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Why the generalizing? The question you pose is not something that you can prove one way or another. It's up to each citizen to make that decision for themselve

Why the generalizing? The question you pose is not something that you can prove one way or another. It's up to each citizen to make that decision for themselves. As broken as it all is, a minority of people can't rise up and take away the consent of the governed by the majority, no matter how good their logic or noble their cause. It doesn't work like that. It's not a mathematical proof. Systems of people are not like system of network nodes. Yes, there are similarities, but there are very important differences too. Europe already went down this road in the prelude to WWI. It didn't work out so well. I'm not opposed to going over all of this again, but these things have already been discussed and argued by people far wiser than us. If I understand what folks are saying, it's not like Assange has come up with some unique insight that somehow is going to make things better. This is just anarchism by another name.

chaostheory 16y ago
I wasn't that general. I did cite at least two cases where the majority of the governed wanted something other than what our government has provided us. Besides I don't see this toppling our representative democracy. If anything it'll just help keep our representatives a bit more honest and a bit more cautious. My point is that many people already see the social contract as broken.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  I screwed that up, so let me restate: why are you making a general assessment of the state of the social contract and then taking action which effects me because of your analysis? I happen to agree with you that things suck. But I disagree with leaks of State Dept and tactical military intelligence. Others think things are great but don't mind the leaks. Still others are apathetic and encourage the leaks. Out of a dozen people, you'll find a dozen different opinions. We all -- each citizen -- have a unique relationship with our government. Who are you or anybody else to make a decision like that that effects billions of dollars spent and tens of thousands of lives? I didn't elect Assange. He doesn't represent me. And I have no recourse to remove him from his post if I feel he is acting maliciously or incompetently. You see, it's not enough to make the argument that things suck so much that anything would be better. It doesn't work that way. That's just waving your arms around in anger and exasperation. I also believe we need to get rid of 99.99% of the secrecy we have. But there is still a role for government and secrecy. Some random person doesn't have the right to "fix" what he thinks is broken -- because if he can do that, then we all can. And at that point we might as well just go out in the streets with guns to get our way. This is insanity. Well thought-out, for a good cause, well-intentioned, but fundamentally broken. This is like the dozenth time groups of people have been down this road. It doesn't end well -- even if the state is "fixed". It's critically important to separate your opinion of the state of things from the reasons and rules that each individual can take to make a difference. Take the Declaration of Independence. In it, Jefferson doesn't make the case that monarchical rule is broken and therefore we must act militarily -- far from it. He respects the previous state of things but then makes a detailed argument as to how the king broke the social contract with the colonies, thereby releasing governance of the states back to the "natural legislature" of the people. It's a very long list of things we did to try to make things work and how they didn't work out. If you want a revolution, that's the place to go to start understanding what arguments work and what arguments don't work. Move from there to "Letters from a Birmingham Jail". But don't go down the Marx route where you do this huge amount of clever reasoning and then wreak havoc on the rest of us because of what you've proven. That's not so good.
  - chaostheory 16y ago
    "Who are you or anybody else to make a decision like that that effects billions of dollars spent and tens of thousands of lives? I didn't elect Assange. He doesn't represent me. And I have no recourse to remove him from his post if I feel he is acting maliciously or incompetently." This has already been happening for years with our 4th branch of government, our very own government agencies. They aren't elected. How do we know that they are complying with the branches that we elected? "Some random person doesn't have the right to "fix" what he thinks is broken -- because if he can do that, then we all can. And at that point we might as well just go out in the streets with guns to get our way." I don't understand why you are comparing Wikileaks to an armed insurgency. Wikileaks is only doing what the mainstream media either won't or can no longer perform because of their new owners. Wikileaks is not an armed and violent insurgency. It isn't usurping anyone's power if they are acting within the law or within what they were elected to do. It is only releasing information that should be known to the public. Our government is already supposed to make freely available a lot of information that it is still withholding: http://www.aclu.org/accountability/released.html http://www.aclu.org/accountability/released.html What is an alternative to Wikileaks? We've already tried voting, and I'm not keen on supporting revolution. I'm just advocating transparency to help preserve our current government, albeit just making it a little more honest and a little less crazy. Just saw this the other day on The Onion's competitor: http://toofar.tv/blog/?p=7 http://toofar.tv/blog/?p=7
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    > why are you making a general assessment of the state of the social contract and then taking action which effects me because of your analysis? This sounds a bit bitter, but if you have a way for me to remove myself out from the spectre of government, I'm all ears. I'll gladly leave you with it. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. There's no current system that I (and I'd suspect, Julian) would feel comfortable living under. I've taken a slightly different course of action than he, but I can certainly understand and respect it. To bring this back on topic slightly, it sounds like you're saying something like, "I like my job at MegaCorp, why would you create this startup that disrupts me. I'll lose my job!" Such is the way of the world.
  - jbooth 16y ago

