What's at Stake: A Letter to My Family

Last night, I sent an email to my white, predominantly conservative family. My partner, Jocelyn, forwarded it to her white, predominantly conservative family. One of her family members was touched and asked me to post it publicly.

I realized that it was hypocritical to protest to strangers both online and on the streets of Seattle, while ignoring just a single appeal to my family. I can be just one more sign-holding body in a crowd, but I am more likely to influence those who know me. That thought stuck in my brain until I wrote and sent the email.

After I wrote this letter, I heard an additional, chilling statistic. Death by police is the second leading cause of homicide in the state of Utah, where I was born. In the state where Darrien Hunt was killed for wearing a samurai costume. More citizens are killed by police, than by gang members, drug dealers, and child abusers. What could scream police state more than that?

SUBJECT: What's at Stake...

I wouldn't normally send a political email to family. But this is personal. I don't need you to agree with me, I don't want you to argue with me. I don't need you to do anything except consider these deeply felt concerns from a member of your family. 

Sending this is is a little scary. I'm writing this with shaky hands. But I feel impelled, because this is perhaps the most important cause going on in my lifetime.

I was raised in a certain political environment, one in which I learned Martin Luther King, Jr. was a communist, an instigator, an anti-American. I was taught that the protests of the Civil Rights Movement were drummed up by communist thugs trying to overthrow our American way of life. I learned all the reasons why the marches and riots of the 60s were unneeded and unjustified.

But I also learned that I had the right to protect my life and property, with force, if needed. That if the state began to infringe on my rights, I should be willing to fight to the death to protect my liberty. I learned about the power of the Bill of Rights, especially the First and Second Amendments. 

At home, I learned that freedom wasn't free. That sometimes, it had to be fought for.

So on Monday, I protested the fact that Darren Wilson will not stand trial for killing a black teenager, Mike Brown, in Ferguson, Mo. I held up traffic. I stood before a line of impatient drivers, held up my hands, and chanted, "Hands up! Don't shoot!" 

I laid down in the middle of the wet intersection of 4th and Pine, in silence for 4 and a half minutes, in remembrance of the 4.5 hours that Mike lay dead on a Ferguson street before the police moved his body. As I lay there, looking up at the skyscrapers, I listened to the sound of sobbing – sobs from people who were unwilling to believe that Mike Brown deserved to be shot. Sobs of people who can see that he was a human being deserving of life. 

I listened to the sobs of people whose eyes are open to the injustices that happen every day, not just to Mike Brown, but to each black person who is killed every 28 hours by law enforcement, including Tamir Rice, a 12 year old, who just this week was shot in the stomach for playing with a gun that shoots plastic pellets. 

And the double-injustice of police who are protected from accountability, so long as their victims "deserved it." 

And the triple injustice of black people who rightly fear this could happen to them. This is a fear that none of us with white skin ever have to consider.

I listened to the sobs of Roland and the sobs of our daughter Betsey as they embraced in the middle of the street. You see, they are both black. Roland whispered into Betsey's ear: "Now you promise me you'll do everything I have ever told you around police. Promise me." He is trying to save her life. 

While I was learning childhood lessons that I should rise up in arms against a tyrannical police state, black children everywhere learn that they must always, always, say, "Yes, sir, no sir," no matter how unfairly they are treated by police or the government, no matter how long they suffer under constant oppression.

The risk of death-by-officer is not an imaginary, trumped up fantasy that black people whine about because they have chips on their shoulders. I said 1 black person is killed by police every 28 hours. (http://www.occupy.com/article/black-man-killed-us-every-28-hours-police and http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/and http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-americans-the-police-kill-each-year/) 

That doesn't begin to count the number of non-fatal beatings, unjustified arrests, and false imprisonments. (More links:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/04/the-blackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/ andhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/22/ferguson-black-america_n_5694364.html and http://www.blackvoicenews.com/news/news-wire/48803-blacks-are-still-majority-of-the-wrongfully-convicted.html) 

These actions are excused by police, the media, and by society through dehumanizing, demeaning, and dismissing African-Americans, the majority of whom are upstanding, hard-working, kind, compassionate, good people. Because of these excuses, law enforcement is rarely held accountable for the abuse of their power.

If this is not the kind of police state I was raised to abhor, I'm not sure what is.

So Monday night, I stood within earshot of police officers and shouted, "F*ck the police!" (Pardon the profanity, but it pales in comparison to the offenses the state is committing against citizens of this great nation.) I knew it wasn't their fault, those Seattle officers who did a fine job routing traffic around us. Most officers work hard, and many of them are good people who risk their lives to protect all equally.

But too many police officers are not held accountable for their abuse of state power. Do we truly believe that there are capital offenses where an officer should be the judge, jury, and executioner? 

All this time spent debating whether Mike Brown had robbed a convenience store that day.. does it matter? Do we really believe that justifies his murder? We debate whether Mike Brown smoked pot. Does it matter? Is that a capital offense now? We debate whether he tried to kill Darren Wilson.. even though Mike Brown died, unarmed, 135 feet away from Wilson, because he had already been shot. He was running for his life.

Here is what I would like you to consider.. not be convinced, but just.. consider. Consider whether we should be talking about whether each black person killed every 28 hours deserves to be killed. Ask whether Tamir Rice, 12 years old, should have been killed for playing with a toy gun. Ask whether Darrien Hunt, a teen dressed in a costume with a fake sword, on his way to a comics convention (something I have done) should have been gunned down by police. Ask if that's okay with you. Set aside your attempts to excuse this for one second and ask if that's okay.

Since the death of Mike Brown in August, 14 black teenagers have been executed by police. Here is a list of their names, and who they were: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/25/the-14-teens-killed-by-cops-since-michael-brown.html 

I want you to reflect. Are you okay with supporting a government that allows this? 

I am not okay at all. It flies in the face of everything I've been taught. And because it is not okay, I have been protesting. I will protest again on Friday. I intend to interrupt shoppers on Black Friday, to tangle up traffic in Seattle on the busiest shopping day of the year. And if it comes to it, I am willing to be tear gassed, arrested, and even shot, over this issue. 

Because I am not free if my fellow citizens live in fear of the state. I have no rights if my children risk their lives for the crime of being black in America. I am not free if those abusing state power are not brought to justice, if those wearing government uniforms are not turned over to due process to stand trial for a crime that robbed an American citizen of his most important right: His right to life.

And this is just the grossest of the injustices, which are too numerous to list in one email, that the people of Ferguson, indeed, citizens all over America, have endured for their entire lives. 

These protests and riots did not happen in a vacuum. 

As you hear these news stories of protests, riots, and burning buildings, ask yourself what you might do if these were white kids being gunned down by unaccountable representatives of the state? Before snapping to a judgement, just let this question linger. Think of the names of your sons and daughters. Imagine they have been killed, and now the police and news media are putting your child on trial. They are smearing your family's name, in order to make the killing seem fair and right. And your child is not the first. The cries of parents have gone unheard for years.

If you are willing to bring out the guns to fight tyranny, but you judge these people harshly for doing the same, then ask yourself why. Ask yourself what is really the difference between your children, and theirs? 

Take a moment to consider the words of Christ on this matter: Judge not that ye be therefore judged. If ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me. Love thy enemy as thyself. 

