Claiming surveillance without evidence diminishes real COINTELPRO harm.

Evidence

There is—at the risk of being unkind—something indulgent and self-absorbed about a group of people engaged in a voluntary recreational subculture declaring that they are government targets. COINTELPRO aimed at wrecking the lives, families, and psyches of activists. It takes a profound level of self-importance to claim without evidence that the feds are after you. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 870

Categorization

• XREF: The sharpest articulation of the book’s moral gradient between real government repression victims and recreational belief communities — connects to the reader’s claim-taste about acts of decorum standing apart from practical logic. — connects to: Users are more vulnerable to algorithms they know are mindless. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 314; Ignoring or discrediting harm evidence disables self-censure and motivates no change; Blind trust without evidence is imprudent once reason can assess it — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 355 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Ignoring or discrediting harm evidence disables self-censure and motivates no change #corroborates (0.85)
• Blind trust without evidence is imprudent once reason can assess it #corroborates (0.75) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 355