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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

Beating the drum in the echo chamber will accomplish two things:

* Jack.

* Shit.

As Steve Blank is wont to say, if anything is to happen, you need to "get out of the building". That means interacting with real life politics, not upvoting stories on a niche news site. Unlike upvoting stories, this is actually hard work.

What's the point of visibility for a story anyway? The point is to actual do something that improves the situation. Voting things up seems like "gee, I wish someone would do something about this, maybe if they happen to see it it will happen".

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You're presenting two options, of which you imply only one can be chosen:

* "Getting out of the building" and engaging others with an important issue

* Continuing to discuss the development of that important issue and organizing action with a community that is already mostly sympathetic

But the truth is that these options are not mutually exclusive. One can do both quite easily. As you said, the hard work is interacting with real life politics. I imagine many who post here are doing that. But doing the hard work doesn't preclude also keeping the issue fresh in the minds of one's mostly-sympathetic peers who are at the forefront of calling for (and hopefully making) change.

If you crowd out the tech and the startups with politics, you'll be left without much of anything.

I absolutely agree with you but I think keeping it important here is a part of keeping it in the consciousness of people here who have the power to take action. This is an absolutely red alert level problem where even the insane powers provided by the USA PATRIOT ACT are being superceded. A million conspiracy theorists were 100% correct about domestic spying and people who didn't want to believe that the 4th amendment could be so sidestepped were wrong.

At the very least people can join and support the EFF, ACLU, and other orgs making real movement. The US government is hoping this will die down quickly. I'm just saying it shouldn't.

> people here who have the power to take action.

You have the power to take action. 'Upvote it so someone else will do the work' is lame.

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