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Do you honestly believe we've understood this surveillance complex enough that we can keep on with our lives? Why accept that "PRISM [won't go] away" or that "S

by yuvadam 13y ago

Do you honestly believe we've understood this surveillance complex enough that we can keep on with our lives? Why accept that "PRISM [won't go] away" or that "Snowden's fate is grim"? Honestly? Is this cause not worth fighting for anymore?

shawabawa3 13y ago
Is posting hundreds of mundane "news" articles with no substance really fighting?
- gori 13y ago
  Is not talking about it better?
  - criley2 13y ago
    How about- and I know this is shocking- we find a balance. A balance between nothing and tabloid. We're dangerously close to tabloid currently. Lots of irrelevant articles, lots of speculation and opinion, and the real stories are hidden in the noise. I still think about 80% of the Snowden articles are worse than useless -- they're actively hiding the 20% of articles that are worthwhile, that we should all be reading. But hey, I guess diverting our attention to the pointless bits of the story is an effective diversion tactic /conspiracy
- joshstrange 13y ago
  We complain all the time that the major news networks don't cover what is really important or that they cover them and move on like it never happened. I think it is a good think that it is kept present in our minds so we don't forget it or write it off as "There is nothing we can do about it". Seeing the entire front page of HN covered in stories on it might be slightly annoying but it is much better than the alternative (no coverage) IMHO.
devilcm3 13y ago
do people still post about Bradley Manning? how about wikileaks? Julian Assange? all those cables?
ebbv 13y ago
Most of these stories themselves are at best tangentially related to the larger issue. Upvoting them or reading a story about Edward Snowden's favorite brand of chicken pot pie is not doing anything to fight for civil liberties, though it will give views to garbage web sites like Business Insider and its ilk.
- gori 13y ago
  Oh give up. "Edward Snowden's favorite brand of chicken pot pie" "Kim Dotcom braids his hair!" "Julian Assange orders Cherry Coke instead of regular!" "Elon Musk buys three rare white leopards!" Do you really like to argue by ridiculing others this much? There hasn't been a story even resembling anything like this, people have actually upvoted things they found interesting. More links means more people are writing about it. This is good.
  - ebbv 13y ago
    It does not mean more people writing about the actual issues, it means more people writing about irrelevant details of these people's lives like Edward Snowden's girlfriend's blog. That's the point. Nobody's saying don't post thoughtful opinion pieces or details about legislation or court cases or anything else actually having to do with the issues. You can claim that most or all of the posts that have appeared on here are relevant, but they aren't all relevant. That's why this post that we're commenting on exists and has gotten upvoted; the quality of those posts has been abysmal. And your response is not to argue the point but to basically tell us to shut up. Thanks for contributing.
    - gori 13y ago
      No, my point is that people are upvoting articles they find interesting, which might not be the same things that I find interesting, and I'm ok with this. I find the personal stuff in a story like this quite interesting, btw. Of course there's a lot of duplicates and posts with similar information in them, but is that such a big issue? I think people who are flagging posts because they think it's sort of the same as another article is basically abusing the system.
threeseed 13y ago
The problem is that Snowden has become the story. It's no longer about PRISM or the legitimate surveillance and privacy concerns it's about him.
- yuvadam 13y ago
  It's up to us - the people - to make the story about illegal surveillance and privacy concerns. The media sure as hell won't address those issues for us.
levosmetalo 13y ago
So go out and fight. Upvoting these kind of smap on HN could hardly be called "fighting".
hysterix 13y ago
It's pathetic the defeatist attitude the majority of americans have. We finally get a week or so of pushing these sort of stories to the front page and now people are complaining. Ironically if you look at a list of recent submissions by this "peterwwillis", you will see a list of boring nothing-to-see-here content that should also be downvoted due to a lack of originality and new content. Anchoring (wikipedia.org) - yep he linked to a random wikipedia article. I'm so glad we have people like peter to lead hn to a new promise land of link filled content to wikipedia. Graph of BitCoin market price (USD) (blockchain.info) - Yes because what hn readers need is a link to blockchain.info as we were too incompetent to find it alone. Ironic a poster crying about content submits such boring, shallow and useless posts. But something that is actually relevant to current affairs should be flagged and downvoted? The guy who started this thread is a joke. To all the foreigners claiming this is "american politics" and should be ignored, do you all really have such short sightedness you can't see this effects everybody in the world, not just americans?
- chaz 13y ago
  Please dont make this a personal issue about just OP. Hundreds of upvotes on this -- he's clearly not alone.
  - hysterix 13y ago
    I don't mean to make this personal, but someone who submits a wikipedia entry as a submission should not decry posts that are about current affairs directly relating to software development and the tech industry.

by yuvadam 13y ago

shawabawa3 13y ago

Is posting hundreds of mundane "news" articles with no substance really fighting?

gori 13y ago
Is not talking about it better?
- criley2 13y ago
  How about- and I know this is shocking- we find a balance. A balance between nothing and tabloid. We're dangerously close to tabloid currently. Lots of irrelevant articles, lots of speculation and opinion, and the real stories are hidden in the noise. I still think about 80% of the Snowden articles are worse than useless -- they're actively hiding the 20% of articles that are worthwhile, that we should all be reading. But hey, I guess diverting our attention to the pointless bits of the story is an effective diversion tactic /conspiracy
joshstrange 13y ago
We complain all the time that the major news networks don't cover what is really important or that they cover them and move on like it never happened. I think it is a good think that it is kept present in our minds so we don't forget it or write it off as "There is nothing we can do about it". Seeing the entire front page of HN covered in stories on it might be slightly annoying but it is much better than the alternative (no coverage) IMHO.

devilcm3 13y ago

do people still post about Bradley Manning? how about wikileaks? Julian Assange? all those cables?

ebbv 13y ago

Most of these stories themselves are at best tangentially related to the larger issue. Upvoting them or reading a story about Edward Snowden's favorite brand of chicken pot pie is not doing anything to fight for civil liberties, though it will give views to garbage web sites like Business Insider and its ilk.

gori 13y ago
Oh give up. "Edward Snowden's favorite brand of chicken pot pie" "Kim Dotcom braids his hair!" "Julian Assange orders Cherry Coke instead of regular!" "Elon Musk buys three rare white leopards!" Do you really like to argue by ridiculing others this much? There hasn't been a story even resembling anything like this, people have actually upvoted things they found interesting. More links means more people are writing about it. This is good.
- ebbv 13y ago
  It does not mean more people writing about the actual issues, it means more people writing about irrelevant details of these people's lives like Edward Snowden's girlfriend's blog. That's the point. Nobody's saying don't post thoughtful opinion pieces or details about legislation or court cases or anything else actually having to do with the issues. You can claim that most or all of the posts that have appeared on here are relevant, but they aren't all relevant. That's why this post that we're commenting on exists and has gotten upvoted; the quality of those posts has been abysmal. And your response is not to argue the point but to basically tell us to shut up. Thanks for contributing.
  - gori 13y ago
    No, my point is that people are upvoting articles they find interesting, which might not be the same things that I find interesting, and I'm ok with this. I find the personal stuff in a story like this quite interesting, btw. Of course there's a lot of duplicates and posts with similar information in them, but is that such a big issue? I think people who are flagging posts because they think it's sort of the same as another article is basically abusing the system.

threeseed 13y ago

The problem is that Snowden has become the story. It's no longer about PRISM or the legitimate surveillance and privacy concerns it's about him.

yuvadam 13y ago
It's up to us - the people - to make the story about illegal surveillance and privacy concerns. The media sure as hell won't address those issues for us.

levosmetalo 13y ago

So go out and fight. Upvoting these kind of smap on HN could hardly be called "fighting".

hysterix 13y ago

It's pathetic the defeatist attitude the majority of americans have. We finally get a week or so of pushing these sort of stories to the front page and now people are complaining. Ironically if you look at a list of recent submissions by this "peterwwillis", you will see a list of boring nothing-to-see-here content that should also be downvoted due to a lack of originality and new content. Anchoring (wikipedia.org) - yep he linked to a random wikipedia article. I'm so glad we have people like peter to lead hn to a new promise land of link filled content to wikipedia. Graph of BitCoin market price (USD) (blockchain.info) - Yes because what hn readers need is a link to blockchain.info as we were too incompetent to find it alone. Ironic a poster crying about content submits such boring, shallow and useless posts. But something that is actually relevant to current affairs should be flagged and downvoted? The guy who started this thread is a joke. To all the foreigners claiming this is "american politics" and should be ignored, do you all really have such short sightedness you can't see this effects everybody in the world, not just americans?

chaz 13y ago
Please dont make this a personal issue about just OP. Hundreds of upvotes on this -- he's clearly not alone.
- hysterix 13y ago
  I don't mean to make this personal, but someone who submits a wikipedia entry as a submission should not decry posts that are about current affairs directly relating to software development and the tech industry.