Risks, mitigation, and protection, for incoming U.S. government change It's difficult to predict exactly how the incoming US government will affect US tech and services, but the consequence of failure to manage and mitigate risk to individuals (whether american or rest of world) seems worryingly severe How will YC companies navigate this new landscape, to protect people (and their data)? |
If you have federal exposure, and know people with juice in MAGA circles, start sucking up. Otherwise, you need a lobbying strategy. These guys hate civil service, and intend to break the agencies, so knowing cronies is essential.
Start scrubbing political content from social media and blogs. With fascists, you need to suck it up and work with them, or not. If applicable, de-empathize your wokeness and progressive politics, which shouldn’t be associated with your business anyway.
Do not obey in advance.
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. After the German elections of 1932, which brought Nazis into government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed.