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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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There are other reasons to care about digital hygiene, but the most anodyne people worrying that the FBI is maintaining a dossier about them is probably an effect of five decades of media obsession with counter-culture and rebellion.

Do you also complain about people buying insurance? The chances of your house being set on fire or destroyed are vanishingly small, so these people are just throwing money away for no good reason. Similarly, why waste time putting on a seatbelt when going for a drive? You're probably not going to be in a crash after all, so why subject yourself to the discomfort and wasted time?

Information security and privacy are probably not going to be terribly important for the average person, but you don't know if you're going to be in the minority for whom it becomes exceedingly important and the techniques used to protect yourself cannot be applied retroactively.

I guess I consider the odds that your online communications will be intercepted and used against you are much, much more unlikely than your house burning down or being in a car accident.

I think this is because in the back of my mind I don't expect to receive at any time a call that we must start pitching molotov cocktails at the courts and then escape the state's retribution, whereas I suspect deep down a lot of people harbor that feeling. Or some other fanciful counter-cultural notion. And in that case I will regret not having swung everything over to Signal several years prior.