I'd ask you to consider one more thing: Stop thinking of black people as thugs. Stop thinking of black communities as crime-ridden neighborhoods where they feed upon their own. Stop thinking of them as useless welfare recipients, moochers off the state. Stop thinking of them as people with no sense of family values. Stop thinking of them as gang-bangers who are looking for trouble. These, and other pre-judgements, are dehumanizing. They are racist. They lead to snap judgements. 

These lines of reasoning have allowed our society to get to this point, because we're encouraged to think that African-Americans deserve whatever is coming to them. It leads to false assumptions about why these problems plague black neighborhoods. There are alternative explanations. Those explanations are just a Google click away, if you're willing to actually listen to the perspectives of those who have walked in those shoes.

As I lay in the intersection, looking up at the helicopters, Roland turned and asked me, "Luna.. how did you get here?" He meant, given my background, how did I end up on this side of the fence, being an activist for social justice causes, defying the law and disrupting traffic? 

I hope this email gives some kind of inkling as to the answer. My principles haven't really changed. I've just changed who I am willing to apply them to. I have changed what I know of the world. I have stopped thinking of myself as oppressed, and discovered that there are those far more oppressed than I. I no longer fret over taxes and zoning laws. I fret over the lives of my fellow citizens who are treated differently for the color of their skin. I fret over Roland, and his brothers and sisters. I fret over my children.

Some of you may be tempted to argue with me. I probably will not reply. Not only have I heard it all, I was once like you – I've thought it all, and I've written it all myself. I just needed to take this one chance to tell you what's at stake.

Thanks for reading,

With Love, 

Luna

Label Me, Illuminate Me

The label-debate rages on, and now that I know I have autism, I have firmly come down on one side: I am in favor of labels.

Labels can be used to dehumanize, to misconstrue, to overgeneralize, and to blind us to a person's humanity and individuality. As Wayne said, "If you label me, you negate me".

Preach it, Wayne.
Then party on.

Actually, it was the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard who originally said this. "Butterflygirl" on Yahoo Answers summarized Kierkegaard thusly:

Once you label someone you cancel out their own individuality and replace it within the boundaries of that label, so their individually has been restricted within that label and therefore, for all those who accept that label for that person they have no longer accepted that person for who they really are but understand them only to the limit of that label.

And I know all too well from my research into mind control that loaded language combined with us vs. them techniques can indeed leverage labels to negate an individual and render her selfless. It can be used to dismiss external points of view. Labels can make a group insider feel benevolent and normal while demonizing outsiders as inhuman and evil.

Many people fairly point out that labels, particularly psychological labels, can divide people. Labels can become truth. We are all individuals, but dumping thousands or millions of people into the same bucket removes some sense of self. Being labeled in school can make kids a target of bullying, not just from other kids but from teachers as well. It can impose expectations in education and in the workplace and among peers. Labeling can trigger tribalism and hostility. When people are unfairly labeled, they end up filling the role others expect of them.

I've met people in person and read blog posts from people who hate all labels. Here's a dude summing up this line of thought:

These are certainly valid drawbacks, but like The Spork of Truth, it has four tines. Hm, no I need something else... Like the Spoon of Truth, it has two edges. The same aspects that make labels problematic also give labels power. And when your label has power, you have power.
I used to feel neutral about labels. Now, with my diagnosis, I've made up my mind. I now celebrate and champion labels. Bring it. More labels for all! Yes, definitely beware of all the pitfalls that come with labeling, and then proceed with label punch in hand, like that one episode of Dexter's Lab.

Dexter and Dee Dee battle one another
for the right to label everything and then
[SPOILERS SPOILERS]

They say, "If you meet one person with Asperger's, you've met just one person with Asperger's." This applies to everyone on the spectrum. We are all very unique individuals and our traits manifest in thousands of different ways – just like the colors in a rainbow. So the label seems perhaps limiting. Yet those of us with autism have more in common with one another than we do with allists (non-autists). Knowing that is useful.

I lived 38 years of my life without a label to accurately describe who I am. As a kid, a psychologist said I was "hyperactive", and in my 20s, I got an ADHD label from a psychiatrist. These labels helped my know myself a little, but were not accurate enough. All my other traits, which I now know were due to Asperger's, were just unique snowflake Luna oddness. Easily distracted, hyperfocused, shy, socially awkward, nerdy, impolite, smart, pedantic, pensive, weird, misunderstood, seemingly self-centered, anxious, difficult, distant... I projected these "personality traits" which, prior to last April, were merely marks of my individuality with no cause. In essence, all of my negative traits were "choices", bad things I did that I didn't understand, that I blamed myself for. Shortcomings with no solution. Without the label, people still perceived me as all those things. But I had no way to talk about it, and no way to understand. I beat myself up for not going out more, not talking at parties, not flirting, not being productive, for being lazy, for being depressed, for being scared, for forgetting birthdays and being inconsiderate and clumsy and absent-minded.

It's not the words that made me view myself this way. The words are just handles attached to concepts. I saw myself this way without words, because I naturally compared myself with others… Other people had it together and I never quite knew why I didn't.

The words didn't make the reality. They only filtered it. And they weren't filtering it very accurately.

The label allowed me to understand why. "Autism" is a label with definitions, entire books and websites and scientific studies devoted to defining what it means. It's a handle I can wrap my fingers around and manipulate. It's connected to a vast network of related thoughts by those who think about and study and share my autism. Now I can google this label and find others talking about it. Anyone affected by autism can share our thoughts and find others like ourselves. Without the label, all this would be impossible.

Moreover, I can tell those around me, "I have Asperger's", and that means something. It's not an excuse, it's a reason. It describes why I'm different. Many times people don't know what it means, or they have misconceptions, and the label itself gives me an opportunity to educate them. Now anyone who wants to understand me better has ahold of that same handle, and I can draw their attention to all the connections attached to the handle.

This is an actual font. Groovy.
Available from Smashing Hub.

That's the power inherent in words, in all words. As a society, we've agreed upon the meaning of these words. Words allow us to think and share our thoughts with one another. In the dystopic novel, 1984, the goal of Big Brother was to eliminate words, reduce the language down to only those necessary for labor. Authorities knew that if no one had words like"Freedom" or "Rebellion", they could never imagine or communicate about those concepts. Orwell called this language Newspeak.

Those who wish to eliminate labels may have good intentions, but their wish expresses a nihilistic cynicism, and the resulting language would stifle thought, discussion, and mutual understanding.

Knowing I have autism helps me understand myself. And it's helped others understand me. Getting personal for a moment, my sister and I have been distant most of our lives. I never quite understood why, and neither did she. A few months ago, when I told her I had Asperger's, and explained to her what that meant to me, it opened whole new doors in our relationship. She revealed that all these years, my behavior confused her and that, among other things, I seemed self-centered. The new label gave us a way to talk about it, and an alternate explanation for my actions. My label gave us a pathway to get closer.

That's the thing. Yes, we are who we are, unique snowflakes. And we act how we act. But without taking on one label, people will give us another. Maybe the label isn't a word. Maybe it's just an image or feeling in their mind. They ascribe reasons and motivations for why we do what we do. People are going to think things about us anyway. Misunderstanding and hate is not the fault of the label. That's an oversimplification. Reality is more complex than that.

Labels give us a starting point to explore those assumptions and identify ways in which individuals differ from the stereotypes -- stereotypes that already exist, even without the labels.

