Talking generally about "what ought" seems distinct from powerlessness. At the very least it delegitimizes the current status quo, even if only in a subculture. For instance, all of the HN (and wider tech) discussion of the NSA has done nothing to actually get those criminals any closer to prison. But designers of new protocols start with a background of making them surveillance-resistant rather than surveillance-supporting.

I apologize for starting my original comment somewhat aggressively - I wanted to draw attention to your idea behind the phrasing, with constructive criticism addressing why (hopefully) yours was downvoted, but edited it to be (too) simpler.