2 ms·

We saw this same idea earlier as though it merits analysis. It doesn't. You being right or not has no bearing on the story at hand.

slg 5y ago
I'm not sure what you consider "the story at hand", but this conversation was kicked off with "One of the most unfortunate things in the past 6 years is that support of Julian Assange and Wikileaks became a partisan issue". The explanation for why support of Assange became partisan is because Assange's actions started having partisan bias. That is extremely relevant to the conversation at hand in my book.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  This meme you keep trying to make happen is a logical fallacy called “begging the question.” petitio principii. It is not explanatory. Why don’t you just outright say, “I think they are partisan because I suspect there are things they could have published that they chose not to because of partisanship.” Instead you’re trying this dance about evidence that you cannot see and reasoning on others’ behalf that you cannot know.
  - slg 5y ago
    >“I think they are partisan because I suspect there are things they could have published that they chose not to because of partisanship.” I don't "suspect" their are things they could have published. I know there are things they could have published because Assange has said exactly that. Either Wikileaks works for complete transparency or they don't. They either have editorial control over what they publish or they don't. Once they admit that some documents aren't worth putting on their site, they need to justify why the documents they do have on their site are worth being there. What documents about the Trump campaign could Assange be referring to which would be worth mentioning but would also be less worthy of publishing than these[1]? What reason can exist for that disparity besides bias? [1] - https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/?q=&title=automatic+reply&count=200 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/?q=&title=automatic+reply&c...
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Documents about Trump were and are irrelevant because we have ironclad proof, in volume, that no amount of what would for others be damning information has any effect on Trump support. The only way we have discovered to counter him is to get more of the people not committed to him to come to the polls, or to vote by mail. Thus, we see efforts in numerous states to curb access to polls. Successful efforts.
    - the_optimist 5y ago
      1) Assange did not say that. You misinterpret what he said. 2) Your contrived absolutism about publishing everything is a strawman. Wikileaks never committed to publishing everything, couldn’t, not even a sensible or practical idea. 3) Literally any reason at all invalidates this claim. Not enough time. Someone asked not to. Boring. Hard to contextualize. Literally anything. The Free Press is about the ability to publish, not a requirement to publish. “We are free press activists. It’s not about saving the whales. It’s about giving people the information they need to support whaling or not support whaling. Why? That is the raw ingredients necessary to make adjustments to society and without that we’re just sailing in the dark.”
      - slg 5y ago
        >1) Assange did not say that. You misinterpret what he said. When we talked about this last week you said the quote meant "we have some information that is not worth publishing."[1] The documents I linked in the previous post are obviously on the site so they by definition are "worth publishing" according to Wikileaks. What documents can possibly have less value than emails saying something like "I'll get the Caesar salad for lunch"? >2) Your contrived absolutism about publishing everything is a strawman. Wikileaks never committed to publishing everything, couldn’t, not even a sensible or practical idea. Those absolutist statements were made to show that Wikileaks obviously isn't absolutist in their mission. It shows that they do make editorial decisions about what they post. Once that is accepted as fact, it is completely fair to compare these decisions to each other. That is what I am doing, comparing the decision to leak certain documents with no public value to the refusal to leak other documents which Assange has stated Wikileaks possesses. I am then judging their decision making process based off that comparison. >3) Literally any reason at all invalidates this claim. Not enough time. I am not sure what you mean by "not enough time"? Are you suggesting that they didn't have enough time to vet all the DNC docs leaked or that there wasn't enough time to leak the Trump docs? If they didn't have enough time to vet the value of the individual DNC docs, how did they have the time to vet the authenticity of the individual DNC docs? That Assange quote was from 2016. They had 4+ years to get those Trump docs vetted so no time constraint there. >Someone asked not to. Who is this "someone" that Wikileaks would defer to on this decision? What are this person's biases? Why isn't Wikileaks transparent about who is making these decisions for them? >Boring. Yes, those previously linked DNC autoreplies were very exciting. >Hard to contextualize. Throwing a bunch of emails into a search engine on the site isn't contextualizing them. The lack of context on the DNC leaks is how we got things like Pizzagate from these emails. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27654533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27654533

slg 5y ago

I'm not sure what you consider "the story at hand", but this conversation was kicked off with "One of the most unfortunate things in the past 6 years is that support of Julian Assange and Wikileaks became a partisan issue". The explanation for why support of Assange became partisan is because Assange's actions started having partisan bias. That is extremely relevant to the conversation at hand in my book.

