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It's not quite so simple as considering all leaks of government information heroic. For instance, would it have been heroic to leak news that U.S. code breaker
by mcphilip 13y ago
It's not quite so simple as considering all leaks of government information heroic. For instance, would it have been heroic to leak news that U.S. code breakers had cracked enemy codes in WW2?
- jellicle 13y agoEven better, what if the government was closing in a child pornographer with chemical weapons and a nuke, and the leak allowed him to rape more children while nuking a nunnery and poisoning an orphanage?
- jafaku 13y agoThink of the children!
- stelonix 13y agoIs this some kind of humor? The odds of such a thing happening are close to nil.
- swombat 13y agoIt could happen. Even worse, it could happen on the anniversary of 9/11. (disclaimer: that's a joke)
- iand 13y agoYes, it parodies the usual scaremongering responses given in response to leaking/whistleblowing: pedophilia, terrorists, dirty bombs etc.
- Moral_ 13y agoI can't tell if you're really dense, or being sarcastic...
- timje1 13y agoYou forgot ...thus lowering house prices in a wide area. Now the electorate are on your side!
- scott_karana 13y agoWouldn't that only make the buyers happy, and the sellers upset? ;)
- eru 13y agoYou'd expect so. But the buyers are looking for a greater fool to flip the real estate to at a higher price later.
- conradfr 13y agoYou forgot drugs, drugs are bad.
- njharman 13y agoNah, not anymore, doesn't scare the sheeple like it use to.
- betterunix 13y agoOnly if you ignore today's bogeymen: * Methamphetamine * "Bath salts" (i.e. MDPV) * Synthetic cannibinoids
- CalRobert 13y agoMy god, it would be 911 times 2,356.
- fixermark 13y agoYes, the dreaded 2,146,316, as foretold by Nostradamus.
- alwaysdoit 13y agoThis is possibly a reasonable argument for keeping things confidential temporarily. It's not a justification for keeping information confidential indefinitely.
- jplarson 13y ago> Child pornographer with chemical weapons and a nuke Do even approximations to such boogieman figures even exist?
- maaku 13y agoKim Jong Il?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- logfromblammo 13y agoLike, for instance, that the Japanese diplomatic codes had been broken and that the administration had prior knowledge of an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor, yet chose to do nothing, because the public response would finally allow the U.S. to enter the war? Absolutely, it would have been heroic. It might have led to real justice instead of ruinous warmongering.
- twoodfin 13y agoIt seems that we're fated to see every conspiracy theory on hn eventually. Wikipedia covers the SIGINT available prior to Pearl Harbor pretty well[1]. There is no evidence that anyone in the entire U.S. civilian or military hierarchy had advance knowledge of the attack. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Lack_of_preparation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on...
- kelvin0 13y agoWell I guess if Wikipedia doesn't mention it, it didn't happend, right? Awesome argument ...
- justinpombrio 13y agoThere's a much easier point to be made: If (i) Wikipedia doesn't mention it, and (ii) it's important enough that it would be reasonable to expect Wikipedia to mention it if there were evidence, then you should at least provide a citation as to why you believe such a thing. Otherwise, why should your readers accept your unsubstantiated hypothesis?
- sliverstorm 13y agowhy should your readers accept your unsubstantiated hypothesis The typical line of thinking with conspiracy theories seems to be the less substantiated the theory, the more credence it should be lent, under the logic that the government is suppressing evidence. So basically the less evidence, the more believable. Beautiful, isn't it?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dlsx 13y agoyes it is simple. You are implying that there was a good vs evil paradigm with WWII which is completely a USA fallacy. Both sides were being funded by the central banking cartel. Do you actually think there would be any difference if you were living under Nazi control or not? Look at all the astroturfing of the phrase "6 million Jews" in WWI before Hitler even came in to power.
- _mulder_ 13y agoWhilst I do partly agree with your comment from a very existentialist viewpoint[1]. This has to be the worst comment I've seen on HN. [1] Yes, there would be a big difference to living under Nazi control or not. Whether we would know, or care, is another matter. Homosexuality and Judaism would surely be non-existent, but would that bother us if everything around us is 'Nazi' and the very idea of Judaism or Homosexuality didn't exist? Much like most peoples attitudes towards witchcraft. We are all a product of our society.
- mercurial 13y agoKind sir, we appear to have run out of Nazi extermination camps. However, I invite you to book a one-way trip to North Korea. I hear their concentration camps are wonderful this time of the year.
- jafaku 13y agoAnd how did NK end up being that crazy? USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Bombing_North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Bombing_North_Korea "As a result, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed."
- eru 13y agoHow do destroyed buildings lead to such craziness?
- tedunangst 13y ago