5 ms·

I bet the October surprise is that no one cares.

Jtsummers 10y ago
So far it's less interesting than that. I get the idea of stretching the release out to maintain interest and let, perhaps, a topic be a focus for a week at a time. But this is getting tiresome. The talk about this has been going on for months now. And now it's October and the only thing we've got is that something's going to be released. They're going to lose any interest very quickly because of this unless it's truly damning material.
- randomgyatwork 10y ago
  That could be part of it, but I figure most of the people who are interested in WL already have a problem with HRC. While all those who love her won't change there opinions.
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    Those who hate Trump also won't change their opinions, regardless of what they think about Clinton. It's a choice between "at worst, try again in four years for real improvement" and "this is the end". Hmm... depending on your point of view, I guess either of those options could apply to either candidate. We've become way too polarised.
    - randomgyatwork 10y ago
      Ha, seems that way. Adjusting your values and convictions is seen as a flaw, so in a sense we have disincentives evolving of thoughts.
    - jfoster 10y ago
      Funnily enough, so many people are so polarised that anyone who can prevent themselves from being polarised is more powerful; they're the vote that politicians are battling each other for!
      - greendragon 10y ago
        Only if you're in a swing state.
        Jtsummers 10y ago
        Yeah, but turns out some of us are in unexpected swing states. Georgia, of all places, was leaning Clinton for a bit. And Trump's lead isn't insurmountable, polling 4.3% above Clinton right now [0]. She probably won't win here, but it's unusual that she even held the lead at all. His drop, and her rise, on those trend charts corresponds with the first debate and its aftermath. It could be enough to pull things in her favor if she keeps bad press limited and the focus on him and wins the next two debates. A very unusual election year here. [0] http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/georgia/ http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/g...
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  Plus WikiLeaks' own reputation took a pretty nasty hit with the Turkish email release; it didn't contain any kind of deep state secrets, but did open up a treasure trove of information that could be used to persecute already-disadvantaged people: Journalists and anti-censorship activists who I am in touch with in Turkey have been combing through the leaked documents, and I am not aware of anything “newsworthy” being uncovered. According to the collective searching capacity of long-term activists and journalists in Turkey, none of the “Erdogan emails” appear to be emails actually from Erdogan or his inner circle. Nobody seems to be able to find a smoking gun exposing people in positions of power and responsibility. This doesn’t rule out something eventually emerging, but there have been several days of extensive searching. However, WikiLeaks also posted links on social media to its millions of followers via multiple channels to a set of leaked massive databases containing sensitive and private information of millions of ordinary people, including a special database of almost all adult women in Turkey. Yes — this “leak” actually contains spreadsheets of private, sensitive information of what appears to be every female voter in 79 out of 81 provinces in Turkey, including their home addresses and other private information, sometimes including their cellphone numbers. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdog... Plus the DNC leak created a strong impression in many peoples' minds that it was a deliberate attempt by a foreign power (guess who...) to try to tip the US election to the candidate they favored (hint: name rhymes with "Ronald Rump"). So there's some irony if WikiLeaks is now going to publish allegations of someone else influencing the election.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Welcome to the world of no secrets. Most of which happen to be both banal, and of no interest to the public.
  - makomk 10y ago
    WikiLeaks also posted links on social media to its millions of followers via multiple channels to a set of leaked massive databases containing sensitive and private information of millions of ordinary people, including a special database of almost all adult women in Turkey. The remarkable thing about this is that, almost universally, the media organisations who claim this condemns Wikileaks support the person who actually uploaded all that personal information and gave everyone the link, claiming it was something else. Some of them, like Wired, have even argued he did absolutely nothing wrong. It's almost like no-one actually cares about that sensitive information being exposed to the world, just attacking Wikileaks.

So far it's less interesting than that. I get the idea of stretching the release out to maintain interest and let, perhaps, a topic be a focus for a week at a time. But this is getting tiresome. The talk about this has been going on for months now. And now it's October and the only thing we've got is that something's going to be released. They're going to lose any interest very quickly because of this unless it's truly damning material.

randomgyatwork 10y ago
That could be part of it, but I figure most of the people who are interested in WL already have a problem with HRC. While all those who love her won't change there opinions.
- DougWebb 10y ago
  Those who hate Trump also won't change their opinions, regardless of what they think about Clinton. It's a choice between "at worst, try again in four years for real improvement" and "this is the end". Hmm... depending on your point of view, I guess either of those options could apply to either candidate. We've become way too polarised.
  - randomgyatwork 10y ago
    Ha, seems that way. Adjusting your values and convictions is seen as a flaw, so in a sense we have disincentives evolving of thoughts.
  - jfoster 10y ago
    Funnily enough, so many people are so polarised that anyone who can prevent themselves from being polarised is more powerful; they're the vote that politicians are battling each other for!
    - greendragon 10y ago
      Only if you're in a swing state.
      - Jtsummers 10y ago
        Yeah, but turns out some of us are in unexpected swing states. Georgia, of all places, was leaning Clinton for a bit. And Trump's lead isn't insurmountable, polling 4.3% above Clinton right now [0]. She probably won't win here, but it's unusual that she even held the lead at all. His drop, and her rise, on those trend charts corresponds with the first debate and its aftermath. It could be enough to pull things in her favor if she keeps bad press limited and the focus on him and wins the next two debates. A very unusual election year here. [0] http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/georgia/ http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/g...
ubernostrum 10y ago
Plus WikiLeaks' own reputation took a pretty nasty hit with the Turkish email release; it didn't contain any kind of deep state secrets, but did open up a treasure trove of information that could be used to persecute already-disadvantaged people: Journalists and anti-censorship activists who I am in touch with in Turkey have been combing through the leaked documents, and I am not aware of anything “newsworthy” being uncovered. According to the collective searching capacity of long-term activists and journalists in Turkey, none of the “Erdogan emails” appear to be emails actually from Erdogan or his inner circle. Nobody seems to be able to find a smoking gun exposing people in positions of power and responsibility. This doesn’t rule out something eventually emerging, but there have been several days of extensive searching. However, WikiLeaks also posted links on social media to its millions of followers via multiple channels to a set of leaked massive databases containing sensitive and private information of millions of ordinary people, including a special database of almost all adult women in Turkey. Yes — this “leak” actually contains spreadsheets of private, sensitive information of what appears to be every female voter in 79 out of 81 provinces in Turkey, including their home addresses and other private information, sometimes including their cellphone numbers. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdog... Plus the DNC leak created a strong impression in many peoples' minds that it was a deliberate attempt by a foreign power (guess who...) to try to tip the US election to the candidate they favored (hint: name rhymes with "Ronald Rump"). So there's some irony if WikiLeaks is now going to publish allegations of someone else influencing the election.
- vkou 10y ago
  Welcome to the world of no secrets. Most of which happen to be both banal, and of no interest to the public.
- makomk 10y ago
  WikiLeaks also posted links on social media to its millions of followers via multiple channels to a set of leaked massive databases containing sensitive and private information of millions of ordinary people, including a special database of almost all adult women in Turkey. The remarkable thing about this is that, almost universally, the media organisations who claim this condemns Wikileaks support the person who actually uploaded all that personal information and gave everyone the link, claiming it was something else. Some of them, like Wired, have even argued he did absolutely nothing wrong. It's almost like no-one actually cares about that sensitive information being exposed to the world, just attacking Wikileaks.