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The FBI has a history of political activism, to put it lightly. Here's a fun one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter https://en.m.wikipedia
by wyager 10y ago
The FBI has a history of political activism, to put it lightly. Here's a fun one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter
You're being foolish if you trust a word the FBI says without solid evidence.
- mundo 10y agoI don't! Dammit, read the post! No one on god's green earth trusts the FBI at their word, but that doesn't mean you can assume the opposite of what they said is true without evidence!
- steamer25 10y agoI suppose that depends on the expected reaction to either believing or not believing. In this case, from my perspective, I see two intended reactions to the claims of Russian subversion: 1) To delegitimize the President-elect 2) To foment war with Russia I didn't vote for the guy but I don't think he's near so bad as his political opponents try to paint him. I'd like to at least give him a chance and to whatever degree he turns out to suck, I'll still blame the Clinton campaign for promoting controlled opposition 'pied pipers' rather than promoting a robust debate in the interest of the American people. Wrt #2, I will certainly demand very strong evidence before yielding any resistance to that notion.
- wooter 10y agoSeriously. Clapper lied directly to congress under oath on TV. The whole "they know whats best for us and our only choice is blind faith" attitude is really disturbing.
- mundo 10y ago> The whole "they know whats best for us and our only choice is blind faith" attitude is really disturbing. This is so, so insulting. There is no way a fair observer could read the comments here and conclude that the people who find Russia hacking the DNC credible do so because they have blind faith in Clapper or the FBI or anyone else.
- mistermann 10y ago> There is no way any a fair observer could read the comments here and conclude that the people who find Russia hacking the DNC credible do so because they have blind faith in Clapper or the FBI or anyone else. Isn't that what you were more or less saying here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13281736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13281736
- mundo 10y agoNo. I believe the official version (that the reason the intelligence agencies are accusing Russia of hacking the DNC is because believe it did) because the alternative is less plausible and there's no evidence for it. That's pure Occam's Razor, no faith involved. The FBI has lied and will lie again, getting me to believe they lied about something is not hard, but they don't generally do it in big, obvious ways that are easy to disprove and involve a lot of co-conspirators and don't accomplish anything.
- mistermann 10y agoI don't necessarily disagree, but a guilty charge shouldn't be based on the "most plausible" explanation.
- wyager 10y agoThat's not how Occam's razor works. You don't pick the most likely single outcome and then just assume that to be true with 100% confidence. Occam's razor is just an informal statement of the fact that you should assign a higher a priori probability to simpler hypotheses. It doesn't mean you should ignore any marginally less likely hypothesis.
- mundo 10y agoPlease stop accusing people of being 100% confident. It's such a weak, insulting tactic. What is the alternate hypothesis that's "marginally less likely"? (Please remember what question we're trying to answer. It is not "Who hacked the DNC?". We are not in a position to know; hell, we don't even know there was a hack. It is also not "Is the FBI trustworthy?" Of course they're not. It is "Why are US intelligence agencies saying they have proof that Russia hacked the DNC?" The base hypothesis is "Because they do." The alternate hypothesis is what you're supplying.)