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Please post more about Snowden, PRISM, NSA, GCHQ, and all the rest. I will upvote every one of them. For those who think that "we all know essentially how this

by swombat 13y ago

Please post more about Snowden, PRISM, NSA, GCHQ, and all the rest. I will upvote every one of them. For those who think that "we all know essentially how this will end", think about what the world would look like if every major change had been met with this kind of pitiful attitude. Every revolution, every change for the better, has come out of people rejecting that sentiment. It's not too late to turn away from the abyss and go back towards sanity and a better future.

swombat 13y ago
As of this comment, my parent comment above has 127 points - showing that I'm far from alone in this sentiment. Thanks guys, we're fighting the good fight. Let's win.
panacea 13y ago
Hear, hear. This isn't a quaint distraction that's getting in the way of us discussing serious issues like gradients in web design buttons... this is a big story and deserves to consume some HN news 'cycles'.
dsirijus 13y ago
I'd wager many of the upvotes are more in-line with "i love watching things burn" than "maybe this will help". Also, are you sure it's not too late?
ebbv 13y ago
You can disagree with his statement about PRISM, and that doesn't really have much to do with his original point. He wasn't saying don't post thoughtful op-eds about PRISM (and if he was I think he'd get no support here at all), he's saying enough with the tabloid like articles about the people at the center of controversies, which have nothing to do with the larger issue.
- pi18n 13y ago
  Let's not restrict it to people relevant to controversies. Let's stop all the tabloid articles and blogspam.
  - hack_edu 13y ago
    And what would be left, of the HN we already have? No idealizing the past...
- counterpointer 13y ago
  One solution might be to link to a live blog or page which has the latest updates on the story, title it "Click here to get the latest on this story' and then make sure it stays in the first 10 or so stories and let people have fun in the comments with updates and what not.
- glenstein 13y ago
  OP seems to be issuing a blanket request that we slow down with any stories related to either Snowden or the NSA. If he's really only against frivolous reporting his subject line ought to have said "Please post good stories on the NSA and post them as frequently as possible" and then explained what he felt were good stories. But even then I would object to drawing too sharp a distinction between Snowden's story and the NSA story. There's an integral relationship between the two, because how the US handles leaks and leakers has everything to do with the national debate on how the US gov handles secrecy in general. Some reporting might boil over into frivolous details; I truly don't care what he eats and I think those details trivialize the story. But in terms of driving attention to relevant details, I think Snowden's story and the NSA surveillance story command attention symbiotically as opposed to being mutually exclusive. It's like the thesis advanced by Alex Gibney in his Wikileaks documentary We Steal Secrets: the allegations against Julian Assange and subsequent attempts at extradition probably had the effect of bringing much more attention to Wikileaks. Similarly here with Snowden.
Kylekramer 13y ago
I agree with the sentiment, minus Snowden. We should be talking about this issue. Snowden is at this point immaterial to the larger issues unless he leaks more details. Discussing himself distracts from his purposes. His movements and people's opinions about his movements (which dominated HN this weekend) are of no consequence to PRISM and the NSA. The honest truth is we are no closer to discovering the truth about what the government does than we were on day one of the leak while entertaining ourselves with platitudes about how "America is now a place where people seek asylum from" and Bourne movie fantasies.
- goblin89 13y ago
  To me Snowden's story looks like a ‘meta-issue’, arguably even more important. There might be more problems in addition to what he helped uncover, but whether they are voiced might depend on what happens to Snowden. You wouldn't halt QA process until you fix a critical security issue in your production system, especially if the fix might take some time. You'd probably be paying even more attention to improving bug visibility after such an incident, to make sure other problems are noticed in time.
- ISL 13y ago
  If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. If what he leaked is important and worthwhile, then he ought to be defended. The probability that he'll receive fair treatment by our government and a fair trial is directly related to his presence in a spotlight. How the government treats Snowden is a proxy for how the government may treat each one of us in the future; he's now committed to being the test case for our possible future. I'm not stoked about discussing a random dude's travel plans either, but it would appear that the court of public opinion is more transparent than the system which would otherwise judge the man.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - davidw 13y ago
    > If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. No he won't, because in the grand scheme of things, no one cares whether HN talks about him or not.
jchung 13y ago
Mass upvoting helps exactly nobody. It's slacktivism, not activism. If you feel strongly about this cause, I would encourage you to stop mass upvoting, and get involved in the real world. Perhaps your action would merit its own post to HN, and something that would inspire others to join you in action. You might end up doing something amazing.
- pvnick 13y ago
  Shameless plug for http://restorethe4th.net http://restorethe4th.net, a planned mass demonstration on July 4th to restore the fourth amendment.
- mayneack 13y ago
  Why not both?
  - renegdn 13y ago
    I don't know
- notahacker 13y ago
  I'd go further. Mass indiscriminate upvoting actually undermines the cause, because instead of encouraging HN members to participate in discussions on secure communications and the responsibilities of tech companies which people posting here are particularly well placed to act on, people are debating the intricacies of extradition treaties, speculating about whether there's a connection with Moodys' downgrade of Hong Kong's credit rating or upvoting false rumours about Twitter blocks. The effect of such a deluge of trivia on many people is to intentionally avoid the whole topic. It's like ad blindness.
jiggy2011 13y ago
You think that upvoting things on HN makes a difference? This story has already dominated the front page for weeks. It has been discussed to death. If this continues to dominate HN for much longer, there is a risk that people will just stop visiting this site and it just becomes a home for conspiracy cranks.
ronaldx 13y ago
Are you upvoting because: - you think people should be more aware of the issue, or - you think that each of these links individually provide value to the readers here If the former, then please stop. We are aware: identifying valuable contributions would be a more helpful route towards revolution. Personally speaking, I am unlikely to click on these articles now because few of them are providing any new value.
znowi 13y ago
I'm with you. As evidently most of HN :) We can't simply shrug it off. It's in everyone's home now. And not only in the US. If we dismiss it now, we deserve every surveillance abuse that follows.
mcherm 13y ago
I love the sentiment, except for one thing. You say "I will upvote every one of them." Please don't. Instead, if you care so deeply about this issue, read all the submissions and then upvote only the GOOD ones. That way, those who are less interested and only see the stuff that makes the "front page" will see the good articles and their time will be better spent. In short: if you think this is important stuff hackers will care about, vote it up, but smartly, not blindly.
ryandrake 13y ago
I started reading and registered an account on HN very recently (a few weeks ago), because I thought it was about technology, Internet, start-ups, science, etc. Little did I know, Hacker News actually seems to be about the US Government, NSA, PRISM, cyber-surveillance, secret courts, wiretapping, conspiracies, and other such topics. At least, based on the volume of stories here. Is there a way to filter them out and get back to reading about technology?

