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It used to be called Panoptoclik (sp?), a reference to Foucault's theory of the panopticon. Focault's extracurriculars are well documented and not everything is an "incident" -- it's a thread on fingerprinting. People who study that are aware what is now called "cover your tracks", and people who do post grads tend to be well rounded enough to have read a bit of philosophy, or at least, they did in my day.

So what happened here is basically... AI told you that something that made you suspicious because you have zero subject matter expertise is suspect?

I'm not really sure how to react to someone who has a robot affirm their anxieties other than to stand by my previous statements and give a polite pointer at some terms to look up on Wikipedia rather than feed into a clanker.

3 comments

Funny you mention Wikipedia

You said it was “named after a pedophile”, that is wrong

>>The word panopticon derives from the Greek word for "all seeing" – panoptes.

The concept was invented by Jeremy Bentham, who died before Foucault was born.

Interesting that you named your HN account after a famous homophobe.

>Interesting that you named your HN account after a famous homophobe.

that guy is no longer with the project and does brave now iirc

(it's super interesting to us that two different people took such a wild leap btw)

>>that guy is no longer with the project and does brave now iirc

Foucault is dead.

>>(it's super interesting to us that two different people took such a wild leap btw)

It's super interesting to me that you expected people to make the wild leap from “named after a pedophile” to a project that wasn't even named after a person.

You chose to communicate poorly to make a point and are now complaining when the point turned out to not even be true.

You could have said 'Panopticlick' and people would have known what you were talking about. Instead, you left the name out and instead pointed out the rename and the “fact” that it was previously named after a pedophile. The obvious implication is that it was renamed to cover this up.

The smug tone of your follow-up leads met to the conclusion that you had some “fun” trivia from a class you took one time, and you prioritised showing that off over clear communication (while falsely implying some kind of cover-up of wrongdoing by the EFF).

You invalidated your initial claim. Panopticon is not a pedo. Therefore the project was not named after one. Therefore the robot was right.

Foucault was, but if we misunderstand on purpose, the sky is the limit.

You said “named after” when you meant “named after an idea popularized by”.

If you type one thing and expect people to understand that you meant something else then I will have to assume that by this:

>>people who do post grads tend to be well rounded enough to have read a bit of philosophy, or at least, they did in my day.

you meant you once visited a university but never enrolled in any classes?

You can complain that people on the internet misunderstand on purpose (and I agree it is far to common), but that complaint is only valid if you communicate clearly yourself.

Are the allegations described here what you're referring to? From cursory reading it sounds like satanic panic bullshit with some good old "gay men are pedophiles" thrown in, and basically just character assasination using debunked or non-existent sources.

https://lundi.am/The-Black-Masses-of-Michel-Foucault-the-Bul...

Plus as others noted, even if true your original statement would still be a lie since a Panopticon is a concept not a person.