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Even under Obama, he was looking at life in prison, which is effectively a living death sentence. Personally, I'd rather get the death penalty than spend my re

Even under Obama, he was looking at life in prison, which is effectively a living death sentence. Personally, I'd rather get the death penalty than spend my remaining years in a federal supermax prison (especially given that Snowden is fairly young). Putin will give him up in a heartbeat if it curries any favor at all with Trump. Most European governments do not look favorably on what he did either, and wouldn't harbor him anyway - both out of fear of reprisal from the US and fear of encouraging their own Snowden-type incidents. The end of Snowden's freedom is likely near, whether he gets the death penalty or not. It's not the end that many of us would like the see for him, but he did know the penalties well before he did what he did.

baccheion 10y ago
I'm still surprised Obama seemingly knew about this, yet did nothing. It makes me wonder how many other things he knows about, and how full of it this makes him. He says a lot of things, but at the end of the day, he seems like a worthless, know-nothing, unconcerned idiot when it comes to things like protecting the people, looking out for them, helping things progress, and you know, everything else the government is supposed to be about. It's annoying that this outdated, corrupted, worthless system is being strung along, defended, and operated as though it's the norm, the way it should be, and as though it was, at any time, something other than the product/result of self-serving agendas. There's a lot more data, technological advancement, knowledge, experience, and general intelligence available these days (enough to show how stupid what's being done is), but all they do is try to drag around whatever's more garbage as though it's not just more shit. I suppose in one way I'm not too surprised, as whether it was an after school club, a mail room, church, college, or a corporate work environment, wherever I was, it would be the same pattern of shit being defended, propped up, and carried on; and of everyone reacting violently to anything else that would appear. It would also be the same pattern of no one knowing why anything was the way it was and of no one questioning or thinking about anything, yet thinking they knew something and violently defending whatever garbage was in place. What's that? You don't even know what it is, how it got there, why it's there, or anything else, but off you go saying the dumbest things? Also, most quickly realize that most things in place are either the result of politics, self-serving BS, "just doing something to get it done," and everything else that's a reflection of stupidity repeating again; yet they continue on as though something else is the case.
- internaut 10y ago
  It might not be irrational. Conservatism in a system could serve to prevent trashing of scenarios that always go to deadlock.
  - baccheion 10y ago
    Isn't "conservatism," especially when the system isn't worth much to begin with, something that is deadlock?
    - internaut 10y ago
      I think of conservatism (political meaning) to be Conservation (save the whales), but for humans and their institutions. I think it is part of an algorithm which (when it works) prevents deadlock. Whenever the (left/right) stakeholders have a balance of power at a stable equilibrium, upsetting the system just leads to a waste of energy, what I called 'trashing'. It's similar to feature creep or faux innovation. The cost of shooting down net negative moves over and over could sap the strength of the whole system because there is an opportunity cost to ignoring the few possible net positive moves. So without conservatism, paradoxically, there is no progress. It does have failure modes though. Peter Thiel points out one of them, which is that in order to produce net positive moves the economy must be healthy (you cannot horsetrade in a zero sum game). The other failure is that you can get caught in a local minimum. I believe one or both of these modes are taking over at present.
bb88 10y ago
> It's not the end that many of us would like the see for him, but he did know the penalties well before he did what he did. One can justify all kinds of whistle blower revenge this way. Just remember that Snowden didn't violate the constitution. Which is worse exactly: Violating the constitution or violating laws to expose those that are doing it? To me it seems like the NSA was acting more traitorous than Snowden ever did.
- downandout 10y ago
  Well, I'd like to see him pardoned. I just know it will never happen, and he had to know that as well when he did it. No government can afford to be seen as tolerant of this kind of action from within its own ranks. Perhaps as a result of Snowden there will be better ways for government employees to vent their concerns, but that likely won't help him out.

baccheion 10y ago

I'm still surprised Obama seemingly knew about this, yet did nothing. It makes me wonder how many other things he knows about, and how full of it this makes him. He says a lot of things, but at the end of the day, he seems like a worthless, know-nothing, unconcerned idiot when it comes to things like protecting the people, looking out for them, helping things progress, and you know, everything else the government is supposed to be about. It's annoying that this outdated, corrupted, worthless system is being strung along, defended, and operated as though it's the norm, the way it should be, and as though it was, at any time, something other than the product/result of self-serving agendas. There's a lot more data, technological advancement, knowledge, experience, and general intelligence available these days (enough to show how stupid what's being done is), but all they do is try to drag around whatever's more garbage as though it's not just more shit. I suppose in one way I'm not too surprised, as whether it was an after school club, a mail room, church, college, or a corporate work environment, wherever I was, it would be the same pattern of shit being defended, propped up, and carried on; and of everyone reacting violently to anything else that would appear. It would also be the same pattern of no one knowing why anything was the way it was and of no one questioning or thinking about anything, yet thinking they knew something and violently defending whatever garbage was in place. What's that? You don't even know what it is, how it got there, why it's there, or anything else, but off you go saying the dumbest things? Also, most quickly realize that most things in place are either the result of politics, self-serving BS, "just doing something to get it done," and everything else that's a reflection of stupidity repeating again; yet they continue on as though something else is the case.

internaut 10y ago
It might not be irrational. Conservatism in a system could serve to prevent trashing of scenarios that always go to deadlock.
- baccheion 10y ago
  Isn't "conservatism," especially when the system isn't worth much to begin with, something that is deadlock?
  - internaut 10y ago
    I think of conservatism (political meaning) to be Conservation (save the whales), but for humans and their institutions. I think it is part of an algorithm which (when it works) prevents deadlock. Whenever the (left/right) stakeholders have a balance of power at a stable equilibrium, upsetting the system just leads to a waste of energy, what I called 'trashing'. It's similar to feature creep or faux innovation. The cost of shooting down net negative moves over and over could sap the strength of the whole system because there is an opportunity cost to ignoring the few possible net positive moves. So without conservatism, paradoxically, there is no progress. It does have failure modes though. Peter Thiel points out one of them, which is that in order to produce net positive moves the economy must be healthy (you cannot horsetrade in a zero sum game). The other failure is that you can get caught in a local minimum. I believe one or both of these modes are taking over at present.

bb88 10y ago

> It's not the end that many of us would like the see for him, but he did know the penalties well before he did what he did. One can justify all kinds of whistle blower revenge this way. Just remember that Snowden didn't violate the constitution. Which is worse exactly: Violating the constitution or violating laws to expose those that are doing it? To me it seems like the NSA was acting more traitorous than Snowden ever did.

downandout 10y ago
Well, I'd like to see him pardoned. I just know it will never happen, and he had to know that as well when he did it. No government can afford to be seen as tolerant of this kind of action from within its own ranks. Perhaps as a result of Snowden there will be better ways for government employees to vent their concerns, but that likely won't help him out.