Accurate labeling lets us be more in control of how other see us. That's part of what the coming out movement is. It is owning that label and maybe even proud of it. You think I'm gay? Yes, I'm gay. (Bisexual actually.) It's a label, and it's part of why I'm a unique snowflake, and now you can't rob me of that, because I wield the word for my own ends.

You think I'm weird? Yes, I'm weird. And I'm partly weird because I have Asperger's. Letting everyone know that helps them understand me more, not less. And if they still choose not to understand, well that's their problem. Not the label's problem.

I have embraced labels and now I advocate for them. If you feel mislabeled, then find labels that better describe you, give them a big hug, and offer them to others as replacements. Use them as a starting point for further discussion. Maybe it's hard to find labels for yourself. So invent new ones. The process of thinking about how to describe yourself is an opportunity for greater self-awareness and self-actualization. You are building a language for your own mind to use about itself.

And when you share those labels with others, maybe they'll accept your self-identification, and maybe they won't. But at least you have something to own, a handle to hold on to when the world knocks you around.

Let your labels illuminate you.

Persuade the Bystanders

This post has to do with social justice – you know, topics like privilege, racism, sexism, classism, ablism, and all the other ignorant and/or hatey "isms" worth railing against. I'll get to those in a second.

In the early 90s, while arguing politics on BBS message boards, I realized an important truth that I've carried with me always:

When people argue in public, they will almost never convince one another. But they do influence the lurkers. 

WWIV message boards
My view of the world when I
learned this important life lesson 

Sometimes the persuasion is instant. Now and then a lurker will timidly post and reveal that their minds have been changed. But most keep this fact to themselves. More often, the change is slow. These lurkers continue to follow similar arguments, until eventually, they are swayed by whichever side has collectively made the best case. I myself have drastically changed my mind on deeply held beliefs in this way, both by debating and merely watching debates. I've also seen it happen to other people. But it's rarely instant.

It's hard to know that these neutral and persuadable lurkers exist. They are, by their nature, quiet. Very often, though not always, the more vocal a person is, the less likely they are to be convinced. So we tend to think everyone who doesn't use a megaphone is just like everyone who does. This is not true.

I think about the topic of persuasion alot. I'm a writer. It's my job to persuade. I also love debate, a casual pastime since childhood. Roland makes a wonderful and challenging debate partner to help me better understand what works and what doesn't. On top of all that, I've studied mind control, otherwise known as "coercive persuasion" – the ability of manipulators to convince people against their will.

I've learned about why people believe things, and what factors make people change their minds, and why people sometimes never will, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Cognitive Dissonance is the mechanism we all employ to either accept or reject new ideas. It can be a very powerful barrier to persuading others that our position is correct. Cognitive dissonance is the source of all closed minds. There are ways around it – both ethical and unethical. I am more concerned with ethical persuasion.

I consider myself an activist. Anyone who publicly advocates for social justice, is, in my opinion, an activist. I am a woman and I have what some might call an invisible disability. In all other areas, I am privileged, but I consider myself an ally against racism and other hateful thought systems. I firmly believe that everyone has a different life experience, and it is generally best to never dismiss anyone's position out of hand until I've done my utmost to understand – even if I don't agree.

Social media has opened a new door for activists. It allows the voices of oppressed individuals and classes be heard by all kinds of people who were previously isolated. The internet democratizes the population by giving everyone a printing press and a megaphone. It's a beautiful thing. And every activist, whether they know it or not, is in a position to persuade.

This guy is just like you. Everyone is listening.
Choose well what you will say.

Presumably, our goal is to make society better. To reduce hate. To eliminate ignorance. To eliminate unfairness. To prevent harm and prosecute those who hurt others. To pass laws that create the most equal playing fields for all people. Everyone should have the same opportunities for success, regardless of outward differences that so many in our society tend to get hung up on. I want everyone to be treated with respect, even if they're a different color, or gender, or disabled, or attracted to the same gender, or all the other things I've failed to list here.

In a democracy, the best way to accomplish all of those goals is to be persuasive. Activism, when done right, is persuasive. Anything else is just preaching to the choir – it feels good, but nothing gets done.

Given that, there are certain trends I see among activists that disturb me for two reasons:

1. I don't consider these methods ethical. 
2. These methods are not persuasive.

The Outrage Machine is constantly producing new horrors to raise outrage. Sometimes I believe this machine is persuasive, and other times I don't. Sometimes I think it is counter-persuasive. And that concerns me. Because I'd like to see society improve. I'd like to employ the best tactics.

So when I apply my mind to social justice activism, the question often is, "How could this message be more convincing? How can it reach more people and change minds?" Sometimes, I speak up about tactics. And when I do, my views are controversial, often because they're mistaken for taking up the other side's position, or being an apologetic, or dismissing someone's views, or perhaps not being enough of a cheerleader for our side, nor supportive enough of the cheerleaders we have.

None of those are my goals. I'm not dismissing anyone. I am not being an apologist for the other side. I am not defending horrible behavior. I am merely goal-oriented and thinking about the best ways to achieve the goals that all online social justice activists share – more fairness and equality and tolerance for all.

So here's my controversial statement of the day, and I hope you'll hear me out. Allow me to persuade you before immediately dismissing my argument. Please know I understand the counter-arguments and have given this alot of thought.

I've seen a certain sentiment echoed via Twitter and the blogosphere, usually coming from an underprivileged person directed at a privileged person (i.e. woman or POC or disabled or trans* directed at a man or white person or cis), and it goes something like: "It's not my job to educate you!" It is often delivered in an angry or dismissive or antagonistic tone.

In terms of accomplishing the above goals, it is entirely counterproductive.

Yes, I do understand where this sentiment comes from. Especially when, say, a feminist of color has been asked 50,000 times by hostile racist misogynists to explain why she's so upset, and she's given the answer 49,999 times, and she's being asked to speak for her entire race and sex to flaming assholes who aren't listening anyway. Her anger is entirely justified. As is her weariness in the face of this seemingly Sisyphean task. It is true, in fact, that Google is just a fingertip away, and all ignorance about any topic can be quickly dissolved like salt in water.

The endless questions themselves can be a rhetoric tool used to dismiss, belittle, and aggravate. So why waste even two seconds talking to those jerks?

I get all that, I really do. 

And I understand the double-bind. As a woman, I can choose to be labeled a bitch, or let people walk all over me. I am not allowed a middle ground. Similar thought-terminating cliches are employed to double-bind people of all other oppressed classes. I am not suggesting the answer is passivity and eternal politeness, bowing and scraping. Far from it.

And most especially, I understand that most oppressed people have no interest in activism and just want to live their lives without being bothered. They just want to be accepted as average and normal and don't want to go around thinking about their orientation, disability, or skin color. They just want to live. In this latter case, I think the "It's not my job" answer is most appropriate – it isn't your job.

But as activists and advocates, you actually have taken on the job. Maybe you only want it to be part time, but it's your job. By speaking up, you volunteered. It's a tough job, but worth doing.

No, it's not your job to educate the hostile instigator of controversy or the timeline troll who is just trying to raise everyone's hackles. That guy will never be convinced by anything you have to say. It's true. He is so enmired in his beliefs and has made public declarations of it, so his cognitive dissonance is nearly impenetrable. It is likely that when the world changes completely into a social utopia dreamworld, he will go to his grave willfully ignorant and hating.

