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Th idea of "will", especially from the German side, got a bad rap for obvious reasons. But I like Arendt's picture of it as an uncomfortable inner tension when we simultaneously see what what we want to be (or should morally do), and an alternative path set out by habit and company.

To me, will is a very important component in security, it's that tense feeling you get just before you;

  - decide the video conference with your boss urging you to transfer
    $1m into a Swiss account might not be as it seems, and pull the
    plug (risking being fired)

  - walk out of the shop that stubbornly refused to take cash (risking
    social embarrassment)

  - refuse a significant discount in exchange for giving personal
    information (taking financial loss on principle)

  - tell someone in a more authoritative position, no you won't be
    joining them via Teams/Zoom because of its security risks (risking
    unpopularity)
What we find in cybersecurity incident autopsies is that people say "I knew X wasn't right. All my spidery feelings and heckles were on red alert, but I didn't act, and I don't know why."

So in another piece I wrote;

    Our culture is now about to split into two camps; the normative
    and the secure. Instead of "the haves and have-nots", there will
    be "the will, and the will-nots". Those who will compromise and
    those who will not compromise security. Those who choose security
    over convenience. Those who choose security against the nagging
    "advice" of corporations and governments to adopt a weaker
    position favourable to "markets".



Thanks! Seems your adjacent concept should be relabelled "moral insecurity".

"Ethics today means not being at home in one's house." --Adorno

So that, the choice of moral freedom can still be the (more) ethical tradeoff


Cheers, and +1 for the very fitting Adorno quote.




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