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I suppose that's true if you consider the interests of Iran or North Korea to be just as valid as the interests of the western world. If the U.S. and Iran/North

by natnat 16y ago

I suppose that's true if you consider the interests of Iran or North Korea to be just as valid as the interests of the western world. If the U.S. and Iran/North Korea were two equally evil governments fighting only for their own self-interest, that would be the case. However, as much as I am disappointed with the state of the U.S. right now, I think that what's good for America is much better for the Hacker News crowd than what's good for North Korea or Iran. While I don't support the way the U.S. government has been acting over the past decade or so, it still supports free speech, free markets, and democracy far more than its enemies. Revealing private diplomatic information is not free expression, it is an attack on the country. It gives an information advantage to that country's adversaries and sours its relations with its allies. If wikileaks did the same to North Korea, the U.S. would celebrate it not because it represents free speech, but because it would weaken their government. There are some legitimate government secrets, and diplomatic cables are one of them.

jacquesm 16y ago
The interests of Iran or North Korea are from the perspective of their leaders just as valid as our interests are to our leaders. All of them would condemn wikileaks for publishing their information, regardless of which country you'd be looking at. The same would go for China, Russia and pretty much every other nation in the world. Which ones you would think are 'valid' and which are 'invalid' apparently depends on your own interests in the world, and not so much on the 'badness' of that particular government. I would welcome total openness from my government about stuff like this, I would hope for the citizens of those other countries to do the same. This is not an attack on any country, and to sketch it as such is not an honest depiction of the facts, it is an attack at those that perpetrate illegal acts in the name of all of us. That 'if you've got nothing to fear, you've got nothing to hide' thing works both ways. Either we, the citizens of all those states have a right to privacy, or the government does not have a right to privacy either. A society without privacy will have zero privacy for everybody, and I think part of the anger and the backlash against all this is that the governments are slowly waking up to this and they don't like it much. If your perspective changes depending on which nation you are from that's a fair indication that you are probably wrong, if only because no nation is 'absolutely better in all respects' than any other. Many North Koreans would agree with that statement about the US (of course, they've all been brainwashed, right?).
- philwelch 16y ago
  I think you're taking moral relativism too far when you compare the US with a country like North Korea. I would actually say the US is "absolutely better in all respects" than North Korea; care to name a respect in which North Korea is better than the US?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    They are probably not living under the illusion that theirs is the greatest country in the world.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      Yes, I do suppose you're rather grateful you don't have to deal with obnoxious North Korean tourists, or with jingoistic North Koreans posting on web forums.

by natnat 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

The interests of Iran or North Korea are from the perspective of their leaders just as valid as our interests are to our leaders. All of them would condemn wikileaks for publishing their information, regardless of which country you'd be looking at. The same would go for China, Russia and pretty much every other nation in the world. Which ones you would think are 'valid' and which are 'invalid' apparently depends on your own interests in the world, and not so much on the 'badness' of that particular government. I would welcome total openness from my government about stuff like this, I would hope for the citizens of those other countries to do the same. This is not an attack on any country, and to sketch it as such is not an honest depiction of the facts, it is an attack at those that perpetrate illegal acts in the name of all of us. That 'if you've got nothing to fear, you've got nothing to hide' thing works both ways. Either we, the citizens of all those states have a right to privacy, or the government does not have a right to privacy either. A society without privacy will have zero privacy for everybody, and I think part of the anger and the backlash against all this is that the governments are slowly waking up to this and they don't like it much. If your perspective changes depending on which nation you are from that's a fair indication that you are probably wrong, if only because no nation is 'absolutely better in all respects' than any other. Many North Koreans would agree with that statement about the US (of course, they've all been brainwashed, right?).

philwelch 16y ago
I think you're taking moral relativism too far when you compare the US with a country like North Korea. I would actually say the US is "absolutely better in all respects" than North Korea; care to name a respect in which North Korea is better than the US?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  They are probably not living under the illusion that theirs is the greatest country in the world.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Yes, I do suppose you're rather grateful you don't have to deal with obnoxious North Korean tourists, or with jingoistic North Koreans posting on web forums.