> Is there really as much of a distinction as some would have us > believe?
Yes, absolutely. If the problem is X and your advocacy loudly insists that Y is happening, then you're (a) not solving X (although Y might need fixing anyway), and (b) all the people you've persuaded to join your cause will desert you as soon as they discover you were totally uninformed. As an example: malaria kills millions of children worldwide. Imagine an advocate telling people, "we must end malaria, and we can start by getting these villages clean drinking water!", and getting tens of thousands of people to donate money to the cause of drilling safe water wells in the developing world. Yes, preventable diseases caused by unclean drinking water is a *very* serious problem, and yes, those wells will almost certainly ameliorate some problems... but it will do absolutely nothing to stop the spread of malaria. How do you think people who bought into the advocacy, who believed they were saving the world from malaria, will react when someone comes along and tells them, "uh, the advocate was completely wrong, and although you may have done some good for the eradication of, I don't know, cholera or something, you've had zero effect on malaria"? I'll tell you what happens -- an epidemic of cynicism. And that hurts us all. _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
