4 ms·

I see this as largely coincidental, and nothing nefarious. If you follow the link from the page to the archived version [1], look among the dozens of subjects,

by pvnick 13y ago

I see this as largely coincidental, and nothing nefarious. If you follow the link from the page to the archived version [1], look among the dozens of subjects, click on Ethics, scroll down to near the bottom of the page, you'll see the single paragraph he's referring to. It makes up for about 0.1% of the total content. It's unlikely the administration took down an entire website just to hide Obama's whistleblower promises. What's more likely is that that, since Hope/Change was the old slogan and "Forward" has replaced it as the new slogan, it's time to take down the old site because it's simply outdated. C'mon guys let's show a little critical thought and stop looking for conspiracies where they don't exist. It's bad for our credibility. Things are bad enough as it is with the stuff the NSA is actually doing. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20130515024407/http://change.gov/agenda/ http://web.archive.org/web/20130515024407/http://change.gov/...

iwwr 13y ago
Indeed, we should not think of 2007-Obama, 2008-Obama and 2012-Obama as the same people. What one said can't be held against the other.
- D_Alex 13y ago
  I hope you are being sarcastic...
- downandout 13y ago
  Let's take that one step further. The October 2012 Obama and the January 2013 Obama were apparently entirely different people. In fact he didn't just change - during the 2012 campaign, he actively lied. He made statements about how transparent his government is and how he is all about protecting our rights etc., while presiding over programs in direct conflict with those statements.
samstave 13y ago
I have a fool-proof way to test your retarded theory: (and I call it retarded only because its the best word in the modern human lexicon to discuss such topics of self-delusion) Why don't we make a non-stop replaying channel of all the ridiculous bullshit propaganda campaign promises that Obama (and all other campaigning politicians) tells us, for everyone to see. Make it time-stamped, tagged, listed, searchable and correlated to their current actions - let people vote comment and review all things said. After all - are we not for open-source code, which allows us to review for bugs and malicious code? We need open-source politics that allows for the same.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  What do you think the wayback machine is? As for calling other posters retarded (and a poster who is generally on the same side as you on these issues, at that) - don't.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >What do you think the wayback machine is? A generic, difficult to navigate, seriously lacking in content, website? Nothing at all like what he said, except the "archives old webpages" part.
  - samstave 13y ago
    I didn't call him retarded, I called his theory retarded, I called him self-deluded.
- icebraining 13y ago
  I thought that was what Daily Show was.
  - monkeyspaw 13y ago
    no, that was only when Bush Light was in office.
    - bobbydavid 13y ago
      I've noticed this too, to some extent. and I don't think its purely because of the President's party. TDS writers and Jon used to work hard to hold politicians feet to the fire no matter their party, and in the past few years I've seen them become increasingly outright liberal. Sure, that change happened around the same time as Obama, but I argue that the Daily Show of old would have been less coddling to the current administration.
  - mehmehshoe 13y ago
    I was thinking the same thing.
hackerboos 13y ago
>C'mon guys let's show a little critical thought and stop looking for conspiracies where they don't exist. What conspiracy? The administration retracted a policy. Politicians do this all the time.
coldtea 13y ago
>It's unlikely the administration took down an entire website just to hide Obama's whistleblower promises. No, they did it to hide ALL the promises and old texts. >What's more likely is that that, since Hope/Change was the old slogan and "Forward" has replaced it as the new slogan, it's time to take down the old site because it's simply outdated. Yes, clearly in the US now, hope and change are outdated. We must just go forward as things are. Are you seriously accepting this graciously? This marketing BS is exactly the kind of thing politicians do when they are not for real, but BS marketeers and spin doctors. >C'mon guys let's show a little critical thought and stop looking for conspiracies where they don't exist. Emm, what conspiracy? This is what BS politicians do all the time. Retract their promises and update the websites so that people are not reminded of them.
monkeyspaw 13y ago
I also agree that this is coincidental. There is no reason to connect what a politician says they represent with what they actually represent. A more innocent website would involve a random slogan generator. It's unlikely there was intent to cover something up regarding Obama's whistleblower promises because it's unlikely there was ever any connection between his promises and his actions.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
It would have been much more appropriate if the site had instead been archived. If the change.gov's messaging weren't so contradictory to current reality, it would have made a great feature to any current "forward" content.
pessimizer 13y ago
Have the qualifications for "conspiracy" been gradually ratcheted down until it's just synonymous with "implying that someone in government did something without the public's best interests at heart"? I'm not sure how taking down your own website because some of its positions don't accord with your current actions counts as either far-fetched or a conspiracy.
ispolin 13y ago
I suspect that you are right about this being innocuous. What I think makes this a "hot" story is not the intentionality, but that it reminds us how divorced campaign promises are from the actions a president takes in office. gets on soap-box Maybe the candidates aren't even lying outright. Maybe it's like when I'm estimating programming effort: I can really really believe in the estimate I give, but unless I look at how long similar projects took me or others in the past, the planning fallacy[1] gets me every. single. time. A similar thing for candidates would probably be to look at how much actual change previous presidents were able to bring about and assume that those presidents were just as smart and trying just as hard. Of course even with a realistic estimate, there is another problem I constantly run into, and I imagine candidates do as well: Once you have a realistic estimate of what you can do, how do you compete with someone who over-promises? One thing I found with programming is that clients who were previously burned by over-promising are somewhat inoculated against it. This doesn't seem to be the case for elections though. Does anybody have any other ideas? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy

by pvnick 13y ago

iwwr 13y ago

Indeed, we should not think of 2007-Obama, 2008-Obama and 2012-Obama as the same people. What one said can't be held against the other.

