveillance possible at today's scale. Some technology promotes freedom by enabling free and uncensored communication: neutral networks, encryption, self-hosted servers. Other technology promotes surveillance by centralizing information flow: Facebook, Twitter, Google Mail, etc. RSS and forking Javascript were given as examples, because distributed communications infrastructures rely on open standards.

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