Techdirt T-Shirt List: Nerd Harder
from the a-short-read... dept
Limited time offer: Support Techdirt and get a "Nerd Harder." T-shirt!
Normally at this time of the week, we post our "Techdirt Reading List" suggestion for a book worth reading, but this week we're suggesting something that's a little shorter to read: Our Nerd Harder T-shirt.
In case you missed our original post, this T-shirt is a response to the increasing number of claims we've seen lately from non-tech people assuming that technology can do anything if those smart people out in Silicon Valley just put their minds to it. We've seen the FBI claim that if we just worked harder at it, we could build backdoored encryption that doesn't undermine encryption. And then we saw the copyright industry claim that if Silicon Valley can build a self-driving car, clearly it can build a system to block infringing material without destroying fair use. Computer security expert Matt Blaze rebutted this idea beautifully once by saying it's the equivalent of "we put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man on the sun?" demonstrating the fact that non-tech people don't seem to even remotely understand the relative differences between the things they're suggesting.
Julian Sanchez coined the term "nerd harder" as a short hand for this, and we thought that while it makes for terrible policy, it's a catchy T-shirt slogan. And a nice way to support Techdirt while getting a cool T-shirt at the same time.
It's only available until this Sunday, so don't miss out.
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Filed Under: nerd harder, t-shirt, techdirt