by swombat 13y ago

swombat 13y ago

As of this comment, my parent comment above has 127 points - showing that I'm far from alone in this sentiment. Thanks guys, we're fighting the good fight. Let's win.

panacea 13y ago

Hear, hear. This isn't a quaint distraction that's getting in the way of us discussing serious issues like gradients in web design buttons... this is a big story and deserves to consume some HN news 'cycles'.

dsirijus 13y ago

I'd wager many of the upvotes are more in-line with "i love watching things burn" than "maybe this will help". Also, are you sure it's not too late?

ebbv 13y ago

You can disagree with his statement about PRISM, and that doesn't really have much to do with his original point. He wasn't saying don't post thoughtful op-eds about PRISM (and if he was I think he'd get no support here at all), he's saying enough with the tabloid like articles about the people at the center of controversies, which have nothing to do with the larger issue.

pi18n 13y ago
Let's not restrict it to people relevant to controversies. Let's stop all the tabloid articles and blogspam.
- hack_edu 13y ago
  And what would be left, of the HN we already have? No idealizing the past...
counterpointer 13y ago
One solution might be to link to a live blog or page which has the latest updates on the story, title it "Click here to get the latest on this story' and then make sure it stays in the first 10 or so stories and let people have fun in the comments with updates and what not.
glenstein 13y ago
OP seems to be issuing a blanket request that we slow down with any stories related to either Snowden or the NSA. If he's really only against frivolous reporting his subject line ought to have said "Please post good stories on the NSA and post them as frequently as possible" and then explained what he felt were good stories. But even then I would object to drawing too sharp a distinction between Snowden's story and the NSA story. There's an integral relationship between the two, because how the US handles leaks and leakers has everything to do with the national debate on how the US gov handles secrecy in general. Some reporting might boil over into frivolous details; I truly don't care what he eats and I think those details trivialize the story. But in terms of driving attention to relevant details, I think Snowden's story and the NSA surveillance story command attention symbiotically as opposed to being mutually exclusive. It's like the thesis advanced by Alex Gibney in his Wikileaks documentary We Steal Secrets: the allegations against Julian Assange and subsequent attempts at extradition probably had the effect of bringing much more attention to Wikileaks. Similarly here with Snowden.

