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Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate. Who e

by GHFigs 15y ago

Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate. Who elected Brad Manning or Julian Assange (et al.) to make that decision?

deleted 15y ago
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aik 15y ago
Yeah good question. As I don't have an answer here, let me just present an argument here for the sake of discussion: It's given that governments are fallible just as anything else on this planet, and can become corrupt to a point where internal correction becomes increasingly improbable. (I would say looking back to any stage in history proves the truth of this.) And so, as citizens (of a country, world) we all have a responsibility to keep government(s) in check, just as they have responsibilities towards the citizens. Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle. So does this responsibility exist outside of certain laws and expectations? Should it? Is it necessary that it does for it to be effective?
- sqrt2 15y ago
  Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle. In fact, Assange has written down the principles he bases Wikileaks on: https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/ https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-a... In summary, he treats government as a conspiracy (liberally defined to be a social network) whose total conspiratorial power (the sum of the weights of the edges of the social graph, where the nodes represent people and the edges the potential to share information) can be kept in check by increasing the cost of exchanging information -- which is exactly the effect of leaking classified material.
burgerbrain 15y ago
When so much of the world's population is disenfranchised, that is not a terribly convincing argument.

by GHFigs 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

aik 15y ago

Yeah good question. As I don't have an answer here, let me just present an argument here for the sake of discussion: It's given that governments are fallible just as anything else on this planet, and can become corrupt to a point where internal correction becomes increasingly improbable. (I would say looking back to any stage in history proves the truth of this.) And so, as citizens (of a country, world) we all have a responsibility to keep government(s) in check, just as they have responsibilities towards the citizens. Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle. So does this responsibility exist outside of certain laws and expectations? Should it? Is it necessary that it does for it to be effective?

sqrt2 15y ago
Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle. In fact, Assange has written down the principles he bases Wikileaks on: https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/ https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-a... In summary, he treats government as a conspiracy (liberally defined to be a social network) whose total conspiratorial power (the sum of the weights of the edges of the social graph, where the nodes represent people and the edges the potential to share information) can be kept in check by increasing the cost of exchanging information -- which is exactly the effect of leaking classified material.

burgerbrain 15y ago

When so much of the world's population is disenfranchised, that is not a terribly convincing argument.