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   Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 21:43:14 JST Evan Prodromou

   Hi, all. Thanks for replying. I was thinking about this topic as I was listening to a Star Wars podcast in which Sith holocrons are a major plot point. Holocrons are a weird magical information technology in the Star Wars universe that encodes a person's spirit and knowledge, and you can talk to it to learn from them.

   https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith_holocron

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 21:46:02 JST Evan Prodromou

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     Holocrons are a major plot point in a lot of the Star Wars legends universe. The evil ones will wheedle, scream and curse at you with the voices of living beings. Some of the worst tragedies in galactic history come because someone's mind is corrupted by Sith holocrons and they do terrible crimes.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 21:55:15 JST Evan Prodromou

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     It's a very different model of information and ideas than I grew up with. I was born in the United States during the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and part of the dogma we learned in school was that ideas were harmless on their own, but also that a good life and a functioning society depended on free expression, openness and critical review. Doing careful shopping in the "free marketplace of ideas" is a right and a responsibility.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 21:59:58 JST Evan Prodromou

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     With the exception, of course, of a few bits of information, like the plans for nuclear weapons, the ideal was that all information be available to everyone everywhere.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:02:53 JST Evan Prodromou

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     Of course, this model was never really supported fully, but I think it was a foundation of the movements that are most important in my life, like the Internet and Free and Open Source software.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:10:47 JST Evan Prodromou

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     I think that life in the Internet has made us think about bad ideas more like Sith holocrons than like substandard potatoes in a stall in a marketplace. Naomi Klein's book "Doppelganger" talks about how bad ideas like QAnon, TERFism, antivax, and Gamergate take over otherwise smart and complex people's minds, turning them into abusive monsters locked into an ontological iron mask they can't escape.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:17:51 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Quinn Norton

     @quinn I think by the time I got to college at Berkeley in the 1980s, tolerance of Marxist and anticolonialist ideas was a hallmark of the curriculum. I don't think that was the case a generation before, though.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:17:52 JST Quinn Norton

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     @evan we absolutely didn't learn that information was harmless on its own. How quickly would someone have pulled the Communist Manifesto from classroom assignment?

     How many school libraries carried Trotsky? Heck, even reading Russian novels in translation was a *bit* sus.

     We were recruited to learn Russian, but that was 100% a military bound kids.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:22:23 JST Evan Prodromou

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     I'm not sure this is accurate. I think you can read about and understand QAnon's tenets without inevitably becoming an ardent believer in a bison headdress who storms the Capitol building. I think that people do fall under the sway of terrible ideas, but I think it happens in part because of other things going on in that person's life. The person and the bad idea meet midway.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:26:13 JST Evan Prodromou

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     That might be part of the myth of holocrons, anyway. If your hope is that you can learn how to cut people in half with a laser sword from a glowing pyramid, and that your superpowers and destiny will make help you dominate it instead of letting it dominate you, you might be bringing a lot of baggage to the whole Jedi-holocron relationship yourself.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:32:42 JST Evan Prodromou

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     The concept of the inescapable bad idea might be one that comes from friends and family to explain their loved one's behavior. It's hard when someone you love goes into the world of bad ideas and can't seem to escape. I think the bad idea can feel like an all-powerful demon that overrides your loved one's relationships and personality. We can idealize their previous mental and emotional state, which might not be entirely accurate.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:38:40 JST Evan Prodromou

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     Anyway, I feel like I do ok with bad ideas, but often because I come at them with a critical perspective, and I read or learn about them from writers on "my side". I might learn the facts and tenets and personalities, but usually from the outside.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:43:19 JST Evan Prodromou

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     I do feel like reading about ideas from the inside demands a lot more of me. It's frustrating and difficult; I might get angry, and then I have to figure out why I disagree. It's a lot of work.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:49:24 JST Evan Prodromou

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     For example, I've had "Letters to my Palestinian Neighbor" on my Kindle for years. (As a member of the Palestinian diaspora, the author might not consider me a neighbor.) I haven't yet found the energy to give it an honest read.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_to_My_Palestinian_Neighbor

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jul-2026 22:51:45 JST Evan Prodromou

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     So, I think my answer is Yes, but. Yes, but usually only from a position of safety that might not challenge me very much.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jul-2026 03:41:02 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Quinn Norton

     @quinn yeah, I'm sure. What I meant was, some ideas that weren't tolerated generally were discussed in academic circles.

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     Quinn Norton (quinn@social.circl.lu)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jul-2026 03:41:03 JST Quinn Norton

     in reply to

     @evan as Berkeley goes, so goes... Berkeley. By the 1980s in the Bay Area if I'd talked about Marx I would have got my ass beat. First by my dad, then by literally everyone else I ever met.