Kylekramer 13y ago

I agree with the sentiment, minus Snowden. We should be talking about this issue. Snowden is at this point immaterial to the larger issues unless he leaks more details. Discussing himself distracts from his purposes. His movements and people's opinions about his movements (which dominated HN this weekend) are of no consequence to PRISM and the NSA. The honest truth is we are no closer to discovering the truth about what the government does than we were on day one of the leak while entertaining ourselves with platitudes about how "America is now a place where people seek asylum from" and Bourne movie fantasies.

goblin89 13y ago
To me Snowden's story looks like a ‘meta-issue’, arguably even more important. There might be more problems in addition to what he helped uncover, but whether they are voiced might depend on what happens to Snowden. You wouldn't halt QA process until you fix a critical security issue in your production system, especially if the fix might take some time. You'd probably be paying even more attention to improving bug visibility after such an incident, to make sure other problems are noticed in time.
ISL 13y ago
If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. If what he leaked is important and worthwhile, then he ought to be defended. The probability that he'll receive fair treatment by our government and a fair trial is directly related to his presence in a spotlight. How the government treats Snowden is a proxy for how the government may treat each one of us in the future; he's now committed to being the test case for our possible future. I'm not stoked about discussing a random dude's travel plans either, but it would appear that the court of public opinion is more transparent than the system which would otherwise judge the man.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- davidw 13y ago
  > If we stop talking about Snowden, he'll have lost his only viable defense. No he won't, because in the grand scheme of things, no one cares whether HN talks about him or not.

jchung 13y ago

Mass upvoting helps exactly nobody. It's slacktivism, not activism. If you feel strongly about this cause, I would encourage you to stop mass upvoting, and get involved in the real world. Perhaps your action would merit its own post to HN, and something that would inspire others to join you in action. You might end up doing something amazing.

pvnick 13y ago
Shameless plug for http://restorethe4th.net http://restorethe4th.net, a planned mass demonstration on July 4th to restore the fourth amendment.
mayneack 13y ago
Why not both?
- renegdn 13y ago
  I don't know
notahacker 13y ago
I'd go further. Mass indiscriminate upvoting actually undermines the cause, because instead of encouraging HN members to participate in discussions on secure communications and the responsibilities of tech companies which people posting here are particularly well placed to act on, people are debating the intricacies of extradition treaties, speculating about whether there's a connection with Moodys' downgrade of Hong Kong's credit rating or upvoting false rumours about Twitter blocks. The effect of such a deluge of trivia on many people is to intentionally avoid the whole topic. It's like ad blindness.

jiggy2011 13y ago

You think that upvoting things on HN makes a difference? This story has already dominated the front page for weeks. It has been discussed to death. If this continues to dominate HN for much longer, there is a risk that people will just stop visiting this site and it just becomes a home for conspiracy cranks.

ronaldx 13y ago

Are you upvoting because: - you think people should be more aware of the issue, or - you think that each of these links individually provide value to the readers here If the former, then please stop. We are aware: identifying valuable contributions would be a more helpful route towards revolution. Personally speaking, I am unlikely to click on these articles now because few of them are providing any new value.

znowi 13y ago

I'm with you. As evidently most of HN :) We can't simply shrug it off. It's in everyone's home now. And not only in the US. If we dismiss it now, we deserve every surveillance abuse that follows.

mcherm 13y ago

I love the sentiment, except for one thing. You say "I will upvote every one of them." Please don't. Instead, if you care so deeply about this issue, read all the submissions and then upvote only the GOOD ones. That way, those who are less interested and only see the stuff that makes the "front page" will see the good articles and their time will be better spent. In short: if you think this is important stuff hackers will care about, vote it up, but smartly, not blindly.

ryandrake 13y ago

I started reading and registered an account on HN very recently (a few weeks ago), because I thought it was about technology, Internet, start-ups, science, etc. Little did I know, Hacker News actually seems to be about the US Government, NSA, PRISM, cyber-surveillance, secret courts, wiretapping, conspiracies, and other such topics. At least, based on the volume of stories here. Is there a way to filter them out and get back to reading about technology?