D_Alex 13y ago
I hope you are being sarcastic...
downandout 13y ago
Let's take that one step further. The October 2012 Obama and the January 2013 Obama were apparently entirely different people. In fact he didn't just change - during the 2012 campaign, he actively lied. He made statements about how transparent his government is and how he is all about protecting our rights etc., while presiding over programs in direct conflict with those statements.

samstave 13y ago

I have a fool-proof way to test your retarded theory: (and I call it retarded only because its the best word in the modern human lexicon to discuss such topics of self-delusion) Why don't we make a non-stop replaying channel of all the ridiculous bullshit propaganda campaign promises that Obama (and all other campaigning politicians) tells us, for everyone to see. Make it time-stamped, tagged, listed, searchable and correlated to their current actions - let people vote comment and review all things said. After all - are we not for open-source code, which allows us to review for bugs and malicious code? We need open-source politics that allows for the same.

anigbrowl 13y ago
What do you think the wayback machine is? As for calling other posters retarded (and a poster who is generally on the same side as you on these issues, at that) - don't.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >What do you think the wayback machine is? A generic, difficult to navigate, seriously lacking in content, website? Nothing at all like what he said, except the "archives old webpages" part.
- samstave 13y ago
  I didn't call him retarded, I called his theory retarded, I called him self-deluded.
icebraining 13y ago
I thought that was what Daily Show was.
- monkeyspaw 13y ago
  no, that was only when Bush Light was in office.
  - bobbydavid 13y ago
    I've noticed this too, to some extent. and I don't think its purely because of the President's party. TDS writers and Jon used to work hard to hold politicians feet to the fire no matter their party, and in the past few years I've seen them become increasingly outright liberal. Sure, that change happened around the same time as Obama, but I argue that the Daily Show of old would have been less coddling to the current administration.
- mehmehshoe 13y ago
  I was thinking the same thing.

hackerboos 13y ago

>C'mon guys let's show a little critical thought and stop looking for conspiracies where they don't exist. What conspiracy? The administration retracted a policy. Politicians do this all the time.

coldtea 13y ago

>It's unlikely the administration took down an entire website just to hide Obama's whistleblower promises. No, they did it to hide ALL the promises and old texts. >What's more likely is that that, since Hope/Change was the old slogan and "Forward" has replaced it as the new slogan, it's time to take down the old site because it's simply outdated. Yes, clearly in the US now, hope and change are outdated. We must just go forward as things are. Are you seriously accepting this graciously? This marketing BS is exactly the kind of thing politicians do when they are not for real, but BS marketeers and spin doctors. >C'mon guys let's show a little critical thought and stop looking for conspiracies where they don't exist. Emm, what conspiracy? This is what BS politicians do all the time. Retract their promises and update the websites so that people are not reminded of them.

monkeyspaw 13y ago

I also agree that this is coincidental. There is no reason to connect what a politician says they represent with what they actually represent. A more innocent website would involve a random slogan generator. It's unlikely there was intent to cover something up regarding Obama's whistleblower promises because it's unlikely there was ever any connection between his promises and his actions.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

It would have been much more appropriate if the site had instead been archived. If the change.gov's messaging weren't so contradictory to current reality, it would have made a great feature to any current "forward" content.

pessimizer 13y ago

Have the qualifications for "conspiracy" been gradually ratcheted down until it's just synonymous with "implying that someone in government did something without the public's best interests at heart"? I'm not sure how taking down your own website because some of its positions don't accord with your current actions counts as either far-fetched or a conspiracy.

ispolin 13y ago

I suspect that you are right about this being innocuous. What I think makes this a "hot" story is not the intentionality, but that it reminds us how divorced campaign promises are from the actions a president takes in office. gets on soap-box Maybe the candidates aren't even lying outright. Maybe it's like when I'm estimating programming effort: I can really really believe in the estimate I give, but unless I look at how long similar projects took me or others in the past, the planning fallacy[1] gets me every. single. time. A similar thing for candidates would probably be to look at how much actual change previous presidents were able to bring about and assume that those presidents were just as smart and trying just as hard. Of course even with a realistic estimate, there is another problem I constantly run into, and I imagine candidates do as well: Once you have a realistic estimate of what you can do, how do you compete with someone who over-promises? One thing I found with programming is that clients who were previously burned by over-promising are somewhat inoculated against it. This doesn't seem to be the case for elections though. Does anybody have any other ideas? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy