Hi Peter, I really appreciate this discourse too. With what's happening in the
world now
and with this particular executive order affecting even something as niche as
DNS, I like
how it offers a vessel to have this public discussion.
On Tuesday, April 8, 2025 7:40:44 PM CEST Peter 'PMc' Much wrote:
> So what You are saying is, it might still work to just talk to these
> people?
> In earlier times that was usually my stance when discussing matters
> in the underground - I might say, why do we not just make a date and
> actually talk to the concerned people, as basically they're also
> humans, like you and me? And occasionally things did indeed work
> out pleasantly that way...
>
> But given the development of recent years, I mostly lost my
> optimism. Like a fellow mystician put it: up upside down> and it is difficult to cope with sheer madness - I
> even made it onto the death-list of some activists ---
This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, and does deserve
some nuance.
In one of the events that I previously mentioned, it was FSFE inviting me over
and the rest
of the practical bits essentially just lining up. The choice to rent out a
hotel floor in
Brussels, was quite smart. This meant that, just as I could easily go there
from Antwerp,
the politicians could also quite easily go there from their offices in "de
Wetstraat / Rue de
la Loi" (the street where their offices are located) to what was Hotel Le Grand
Central at
Rue Beillard 190. Being just 1.5km apart, it could even be walked to. The rest
is really just a
matter of pinging the right people.
What it makes me think about in Europe right now though, is how much that
proximity
has affected my ability to be there. Or for that matter, how much being a
Belgian resident -
the host country of these administrative buildings - has affected my ability to
reach out to
these people in the correspondence about the Chips Act. Unlike the GitHub
lobby, that was
just me voicing my concerns in response to a press release.
The reason why this is significant to me, is that when I visit Portugal (which
I often do),
suddenly I am a lot further away from these administrative affairs. It feels a
lot more
distant, because it is. Rather than 50km, suddenly it's 2000. And that is
reflected in the
media as well. So if I were born Portuguese and not just stay there for a
couple of years,
would I have the same beliefs about Brussels? Would I have the same access? In
an ideal
world, of course I should, every EU citizen should. But would that be reality?
That is where I turn my gaze across the pond, and the various executive orders
that have
been ratified so far. Going back to what started this thread, that was one of
them. The
event called "Liberation Day" was another. In response to that, even the EU's
executive
branch themselves have attempted to enter dialogue, by undoing their 2% tariff
to the US.
And it was, unsurprisingly, met with more dismissal. From politicians to
politicians,
organizations that by all accords, should be on the same level. This was never
about
reciprocity. And not even just across the pond, even inside the US there are
various
concerned speeches from presidential figures like Bernie Sanders and Barack
Obama now.
Obama's presentation, as published by Hamilton College:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU3E8r0n27w[1]
So what could be done about it in the US, that is rapidly heading towards a
fascist
dictatorship? For us Europeans, I think it's most important to acknowledge how
fragile
democracy really is, and how history taught us how important it is to be
upheld. For
Americans meanwhile, the precedent has been an attempted insurrection, an
attempted
assassination, blatantly ignoring the rule of law, and crashing the stock
market. In 2020,
the US has also gotten very close to a civil war. To merely call it a state of
turmoil, would be
a grave understatement. Its administration is a loose cannon, willing to burn
every bridge
made with every single ally across centuries. As an onlooker, it's an ongoing
exercise to
remember that the administration is not its people.
Meanwhile for organizations like ISC and the IETF, perhaps the expression of
dissent by
adopting primary/secondary was more than just "social justice" as what I
opposed it for
way back when. If that is one of the few ways that American people and
organizations can
still reach their government, that is praiseworthy. Better than a swasticar,
that much is for
sure. And for nonprofit organizations like ISC, it's even more genuine because
the added
work would've been a net liability. That is in stark contrast with for-profits,
who may well
only care about public perception to not harm sales. So for nonprofits to enact
these
things, that is truly admirable. Coming to terms with that, has been long
overdue. I
should've known better.
> ! > will be not far into the future that safety-critical mate
