This is an intriguing idea. The majority of hackers hate this bill, and yet if the lobbyists and politicians pass it, they are going to need us to implement it for them. So maybe it would be some sort of solution, in the worst case, to organize a boycott of any person or company that works on it.

A startup blogger writes a polemic with a blatantly baiting headline. Within 24 hours, another startup blogger will write a rebuttal with an equally baiting headline. Both will incite winding debates on Hacker News.

Meanwhile, other people will somehow manage to create value, ostensibly the goal of both bloggers, without writing confrontational screeds, perhaps even writing insightful blog posts intended to inspire and challenge rather than stir up conflict.

Maybe it's writing polemics that is horseshit.

Hackers hate it, but there are more programmers than "hackers". Think about middle aged family men, career men. They aren't all going to care as strongly or be able to quit.

Also even if you could convince all american talent to boycott it, there's a whole world of people out there who don't care at all, and just like America has been happy to sell censorship tech to the rest of the world for years, I'm sure the rest of the world would be happy to repay :) I don't think Indian or Russian programmers are going to give a toss about it if it pays bills.

Ha or you could just buy back equipment already sent to Chian and Iran.

Which sort of raises the point that American talent has already built this equipment and been selling it for years now. It is way past too late for this boycott to work.