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[LoneTophat]

Hacktivism and all. Support it or no?

[ChairmanPoo]

Wrong forum

[Cthulhu]

Also no.  Hacking and DDoSing undermines your cause.  When Al Qaeda attacked the world trade center nobody said "Wow, they're right, we are the Great Satan.  America should change its ways."  Same principles are at work here.

[ChairmanPoo]

I think there is a significant difference between a page going down for a while and blowing up a building with 3000 people inside....

[LoneTophat]

Indeed. Also; My history teacher brought up a good point. The British Empire called the Americans terrorists :>

[shadenight123]

as it has been said in sayings:
the difference between anarchists and revolutionaries is the difference between losers and winners.
the difference between genocide and colonization is the difference between the will of few and the will of many to let it go.
every law is there not for a need of justice, but for a need of society. change society, change the law.
eating a body is no more wrong in a tiny cannibal island than it is in the center of a city, it's how it's seen by the society that determines it's truth or wrongness.

[Cthulhu]

I think there is a significant difference between a page going down for a while and blowing up a building with 3000 people inside....

But the basic principle, that destructive behavior begets retaliation, not support, is the same. 

[Criptfeind]

Can you move this to GD please? There is a button at the bottom of the posts.

as it has been said in sayings:
the difference between anarchists and revolutionaries is the difference between losers and winners.
the difference between genocide and colonization is the difference between the will of few and the will of many to let it go.

Wrong. And. Less wrong but still wrong.

I have, personally, never heard of an anarchist revolution. Similarly Every revolution I have ever heard of had goals that excluded anarchist...Ity.... Whatever. So. No.

Colonization has in some cases lead to genocide, but that by no means means that always has. The terms you use actually mean something, and saying that two things mean the same thing when they are not synonyms is stupid.

[ChairmanPoo]

I have, personally, never heard of an anarchist revolution. Similarly Every revolution I have ever heard of had goals that excluded anarchist...Ity.... Whatever. So. No.

There is such a thing as anarchism as a political ideology (famous ideologues were Bakunin, Kropotkin, Emma Goldstein, et al). It differs from "anarchy as in political chaos" though.

[shadenight123]

anarchism *is* used when, for example we refer to the decision of the "lega padana" (in italy) who wants to separate from the south of italy, (because they are sort of "nordist purist") they are referred to as "anarchs" because they obviously go against the laws of the state.
Now, a revolution, to begin with, is something that goes against the laws of a state. revolution of the french was when the french decided to live without the king, and chopped his head off. They were clearly labelled as anarchs, but they won, thus the term French Revolution, and not "the french anarchism was soon closed, all hail his majesty the king".

the second point, consider the aztec and the conquistadores. Colonization *was* the genocide of the aztec and of the maya. The reason indians are in reserves right now is certainly not because they "were colonized" but tell me it isn't written on the history books "european colonized ameriza"?

[Criptfeind]

They were clearly labelled as anarchs

By whom? Did they call themselves that? Did they have Anarchistic goals? The fact that they quickly set up a government type that was not anarchistic tells me the answer is a no. The chaos of a revolution and two ideologies fighting is not the same as a anarchistic state.

Did anyone that knew what the revolutionaries wanted think they were true anarchists? Can you source that if it is true?

the second point, consider the aztec and the conquistadores. Colonization *was* the genocide of the aztec and of the maya. The reason indians are in reserves right now is certainly not because they "were colonized" but tell me it isn't written on the history books "european colonized ameriza"?

Colonization *was not* the genocide of the natives. Genocide was the genocide of the natives. Because one happened at the same time as another, or even if one happened because of the other, does not make them the same thing.

[Valid_Dark]

the difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates

[shadenight123]

i'll take it by wikipedia:
The revolutionary wave of 1917–23 saw the active participation of anarchists in varying degrees of protagonism. In the German uprising known as the Bavarian Soviet Republic the anarchists Gustav Landauer, Silvio Gesell and Erich Mühsam had important leadership positions within the revolutionary councilist structures.[99][100] In the Italian events known as the biennio rosso the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Unione Sindacale Italiana "grew to 800,000 members and the influence of the Italian Anarchist Union (20,000 members plus Umanita Nova, its daily paper) grew accordingly...Anarchists were the first to suggest occupying workplaces.

Anarchists *are* in revolutions. it's because for a revolution to become such you need people who hate the government.

but i believe the final notes tend to clear the problem:

Phenomena such as civilization, technology (e.g. within anarcho-primitivism and insurrectionary anarchism), and the democratic process may be sharply criticized within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others.

there are various degrees of anarchism.
thus as there are anarchism by the book:
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful,[1][2] or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations
there are certainly "revolutionary" who end up labelled as anarchists for the press.

on the second point, i understand it. Though they "are" in relation. the colons wanted lands which did not actually belong to them, and, if we were to consider the "colonization" of america, using modern laws and legislation, wouldn't it be an outright "invasion" of another country's soil?

[Montague]

I think this is a new record time for complete thread derailment.

Anyways, anarchy is impossible to acheive through revolution, because a revolution requires some armed organization to carry it out and when the smoke clears and the old order is toppled, you have that group of armed combatants as the most powerful entity left in control, which isn't anarchy at all, its the new ruling power structure.

[jhxmt]

The original question could presumably be broadened to include other types of 'destructive' activism (e.g. some of the tactics used by organisations such as the Sea Shepherds) - hacktivism is effectively an electronic form of destructive (or at least obstructive) activism.

That's very much going to be down to personal morality/ethics and personal opinion on the topic being, uh, activised about.  I doubt you'd find widespread support, for example, for hackivists who stated that they were doing things because they were e.g. opposed to gay rights.  The same actions when put forward for another reason (e.g. in support of human rights and to oppose violations of those rights in certain countries) would be lauded by the majority of people.

Alongside the personal view of the issue at stake, there's also the consideration of impact.  Hacktivists taking these actions against e.g. people eating broccoli, for example, would probably be widely laughed at and very few would support the actions because a) nobody really cares and b) it's not going to have the slightest bit of impact.  For a specific issue where the hacktivism could be the point that tips things, though (e.g. some internet-related political policy issues such as SOPA), then there's more 'value' in the actions being taken.

So: personal morality, personal opinion of issue, ability of activism to make a material impact on the issue.  Those are the three axes, for want of a better visualisation.

tl;dr: answer varies.