Alas, educational and persuasive words are not meant for him. Your efforts are meant for the bystanders, the dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of quiet lurkers. They're out there, neutral, or ignorant, or perhaps a bit racist or a bit sexist or any other *ist, but they don't feel too strongly about it. Not enough to join the argument. But they're curious, and they're watching each player make a case.

Pretend today the Outrage Machine has identified a new controversy and brought it to the rapt attention of the information-obsessed internet. Someone gets wrongly fired from a job, or groped at a con, or catcalled, or outed, or harassed, or murdered. Some person in power says something stupid, and advocates reply, and anti-advocates reply back and everyone's in an uproar for a few days. This is the chance to convince that silent neutral ignorant majority. They are all near the fence. They think sexism is over, or transwomen are just confused, or bisexuals don't exist, or Muslims are more protected than Christians, or any black kid has it coming because no one gets shot unless they deserve it, or whatever ignorant thing they believe. This is the chance of advocates to convince those bystanders.

I believed many of those things once. And over time, effective arguments finally got to me. Advocates finally educated me. And not usually because I sought the information out on my own. Usually because people kept pointing me in the right direction.

That's the point of publicity. You hold a megaphone, just for a few minutes. You've gotten someone's attention. In this age of the information firehose, that's the hard part. Now how are you going to most effectively use it?

Even the small-time advocate who doesn't have a big platform, who rarely says much of anything, has a huge opportunity to convince these silent types, because their followers are their friends and family. We are much more influential to those who know us and like us personally. Yes, those Facebook debates are frustrating, because no one seems to listen, but the silent readers are paying attention.

This is how the most recent victories in marriage equality were won. A majority of the mainstream public was swayed, not through anger and righteous indignation, but through family members who came out of the closet and stood gentle yet firm on their rights to be gay and to love and commit to who they wanted. Eventually, few loving family members could imagine a world where government would bar their happy union.

Injustices happen every moment of every day. Outrage can spark quite an inflagration of justifiable anger that sadly, too often, turns to hostility, or ostracism, or shaming, or personal attacks, or blatant logical fallacies. And when this happens, you've lost the moral high-ground. You have ceased being persuasive to that silent, neutral, convincible audience. And then it doesn't matter how right you are. Because anyone who might have been listening will turn against your position. The opponent wins an easy victory. Score one for the trolls.

Even more tragic and destructive is when misdirected anger scares away fellow advocates and allies – even those in the same category as you (fellow women, POCs, LGBTs, etc). These are people who are already convinced of your position and want to help. They observe this open hostility and feel judged or lumped in with the haters because of a slight variance in opinion. They may already be marginalized by being themselves in the oppressed class, and now they feel marginalized further by activists who claim to be advocating on their behalf. They may become terrified to say anything, lest it be the wrong thing, lest your irate gaze turn instead on them. Intersectional individuals are even more at risk for this type of dismissal and marginalization.

I myself have been in this position amongst my fellow feminists, sometimes for defending intersectional classes (like advocating trans rights to rad fems), and sometimes because my opinion on tactics differed. (I'm generally against boycotts, for instance.) I'm fine with people disagreeing with me, but I've also been actively shamed for holding these and other stances. Shaming, threatened ostracization, and personal attacks go too far.

This type of hostility makes it frightening for fellow advocates to contribute to the discussion. For instance, it made me hesitant to write this post. Thankfully, I'm the type of person who doesn't like to be silenced in the face of fear. Others are understandably more timid.

We need more diversity among our voices, not less. And more tolerance. Don't we believe that both diversity and tolerance lead to a better world? We need all the allies and advocates we can get, waving the banner, even if some choose to wave it differently than you. Punch upward, at the system, at the oppressors, at the powerful, at the bad guys. Don't punch sideways at the ally standing next to you just because she's easier to hit.

Oppressed people have much to be angry about, and I would never rob them of their anger. Anger is a valuable emotion. It motivates and feeds energy into individuals and groups and causes. I am not advocating for less anger – I am suggesting that those energies be channeled persuasively to produce the most positive outcomes.

(And in the moment of offense, especially when there is no audience, untamed anger very much has its place in defending individuals against in-progress assault or insult. I am not suggesting passivity or politeness when rights need to be asserted to a hostile *ist who insults and then demands to know why it was insulting. Since you likely will never convince him, that's the time to growl and spit, to say it's not your job, and to gently or not-so-gently direct him to Google. Or not. Depends on you and the situation.)

Updated to add: Sally Kohn puts it another way in her TED talk, "Let's Try Emotional Correctness".

And Mattie Brice recently wrote about anger in protesting the video games industry, suggesting we put behind us the demeaning hostility in 2013.

It's true that maintaining the moral high-ground can be exhausting. We can't do it all the time. Sometimes I tweet or blog my opinions. Sometimes I advocate. Sometimes I give the long answer.

And other times, I'm busy, I just direct people to others who have written more eloquently than I. Think about it: If, instead of saying, "Correcting your ignorance is not my responsibility," you suggest a well-known educational website or blog post on the topic, like Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. You not only give that hostile person a chance at graceful, face-saving redemption, but more importantly, it's another opportunity to distribute that content to every single one of your other followers, many whom may have missed that particular blog post, or have never been exposed to content that you think is obvious because you read it a decade ago.

There is much to be said for "brand awareness", a tactic commercial marketers understand well. Every chance you have to retweet the same link to yet another person asking the same questions, your other followers will begin to see that content as legitimate and worth consuming. Maybe they meant to read it last month, and have forgotten. You're making it easy for them to educate themselves and maybe even join the cause.

Other times, the good fight becomes overwhelming. It's exhausting to be outraged all the time. That's when I take a break and let others pick up the banner. Sometimes I do this because I am far too emotional to think clearly. I'd rather sit out the Outrage Machine's churning than say something that loses points for my side. Because I want my team to win. It is possible to communicate "It's not my job" in a way that doesn't detract from the overall argument or your future ability to be persuasive. Like, "I don't have time to answer that right now. Could you please google 'cis privilege' on your own?" Or just remain silent. That gives the hostile troll the last word, but most likely, it will reflect worse on him than you.

It's true that my white, cis, thin, mostly-abled, * privilege gives me the luxury to sit alot of these out, a privilege not everyone may have. I realize that I live relatively free from various kinds of hostility that lets me take these breaks. It's a little easier for me, perhaps, to go on an anger diet, to step away from the keyboard when emotions run too high. In many ways, this might be "easy for me to say". I still think these suggestions are tactically the most effective, and worth employing whenever possible.

In the end, we all have our own journey and our own idea of what's right and wrong. It's your social media platform, so please, do with it what you will. But hopefully, I've been just a bit persuasive here.

Let's go out and change the world.

DEFCON 21: L33tism Yields to Unrestricted Access

Projector Art in the
Chillout Cafe at DEFCON 21

The hacker community is many things. We are curious, smart, knowledgable, subversive, rebellious, libertarian-leaning, technical, opinionated, unorthodox, and l33t.

But most of all l33t. Historically, we felt special, like our merits had won us the right to gloat in glory. We dabbled in technoarts and arcane secrets of circuits and mystical crypto that put us above everyone else. We were the best of the best, we pwned every test, earned the right to beat our chest.