the_optimist 5y ago
This meme you keep trying to make happen is a logical fallacy called “begging the question.” petitio principii. It is not explanatory. Why don’t you just outright say, “I think they are partisan because I suspect there are things they could have published that they chose not to because of partisanship.” Instead you’re trying this dance about evidence that you cannot see and reasoning on others’ behalf that you cannot know.
- slg 5y ago
  >“I think they are partisan because I suspect there are things they could have published that they chose not to because of partisanship.” I don't "suspect" their are things they could have published. I know there are things they could have published because Assange has said exactly that. Either Wikileaks works for complete transparency or they don't. They either have editorial control over what they publish or they don't. Once they admit that some documents aren't worth putting on their site, they need to justify why the documents they do have on their site are worth being there. What documents about the Trump campaign could Assange be referring to which would be worth mentioning but would also be less worthy of publishing than these[1]? What reason can exist for that disparity besides bias? [1] - https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/?q=&title=automatic+reply&count=200 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/?q=&title=automatic+reply&c...
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Documents about Trump were and are irrelevant because we have ironclad proof, in volume, that no amount of what would for others be damning information has any effect on Trump support. The only way we have discovered to counter him is to get more of the people not committed to him to come to the polls, or to vote by mail. Thus, we see efforts in numerous states to curb access to polls. Successful efforts.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    1) Assange did not say that. You misinterpret what he said. 2) Your contrived absolutism about publishing everything is a strawman. Wikileaks never committed to publishing everything, couldn’t, not even a sensible or practical idea. 3) Literally any reason at all invalidates this claim. Not enough time. Someone asked not to. Boring. Hard to contextualize. Literally anything. The Free Press is about the ability to publish, not a requirement to publish. “We are free press activists. It’s not about saving the whales. It’s about giving people the information they need to support whaling or not support whaling. Why? That is the raw ingredients necessary to make adjustments to society and without that we’re just sailing in the dark.”
    - slg 5y ago
      >1) Assange did not say that. You misinterpret what he said. When we talked about this last week you said the quote meant "we have some information that is not worth publishing."[1] The documents I linked in the previous post are obviously on the site so they by definition are "worth publishing" according to Wikileaks. What documents can possibly have less value than emails saying something like "I'll get the Caesar salad for lunch"? >2) Your contrived absolutism about publishing everything is a strawman. Wikileaks never committed to publishing everything, couldn’t, not even a sensible or practical idea. Those absolutist statements were made to show that Wikileaks obviously isn't absolutist in their mission. It shows that they do make editorial decisions about what they post. Once that is accepted as fact, it is completely fair to compare these decisions to each other. That is what I am doing, comparing the decision to leak certain documents with no public value to the refusal to leak other documents which Assange has stated Wikileaks possesses. I am then judging their decision making process based off that comparison. >3) Literally any reason at all invalidates this claim. Not enough time. I am not sure what you mean by "not enough time"? Are you suggesting that they didn't have enough time to vet all the DNC docs leaked or that there wasn't enough time to leak the Trump docs? If they didn't have enough time to vet the value of the individual DNC docs, how did they have the time to vet the authenticity of the individual DNC docs? That Assange quote was from 2016. They had 4+ years to get those Trump docs vetted so no time constraint there. >Someone asked not to. Who is this "someone" that Wikileaks would defer to on this decision? What are this person's biases? Why isn't Wikileaks transparent about who is making these decisions for them? >Boring. Yes, those previously linked DNC autoreplies were very exciting. >Hard to contextualize. Throwing a bunch of emails into a search engine on the site isn't contextualizing them. The lack of context on the DNC leaks is how we got things like Pizzagate from these emails. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27654533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27654533