chaostheory 16y ago

I wasn't that general. I did cite at least two cases where the majority of the governed wanted something other than what our government has provided us. Besides I don't see this toppling our representative democracy. If anything it'll just help keep our representatives a bit more honest and a bit more cautious. My point is that many people already see the social contract as broken.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I screwed that up, so let me restate: why are you making a general assessment of the state of the social contract and then taking action which effects me because of your analysis? I happen to agree with you that things suck. But I disagree with leaks of State Dept and tactical military intelligence. Others think things are great but don't mind the leaks. Still others are apathetic and encourage the leaks. Out of a dozen people, you'll find a dozen different opinions. We all -- each citizen -- have a unique relationship with our government. Who are you or anybody else to make a decision like that that effects billions of dollars spent and tens of thousands of lives? I didn't elect Assange. He doesn't represent me. And I have no recourse to remove him from his post if I feel he is acting maliciously or incompetently. You see, it's not enough to make the argument that things suck so much that anything would be better. It doesn't work that way. That's just waving your arms around in anger and exasperation. I also believe we need to get rid of 99.99% of the secrecy we have. But there is still a role for government and secrecy. Some random person doesn't have the right to "fix" what he thinks is broken -- because if he can do that, then we all can. And at that point we might as well just go out in the streets with guns to get our way. This is insanity. Well thought-out, for a good cause, well-intentioned, but fundamentally broken. This is like the dozenth time groups of people have been down this road. It doesn't end well -- even if the state is "fixed". It's critically important to separate your opinion of the state of things from the reasons and rules that each individual can take to make a difference. Take the Declaration of Independence. In it, Jefferson doesn't make the case that monarchical rule is broken and therefore we must act militarily -- far from it. He respects the previous state of things but then makes a detailed argument as to how the king broke the social contract with the colonies, thereby releasing governance of the states back to the "natural legislature" of the people. It's a very long list of things we did to try to make things work and how they didn't work out. If you want a revolution, that's the place to go to start understanding what arguments work and what arguments don't work. Move from there to "Letters from a Birmingham Jail". But don't go down the Marx route where you do this huge amount of clever reasoning and then wreak havoc on the rest of us because of what you've proven. That's not so good.
- chaostheory 16y ago
  "Who are you or anybody else to make a decision like that that effects billions of dollars spent and tens of thousands of lives? I didn't elect Assange. He doesn't represent me. And I have no recourse to remove him from his post if I feel he is acting maliciously or incompetently." This has already been happening for years with our 4th branch of government, our very own government agencies. They aren't elected. How do we know that they are complying with the branches that we elected? "Some random person doesn't have the right to "fix" what he thinks is broken -- because if he can do that, then we all can. And at that point we might as well just go out in the streets with guns to get our way." I don't understand why you are comparing Wikileaks to an armed insurgency. Wikileaks is only doing what the mainstream media either won't or can no longer perform because of their new owners. Wikileaks is not an armed and violent insurgency. It isn't usurping anyone's power if they are acting within the law or within what they were elected to do. It is only releasing information that should be known to the public. Our government is already supposed to make freely available a lot of information that it is still withholding: http://www.aclu.org/accountability/released.html http://www.aclu.org/accountability/released.html What is an alternative to Wikileaks? We've already tried voting, and I'm not keen on supporting revolution. I'm just advocating transparency to help preserve our current government, albeit just making it a little more honest and a little less crazy. Just saw this the other day on The Onion's competitor: http://toofar.tv/blog/?p=7 http://toofar.tv/blog/?p=7
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  > why are you making a general assessment of the state of the social contract and then taking action which effects me because of your analysis? This sounds a bit bitter, but if you have a way for me to remove myself out from the spectre of government, I'm all ears. I'll gladly leave you with it. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. There's no current system that I (and I'd suspect, Julian) would feel comfortable living under. I've taken a slightly different course of action than he, but I can certainly understand and respect it. To bring this back on topic slightly, it sounds like you're saying something like, "I like my job at MegaCorp, why would you create this startup that disrupts me. I'll lose my job!" Such is the way of the world.
- jbooth 16y ago