Well, I didn't. Only "real" hackers did, and I wasn't a real hacker. In the DEFCON recap I wrote in 2009, I called myself a "Hacker Groupie". That was bullshit. Because I am every inch a hacker, and always have been, since second grade when I solved the weekly brainteaser without fail. When I begged my parents for a chemistry set. When I used university lasers to run the Michelson-Morely experiment. I'm less technical these days than I ever have been, with my shift away from a thirteen-year IT career in 2010, yet I am still a hacker.

Hax0rz Wild!
From the DEFCON 21 Playing Card Deck

L33tist hacker culture is changing, and it's about damn time. L33tism comes with problems. L33t = elite = elitism, and the price for that is exclusion of alot of really smart people who belong, but are too humble or shy to think of themselves as hackers. For too many wasted years, I was one of those people on the outside looking in, wishing to be part of an exclusive club that I actually had every right to belong to. It took meeting someone who never asks for permission and didn't think I should either. Roland taught me that to belong, I had to shove my way into the circle and simply be who I am. I had to have the rights granted to me by a boyfriend before I could enter.

No, this is not going to be a rant against sexism, though I will address that topic at some point. My exclusion wasn't due to my gender, though that was a factor. I self-excluded because I bought into the chest-thumping and was unwilling to call bullshit and be who I wanted to be. Too many men and women have done the same. I met several of them at DEFCON this year, and I tried to talk them into realizing their potential.

In 2009, at my second DEFCON, I somehow considered myself an outsider, a groupie, a tagalong. This year was my sixth DEFCON. Why did it take so many years to finally stop feeling like a poser? Like any topic worth talking about, it is complex and there are many reasons, but I want to focus on culture here, since I've been around to observe it since 1992.

To be fair, my outlook on hacker culture is just one perspective based on my six DEFCONs, my lifelong-passion for computers, living on BBSes and IRC for a decade, and my career in IT. It's a bit like dipping a thermometer into the water from various beaches over a 20 year period and declaring the global average of the ocean. But that's the nature of commenting on culture. It's hard to get an objective look without running a longitudinal study and relying on survey data from a group of anarchists who want to break every system. No such study exists, so you have my analysis from my point of view in my little corner of geekdom. If you have a different take, please blog about it or comment.

The source of l33tist culture is perfectly understandable. Even the broader geek culture attracts the cocky and self-assured who try to prove their worth by one-upping everyone else through superior skills and knowledge. I've called this the Geek Hierarchy, and it likely comes from a feeling that merit is all we have. We were bullied and rejected by the mainstream as kids, so we learned to distrust people and instead trusted our hobbies. We embraced them fully, clutching at these remnants of our self-esteem, which entirely revolves around the things we're good at doing. So it's no surprise when many of us shove our knowledge and skill in other people's faces. I've done it. Many of my friends have done it. The gloaty tone of voice is part of the geek affect. It's part of our identity.

Hacker culture became a distilled versions of this. After all, hackers were the smartest of the smart. They'd earned the right to snobbery through sheer prowess. Breaking into hacker culture was like getting root. Aside from the need to understand difficult technical concepts, social firewalls included strange language, snarky attitudes, isolationist cliques, and intellectual superiority. There was a sense to outsiders that in order to be accepted, you needed to capture some impressive trophy that all other hackers previously thought impossible. 

Worse, when a newbie wanted to break in by doing, and requested help, even Linux help channels met questions with rudely stated RTFM flames. Back then, you learned quickly to never ask questions unless you had already proven yourself l33t. And sometimes that meant giving up too soon or never trying in the first place.

RTFxkcd

In reality, the bar isn't actually set all that high. Had young Luna in 1992 realized this, she might have thought it worthwhile to jump in and start hacking. She might have realized hacking is like anything else -- everyone learns the basics, then the intermediates, and if they really want to go far, they're finally prepared for the advanced stuff. I thought I had to start with the advanced stuff because of the swagger of those who'd already been down that road. I didn't have patience in myself to struggle with the basics because I didn't see the point. And no one was about to help me.

I wasn't unique. There was a perception that the bar was set at the top of Mt. Everest. This perception hasn't changed. I've seen through the illusion, but thousands of others haven't. When I got back, I chatted with a friend who was worried DEFCON was too technical to be useful in his job (he works in IT). At the con, I chatted with a girl who had previously been "The Girlfriend", but this year had her own badge. She still didn't consider herself a hacker, even though she's a skilled lockpicker with a mathematics background and an interest in pen testing and crypto. I pointed her to the online tools for learning more crypto and pen testing, and gave her permission to call herself a hacker.

Another guy has been trying to convince his girlfriend to come to DEFCON. She knows how to something-something with DNA (the technical terms escape me, because it's not my field, but I knew what he was talking about), and considers it "easy", and yet he can't get her to go to local biohacking meetings or to DEFCON because she feels she's not good enough. I told him it sounded like she qualified to give a home-biohacking talk at DEFCON, because she knows how to do things I don't, and I'd love for her to teach me how.

This is a problem. There aren't enough qualified employees in the InfoSec world to fill demand. While the numbers have been improving, unemployment is still at 1.95% (as of April 2013). What that means is that when a company wants to hire a hacker, they will have a difficult time filling the position. This is detrimental to the IT industry, as we struggle to secure infrastructure. It is detrimental to employed InfoSec workers, who have to do the work of two or three other people. It is detrimental to our economy that companies can't expand quickly enough, or they are forced to expand with unsecured systems even though they very much would like to secure them. It works against the goals of the white hat hacker community, who wants to evangelize security to the world, but don't have enough bodies to do so.

It's also a problem for more squishy reasons. The hacker community needs an influx of new minds. We need entrepreneurs to build new future companies and non-profits inspired by the hacker ethic, not just in InfoSec, but in biohacking and other fields. We need fresh perspectives and new thinkers.

Two new cards, Hacker and Crypto,
allows for a "HACK" poker hand.

Perhaps most importantly is the principle of the thing. Elitism has always been at odds with hacker community ideals like openness, democracy, & equality. These contradictions need to be corrected. In general, hackers want an open society while clinging to privacy and secrecy for themselves. Hackers want open source, yet fail to make participation welcoming and accessible to all. Hackers protest the 1%, yet hoard a wealth of knowledge through snobbish attitudes and indecipherable language, effectively establishing themselves as the intellectual 1%. Hackers want everyone to be included, yet mock newbie mistakes, underestimate women, and require proof of worth before allowing access into exclusive social circles.

DEFCON should be proud of it's meritocratic society. Merit certainly does need to be rewarded, and in the past, bragging rights and social glory was a generous reward indeed. But so is camaraderie and having more friends and brilliant minds in the community. That is the direction we should be headed. And I think we are.

Up until recently, I was blindly unaware of this dynamic. I was a part of the system itself, and therefore, ignorant of it. As an outsider, I played the game by staying outside. As a geek, I gloated along with the rest of the geeks, (though I at least tried to be inclusive and not require proof-of-geekdom). As I slowly embraced my hacker side, I gloated in what little cred I had.

It took the cultural shift at DEFCON this year to set the past in stark relief against the now, and to show where as a culture, we've been wrong. The shift wasn't sudden. It's been building, evolving for years, as DEFCON has grown from a handful of people to 14,000, and as computer ownership spread from the rare nerd to every single household, and now to every purse and pocket. In recent years, the shift accelerated as prominent figures like Lost giving "I'm just like you" and "Be by doing" talks to thousands of hackers.

