I didn't do identity politics, and I certainly didn't mean to.

    I guess I'm just more critic towards religion than you,
    and thus I favored - in contrast to you - Aral's attack
    towards the Abhramistic revelation-based religions.

By supporting Aral's attack on Abrahamic religions, you are participating in identity politics. Indeed, by making them the entire point of your last post, you are participating in identity politics right now.

I appreciate that you're trying to work with me here, but there's a distinct irony that our conversation has left the realm of online privacy (which IMO, was the thesis of Aral's topic), and into the realm of identity politics.

My point is that these identity politics issues are distracting, and take focus away from the primary point of Aral's speech. Do you not agree with me, that our current discussion is completely irrelevant with respect to Aral's primary point?

And why have we moved into this absurd direction? Was it my fault? Yours? Frankly, I blame neither of us. I blame Aral for bringing up the unnecessary attack, dividing you and I on the subject.

Worst part? You and I agree with each other. We agree that online privacy need to be reformed. And yet, here we are, bickering and wasting time with each other because we disagree on some minor identity politics issue. Do you not understand how the words Aral used are unnecessary, divisive, and detrimental to the cause?

    I'm really curious what you think about Carl Sagan's,
    Richard Feynman's, Richard Dawkins' and Richard
    Lawrence's view towards religion. Their attitudes went
    from derision over serious and aggressive critique to
    not putting up to talk to them. Do you think they did
    identity politics?

I don't think their thoughts are relevant to the topic of online privacy. Indeed, their very existence has derailed our discussion about online privacy and has now focused on identity politics.

This thread of discussion has failed. Be it your fault or my fault, it has failed. Because of identity politics. Why are we talking about Abrahamistic religions? Why aren't we talking about the pros and cons of online privacy?

Because Aral's attacks are distracting. They are unnecessarily distracting to his primary point. I hope you at least agree with me about this basic fact.

Aral's discussion would have been better without the attack. And maybe in that other, hypothetical universe where he held back a little bit more... you and I would have instead discussed Aral's "online privacy" argument directly, instead of the manner that we discussed it here today.

But sure, you can go ahead and continue to ask me questions about religion or whatever. But I'm probably going to stop talking to you if this thread continues in that trajectory. I hope I've made it clear that identity politics bore me, and I don't really want to partake in them.

Indeed, I make it a point to understand different cultures and different people. People are prideful of their identity: African Americans, Southern Baptists, NeoNazis, Iranian transfer students, Militant Atheists, Marxists, Libertarians... I have met many different people. And as long as I just have an _ounce_ of understanding of them, I can prevent discussions from becoming useless identity politic squabbles.

You can go ahead and play atheist and assert your right to criticize Abrahamistic Religions. Indeed, it is your right. But excuse me while I sit on the side, deride you for it, and look down upon it as a petty squabble.

I only hope that one day, you will see the futility of that and learn to work together with religious folk. This isn't "Real Politk", this is basic politics frankly. And you're not going to get much accomplished or rally people behind goals unless you learn to work together with people who fundamentally disagree with you.

I beg to differ that this discussion failed.

See, I learned about identity politics, which I've never had heard about before. I think the concept is interesting, so I'm naturally curious. But I have doubts about it. Lets change the roles, assume an atheist said something related to the snooping at Facebook and Google in a speech about atheism, would that be identity politics, too?

Also, this discussion's made me think about "allies" in political movements and compromises. So, at least for me, this discussion was valuable. Thank you.

This discussion did not derail. Mind you, since the start we weren't talking about online privacy because there never was disagreement about the need of it.

We are in totally different mindsets. That's not bad but good, because we could learn from the others perspective. HN is however not a good platform for longer discussions. I invite you to mail me at christian madez de.