> If you have the power to do something and you don't, that's taking a side. You either oppose something or you enable it. At least own that. If you're saying you're neutral, you either agree with the unpopular side and are scared to admit it, or you can't form an opinion because you're uninformed and thus uncivil, or you feel unaffected by what's happening and thus discompassionate. Either way, that's pretty much the definition of "acting like a kid".

I think this is an interesting argument, and I think it translates to a real world example quite well. For example, if my older kid hits younger kid I have to either:

1. Punish the older kid, taking the "side" of the younger kid

2. Not punish the older kid, thus taking the "side" of the older kid

however I think there's more nuance here than just that, because either of the kids could be lying. I wasn't' there, I have no video footage or proof, so I can only investigate and interrogate, and at some point I have to make a decision. Often times it comes down to the question of which is worse? Punishing an innocent kid, or letting a crime go unpunished?

The answer to that is far from clear to me. As an authority and neutral arbiter, I have a duty to administer justice, and I don't think taking a view that punishing an innocence can be worse than not punishing a guilty (obviously individual circumstances really matter here).

I also have a full time job, and I can't arbitrate between my kids all day long. I have limited time/attention. Given that there are dozens of issues every day that come up, and I don't have enough bandwidth to handle them, some packets will by necessity have to drop.

How do you know which position on which issue is the "right" one to default too when you don't have enough information? Given your argument, you must default to one of them. What criteria do you use when you have limited info?

You described a challenging situation to arbiter. What if your kids were adults and one of them broke into the other one's house with the intent to murder him and his family?

I say that Ukraine has the right to sovereignty and I condemn Russia's assault on that right and on its people. It goes against what I want from the society I live in. There is no nuance there.

We could talk about war crimes that are seemingly being committed in droves by the Russian side. We might find nuances there. But, there's no nuance about the crime of starting the invasion in the first place.

> If you have the power to do something and you don't, that's taking a side.

Pushing political commit messages is not "power". If you like like everyone around you you are not a rebel, just a conformist.

And using indiscriminate IP-location malware to annoy people is the textbook definition of evil child behavior. I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to defend here.

> By the way, everything is not propaganda: anti-propaganda can just be the truth.

How do you know what the truth is when you have no foot on the ground?

> Pushing political commit messages is not "power".

I'm not debating whether it works or whether it's the right form of activism. I'm responding to your comment. Namely you saying that taking a side is childish.

> If you like like everyone around you you are not a rebel, just a conformist.

If your goal is to follow the herd, that's bad. If it's to go in the opposite direction, that's the same thing. I'd encourage a person like that to think about more than himself.

> How do you know what the truth is when you have no foot on the ground?

Are you disputing the recent Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

> Are you disputing the recent Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

Not the GP. I don't specifically dispute that. But in a time when many fictional stories can be told through video, I think it's reasonable to be unsure and neutral on things that we don't have direct knowledge about. Put another way, I think being neutral and silent by default is a necessary defense against manipulation.

> Put another way, I think being neutral and silent by default is a necessary defense against manipulation.

I can sympathize with the sense of confusion, but this is one of the principal purposes of information warfare. When successful it does one of following things:

1. disengages people who would otherwise be opposed;

2. sows doubt and division;

3. makes people believe the propaganda is true.

We often fixate on #3, but #1 and #2 are the principal goals of today's information warfare, because they're much easier to achieve. When the other side's population doesn't know what to think, you're in a great position. It's effectively demobilizing the enemy.

>Put another way, I think being neutral and silent by default is a necessary defense against manipulation.

But what if the purpose of the manipulation is to suppress dissent, or at least encourage passive acceptance of the status quo, by convincing people remain to neutral and silent?

The people who have certain knowledge of something wrong in the world, through firsthand experience or domain expertise, should certainly speak out. For example, I'm vocal about accessibility for blind people, perhaps to a fault. But I think we should be silent about things that we don't have direct knowledge about. Otherwise, we're no better than computers in a botnet sending out spam. That's why, lately, I've unsubscribed from multiple political mailing lists that keep pestering me to sign this petition or talk to my legislator about that important issue. I realize that I don't know enough to have an informed opinion on these things, and I don't want to be manipulated. (Yes, the fact that I unsubscribed implies that I went through a period where I was more involved in things I don't have expertise about; I was wrong in that.)

>The people who have certain knowledge of something wrong in the world, through firsthand experience or domain expertise, should certainly speak out.

To whom? If everyone followed the rule you're proposing, the only people they could speak out to are people who share their firsthand experience or domain expertise. Communicating further would necessitate secondhand information or some form of media which can't be trusted, as it could possibly contain some manipulating element. Who could Ukrainians ask for help from? The Russians? Would everyone else be required to fly to Ukraine to try to verify the existence of the war firsthand before having an opinion?

There are more important things than being made a fool of sometimes. The risk of being manipulated exists no matter what you do, or don't do, and you can never have perfect knowledge of any situation, even if you're an eyewitness, because human perception itself is fallible, limited to a single perspective and prone to self-deception.