Hacker Spaces and DIY Maker culture has also influenced hacker culture to include rather than exclude. Makers preach a populist message to the masses: Make it and fix it. You can do it. Anyone can.

But perhaps a larger influence is generational. We GenX were born jaded. As youth, we were characterized by our rebellious nature and distrust of authority. We have since matured and mellowed. And while we still have plenty of distrust in authority, we've learned to work within the system. We've proven ourselves in a hundred other ways, and no longer need the trophies and chest-thumping.

And "kids these days", why aren't they replacing our immaturity with theirs? Because GenY is very different. They come with built-in self-esteems. They may have been bullied, but they don't know what it's like to be excluded from society merely for owning a computer or being into sci-fi (hi Harry Potter and Pokemon). They also tend to trust authority and each other a little more than we did. I believe GenY is less interested in cliquish crowing and more interested in making things with others. (Now get off my lawn.)

The GenZ has something neither GenX or GenY had. They have rootz Asylum (formerly DEFCON Kids). This year, there were hundreds of kids, and again, they found dozens of 0days in real products, including the Samsung Smart TV. The kids had several tracks of programming and a bunch of contests just for them. One was an elaborate capture the flag game. As I watched the Social Engineering CTF, sometimes a trained military sniper stood on a chair and nerfed little kids who ran through the room to deliver a package.

Art in the Chillout Cafe, video.

Filmed by Roland who chats with a stranger.

Another welcome change this year was a steep reduction in sexism. What sexism I saw was on the ground-level, committed by individuals, and in one case via sheer ignorance from newbies and not malice. No more presentation slides showing bound women. No more sexist comments by panelists. No more icky behavior supported by Goons. No more bingo cards with "Tits" as a requirement. And no more parties with themes like "Pimp". I'm pretty sure this was all intentional, and I certainly noticed. The waves of these actions are rippling down to the ground level and causing real change. I heard zero talk from women about feeling uncomfortable. That's not to say it didn't exist, but if it did, it was certainly subdued.

I was a little afraid that a less-sexist DEFCON would mean less fun. But nope! Sexual freedom maintained an appropriate level of looseness, and discussions about sex at parties still flowed as liberally as the alcohol. So it seems it is possible to strike a balance between freedom and respect for women. Huzzah!

Skulls know no class or hate.
Every skull is l33t!
(Except for numbskulls. They're dumb.)

The one incident worth noting happened when I was standing in the badge line. The group of guys behind me couldn't seem to stop talking about sex and cute chicks and the body parts of cute chicks and the penis-shaped light-saber one of the Goons carried. It seemed to be their only interest. I started to get hungry and realized the only snacks I'd brought were pepperoni sticks and a banana. I remained hungry because there was no way I would be putting either two phallic symbols in my mouth and give them a chance to harass me about it.

Later on, they started talking about other things, and I joined their conversation. I learned they were DEFCON first-timers, and in reality nice guys. That's how most of these things work, and why I'm hesitant to turn into a flaming furious feminist without giving people a chance. The uncomfortable environment they'd created was unintentional, and I'm sure they remain ignorant to this moment about how their conversation might have affected me. There was no point in explaining it to them, since this sort of thing is really hard to convince anyone of in the moment. Instead I blog about it and let culture work its magic.

The influx of DEFCON newbs does create some ground-level cultural awkwardness. Being inclusive of plebes means they won't immediately share the sense of tolerance for fashion that DEFCON has always enjoyed. At a Thursday party during the cusp between Blackhat and DEFCON, Roland received some guff for his clothing choice. If you've ever been to DEFCON (which these guys apparently hadn't), you would quickly realize that the black Utilikilt is a traditional geek uniform. Most guys wear jeans, and those who want to spruce up a little wear kilts. At this party, a couple of guys told Roland his kilt made him look gay and it wouldn't help him pick up chix. Roland told them he wasn't dressing for them and was doing just fine with the womens, kthanksbai.

Given the prominence of the Queercon party and the fact that many of the Goons are from west coast cities and tend to be socially liberal and that DEFCON in general has become extremely LGBT-friendly, I doubt their attitude lasted long into the weekend. Girls like me happen to think kilts are dashing. I'd definitely hit that, but no so much the guys who concern-troll any sort of gayness.

The Wall of Sheep was almost empty this year. For those who don't know, DEFCON NOC traditionally packet-sniffs for passwords going over the network in the clear. They post pwned pws on a giant screen called the Wall of Sheep. It's a very good thing the number of pwnable pws is going down. In part, credit goes to DEFCON having two wifi networks, one being (more or less) secure. But also heartening is that more internet services are forcing SSL for logins, which is a beautiful thing. In 2009, my Twitter account got owned, because Twitter didn't use SSL at the time. This time, nearly all the ten or so sheeped accounts were unencrypted POP3 and IMAP.

DEFCON 21 Playing Card.
I mean, badge.

back

The badge, as usual, was very cool. ~54 unique badges represented playing cards. The suits were replaced by the three DEFCON symbols (smile & crossbones, diskette, rotary dial), plus a new one added this year: a keyhole. They were printed on circuit boards (PCBs) but with no evident electronics. Part of the badge puzzle involved using a multimeter to trace internal wiring. The Uber Badge (given only to those who have won DEFCON's most challenging contests) included a watch mechanism designed and hand-built by Lost. He chose that design to learn a few of the skills his grandfather must have known as a watchmaker.

Uber Duber Badge!

Badges will alternate yearly, electronic and non-electronic. Next year we can expect batteries and blinkies again.

Crypto Sign is part of the DEFCON 21 Badge Puzzle.
I still don't know what it means!

I didn't work on the puzzle at all this year, other than taking a few notes. I was far too caught up in attending talks and other DEFCON activities. I did recognize that one of the rotunda decals looked like a giant clock. People in the hall around me didn't seem to realize this. It was set to 7:50:15. That's the only thing I solved. Lots of other people participated this year, though, and I think there was far more in-person socializing, since a special room had been designated for participants to network.

See? It's clearly a clock!

My experience of attending talks was colored slightly by my unpopular opinion of the Edward Snowden and NSA stories which were prominent this year.

I proudly will keep this
and hold it ironically close to my heart.

I don't want to get too far into my opinion, since that would be its own post. Short version: I think Snowden is an idiot and that Greenwald is one of the most irresponsible journalists this side of WorldNetDaily.

 The NSA is in need of criticism to be sure, but what Greenwald presented is not what the NSA is actually doing and not what the leaked slides show. Prism and Boundless Informant and XKeyScore have been debunked, and here, and here, and many elsewheres. At Blackhat, General Alexander confirmed the conjecture made by tech-journal debunkers. The cellphone metadata story has more meat to it, though it was also exaggerated to some extent. I wish that's what the discussion is centered around, because I like discussing facts, not made up stuff that should be on Snopes.

I was greatly saddened by the fact that DEFCON attendees, speakers, and Goons seemed to be buying the sensationalist narrative. The technical community should know better. Of all people, hackers should be able to reality check Snowden/Greenwald's claims and see right through it. I did. Unfortunately, the story hits hacker-community fears related to government surveillance and loss of privacy rights and a historical mistrust of government. The cognitive consonance is just too delicious to let go. Just goes to show we are all vulnerable to cognitive bias attack-vectors, even the most brilliant of us.

The NSA inspires a lot of tinfoil hats at DEFCON 21!

Tinfoil Tophat
Deflecting government brain scanners in style!

So many of the talks I attended assumed everything Snowwald/Greenden said was true. Some of the speakers seemed to know the reality, but made no attempt to clarify or discuss the debunkings, so everything they said still went through the Snowwald filter of OMG THE GOV CAN SEE ALL MY EMAILZ FROM FIVE YEARZ AGO!!11oneeleven.

I spent alot of the talks squirming in my seat and madly tweeting opinions (pontifitweeting?). I will spare you since you can read it on Twitter and I don't have room here for a more detailed explanation of my controversial opinion.

I will specifically call out the ACLU talk on the subject, since they ought to know better and did nothing to debunk the myths. The way they phrased things, they seemed to know the truth of it, but anyone who hasn't seen the debunks would have had their bias confirmed by everything the ACLU said. So it was a bit dishonest. But I'm sure they made more money from it.

The one argument I get regularly is the "Ends justify the means" rationale. It goes something like this: No one listens to privacy advocates, and there is still bad stuff going on, even if it's not the way Snowdald says it is, so this non-issue gives attention to the topic in general, therefore the story is good even if it's wrong. I counter-reason that all arguments should be based in fact so they cannot be easily dismantled. Fighting against imaginary dragons does nothing to defeat real dragons.

That said, the EFF did bring in ~$100,000 this year at DEFCON, so in that sense, maybe the Greenwden hoax has an upside.

Another happy thing about the EFF is they seem to be shifting their stance on the "What to do about privacy" problem. They seem to be promoting more reciprocal transparency side, which is to say, the only way to combat ubiquitous government cameras is to focus on defending the citizen's right to point cameras back at the government. Let the Feds look, as long as we know what they're looking at and why. It warms my heart, because I've hesitated to support the EFF while they uselessly spin their wheels trying to keep the government from snooping.

I attended a talk by Mudge, an old school hacker whose been working for DARPA for the last three years. He told a number of interesting anecdotes centered around a theme about communication between the government and hackers. We come from two very different cultures, and in order to communicate between them, everyone needs to consider the language we're using. Feds need to act like diplomats entering an advanced alien civilization, and hackers need to realize that Feds are focused far more on doing their jobs than on how to fuck with citizens and hackers.

He suggested that in order to be trusted, the Feds need to give back to the hacker community. They need to show up at hacker cons and give technical talks to share things they know. And they need to realize hacker = researcher, not hacker = criminal.

He also pointed out that between private companies and the government, no one is incentivized to improve security. Defense contractors actually get financially rewarded for letting secrets leak, because our national strategic advantage is in being the most technologically advanced. When secrets leak, contractors get new contracts to produce new tech.

To hackers, he implored us to reward the government for good behavior. When a department or elected individual does something awesome, praise them. Help them. Encourage them. Offer assistance.

I also attended the opening talk and closing ceremonies, as well as Lost's talk on Decrypting DEFCON. Aside from dropping badge clues and describing the badge design process, Lost again evangelized on a theme of "doing". This time the underlying point was, "You'll be a better hacker if you understand the technology and knowledge that underlies the high-level stuff you're doing." To developers, he encouraged learning binary, processor logic, and assembly. The best quote I pulled from this talk is: "Technology is nothing more than learning to communicate." Which is a bit like I used to say in my job -- writing is programming where humans are the hardware. These fields have so much in common, which is why, as a writer, I still feel confident in saying I'm a hacker. Especially since I'm currently writing about mind exploits.

I also attended a thought-provoking and balanced talk on white hat hacker ethics by Alex Stamos, and an emotionally difficult talk by Amber Baldet on suicide risk assessment and intervention. I caught the tail end of a village talk on tamper evident basics, if you've ever wanted to open an envelope or void a warranty without getting caught.

I spent a little bit of time watching people peel back "VOID" tape in the Tamper Evident Village, though I didn't stop long enough to do it myself.

The villages may be another part of why DEFCON is growing to feel more inclusive. There were four this year, the Lockpick, Tamper Evident, Wireless, and Hardware Village. Tables were strewn with tools and materials for practicing the craft, with helpful experts available to teach and demonstrate. The villages permit a hands-on experience, and since they cover the rudimentary basics, and say "Yes, everyone can pick a lock or solder a circuit", they reveal that the price for entry to learning hacking is actually quite low. Everyone starts somewhere, and it's stated clearly that no one will to judge you for not knowing anything or asking newbie questions.

This year, Roland and I challenged one another to submit talks next year. We're already busy working on our ideas. I know exactly what I'd like to speak on: Reverse Engineering Mind Control, using Mormonism as a case study. I bounced the idea off a couple of the people who run Skytalks, and they like it. While I love hacking tech, I've always been more comfortable with squishy topics, like culture, religion, and psychology. Which doesn't mean I'm good at people -- quite the opposite. I just think people are the most interesting type of machine to analyze.

Last year I said DEFCON was the best EVER. And this year, I would say I was the best Luna ever at DEFCON. Part of this of course is that I'm always self-improving. But the biggest change this year is that I was on an SSRI for anxiety. (Say it with me, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. What a fun phrase!)

I couldn't ignore the change. My social anxiety was gone and my inhibitions towards talking to people nearly vanished. No more internal feedback loops of self-conscious second guessing. I just opened my mouth and let words pour forth not worrying too much if I'd say the wrong thing or talk to the wrong people or monolog too long. My bravery was greatly rewarded because people actually engaged with me. I met so many people and had so many great conversations. I stood up for myself and others when needed and didn't worry I might be hurting someone else's feelings.

For years I've tried to talk myself into not being afraid, but talking never quite did it. Medication did. So hacking-the-Luna-through-biochemistry project was a huge success. Moreover I felt more aware during conversations, like the world of humans had slowed down just enough for me to understand what was going on and think well enough to respond. Any awkwardness I felt was a mild discomfort, not the mind-scorching panic it would have been a month ago. My Aspergers diagnosis has also given me an understanding of the many causes of my brokenness so I can accept those things about myself and feel a little more l33t because of it. It wasn't a panacea. I still have old habits and hesitations. But I now have hopes my attempts to rid myself of them will go smoothly.

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Bernie Mojzes, editor at Unlikely Story, where I was published last year in the Journal of Unlikely Entomology. There are currently calls for stories in the Journal of Unlikely Cryptography, so if any DEFCON writers are reading this, make something and go submit it. I plan to take my own advice here.

The parties were also great, as usual. We didn't party too hard this year. Queercon was good but it will never recapture the intimacy and fun spirit and wild dancing it had at the much smaller room in the Skyboxes at the Riv. We found a small private party offsite at The Palms, hosted by (I think?) PasswordCon. It was in a suite that looked strangely like the one in Four Rooms where Quinten Tarantino chops off a guy's finger. No fingers were lost, just good conversations were had.

The Freakshow was sadly canceled due to the death of Barnaby Jack, who worked for IOActive.

DEFCON threw a poolside party instead, and we were treated to some sick rhymes by Dual Core, and the impressive medley of musical madness played by the Sex Havers who were having way too much contagious fun to not enjoy every second of it.

I missed watching DEFCON: The Documentary at the con, because the timing was awkward. But I'm looking forward to torrenting it and pressing play. So many thanks to Jason Scott and DEFCON for making this film.

So many other things happened, which I will remember after clicking "Publish". If you'd like these sorts of things to happen to you, head on down to DEFCON next year. The only requirement is that you be interested in related topics like information security, national security, privacy, data, locks, cryptography, solder, robots, cyberwarfare, or social engineering. That's all it takes to be smart enough. Join us and learn. I give you permission.

Past posts about DEFCON:
Defcon Recap 2009: Adventures of a Hacker Groupie
Culture War at Defcon 17 (by Roland Lindsey)
Defcon 19 Badge Contest: In General
Defcon 19 Badge Contest: In Specific
DEFCON 20: Coming of Age
DEFCON 20: The Badge Contest

UPDATE: Edited to correct the fact that Dual Core is actually on Spotify, and Dual Core is two words not one. :D

Les Misérables and Ayn Rand

I delight in finding flaws in Ayn Rand's reasoning using the tools of logic she promoted. This isn't because I hate Ayn Rand; to the contrary, she has been highly influential and I respect her greatly.

Just as she did, I enjoy battling contradiction where ever I find it. Rand herself said, in the (in)famous John Galt speech of Atlas Shrugged, "To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality." This woman who espoused individual thinking and death to dogma created perhaps one of the greatest contradictions -- followers who question not a word she spoke, who thirty years after her expiration date continue to walk in lock step and exile anyone who dares question or have an original idea.

Perhaps it is also because I have the heart of a hacker that I love to poke. Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, is a complex yet elegant machine, so self-assured of its own function, wholeness, and security, that I cannot resist breaking it apart whenever I can. Objectivism is a machine that has a place in this world, but it should not run the world. It should click along quietly in the shadows, cranking out interesting ideas, and keeping corruption of certain types in check. It should not produce a type of corruption itself; a corruption which has, unfortunately, permeated much of our society, corporate culture, and government.

It is in this spirit I write this post.

Just as Ayn Rand is one of my influences, she often cited Victor Hugo as one of hers. She idealized romanticism, which she saw as a type of art which distilled reality down into its most poignant, beautiful, powerful parts. Art should lift up humanity's highest values as a guide for all to follow, and she found this in Hugo's work. Her favorite of these works is also my favorite: Les Misérables.

[Spoiler warning: Les Mis is one of those timeless stories that shouldn't require a spoiler warning. Ruining the surprise doesn't really ruin the surprise. Nonetheless, I speak in detail from here on out.]

Rand spoke often of the "ideal man" in fiction, and Jean Valjean stood tall as the most ideal of ideal men. She respected his dignity and unremitting honesty, his determination and perseverance, his independence and industry. If these are the traits Ayn Rand loved, she detested their opposites. She had the harshest words about selflessness, altruism, sacrifice, piety, and devotion to God. The poor were probably poor because they refused to lift themselves up, and in a properly structured Capitalist, atheist society, greed would motivate those who wanted a better life badly enough to work for it, and punish those who did not.

Hugo's novel exposed the levers in French society with which the upper class oppressed the lower class. Of this, she said, "Les Misérables was the big experience. Everything about it became important to me, holy, everything that reminded me of it was a souvenir of my love. It was my first view of how one should see life, wider than any concretes of the story. I didn’t approve of the ideas about the poor and the disinherited, except that Hugo set them up in a way that I could sympathize with; they were the victims of government, of the aristocracy, or established authority."

Clearly Rand was inspired by Les Misérables for many of the same reasons I am. Aside from the complex and interesting plot, there is something about the actions of the characters, the unjust world, and the fight for a future freedom, that resounds with the post-Enlightenment soul. I read an abridged version of Les Misérables as a teenager and became familiar with the musical long before I encountered Rand in my late 20's. By then I had seen every film production and had the lyrics to most of the songs memorized. 

Yesterday I watched the new film production with Objectivism tickling the back of my mind. The movie fills in details that the musical glosses over. They added quite a few lines of speech and music to explain some of the holes you might not understand from the musical alone. Most of the story fit the Objecticist worldview. In spite of the injustice established by moochers like the French aristocracy and the Thénardiers running around making life generally suck for everyone, Jean Valjean manages to succeed. He never complains. He starts a factory and becomes the mayor, and as he is perused by the unrelentingly lawful Javert throughout France, he manages to continue to succeed, keep his promises, and be an all around great guy.

Clearly an ideal man in a novel that Ayn Rand could have easily written herself. The few times Valjean gives anything to anyone, it's in exchange for something he values. Even his promise to take care of Cosette springs from his personal feelings of justice, since it is by his own inadvertent actions that Fantine, an honest hard-worker, gets fired and eventually dies. Those who give their lives at the barricade do so for the sake of freedom. Marius is a sort of mini-Valjean full of his own ideals and values and noble pursuits. The love between Marius and Cosette is a love of equals, two worthy human beings who find value in each other.

In Hugo's work, altruism loses, virtuous selfishness wins.

Except for one thing. Here is where it all falls apart. All of Valjean's admirable actions and heroic deeds hinge on a single simple act by a minor character -- one act without which Valjean would have died a bitter, thieving moocher of a man. Just another Thénardier, a nameless, faceless, undignified whining wretch. This act is not only altruistic and selfless, it is done in the name of God, by a man of God. 

Valjean is given shelter in a cathedral by Bishop Myriel. At his first chance, Valjean steals the silver. When he is caught fleeing, he knows he will be sent back to prison for life. Yet when confronted by the police, the Bishop tells them he gave the silver to Valjean, and offers him two candlesticks that he "forgot". After the police leave, the Bishop tells Valjean to take the silver and begin a new life. In the musical, the Bishop sings, "I have bought your soul for God."

This one action causes a crisis of conscious for Valjean (in contrast to Javert's later crisis when Valjean saves his life). Valjean's cynical view of the world is shattered. He takes the silver and invests in the engines of capitalism, starting the factory and becoming the mayor. He employs hundreds of workers and lives a life Ayn Rand would wholly approve of.

Up until that moment, Valjean was a filthy freeloader. His savior was a selfless man of God. Both Valjean and the Bishop have every trait to qualify as a villain or a victim in a Rand novel. In her story, Valjean would have run off with the silver; blown it all on drugs, charity, taxes, or something equally vile; and returned to steal again. In her story, the Bishop would have used Valjean for his own ends only to meet destruction through his altruistic folly.

Though I respect the values of Objectivism, I am no longer an Objectivist. It is too single-minded, too caught up in the rule of the Laws of Logic to see the exceptions, to see that goodness in life is a balancing act of a whole spectrum of values. Just as Javert could not believe Valjean had been redeemed in spite of all the evidence before him, Ayn Rand ignored that a well-timed selfless act does as much good as well-implemented capitalism. All of our values have a place, and any of them can be taken too far. 

Those in power are resourceful at remaining in power. I am as mistrustful of corporate power as I am of the government. Yes, we have come a long way since 19th century France. But we haven't changed as much as we think. Our system is better, yet it still works to keep the poor down. Businesses require money. Intelligence requires good nutrition. Education requires skilled teachers and adequate facilities. Success requires good health, access to computers, and social connections. All of which are out of reach of millions of people. It's not that they are unwilling to climb the ladder of success, but that the first rung is held too high for them to reach.

Without a little help, like the help Bishop Myriel gave Valjean, even the most capable and idealistic of the unfortunate are no more capable of lifting themselves from the gutter than Valjean would have been. Capitalism does not solve every problem. Sometimes it takes a little senseless charity.