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Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks

121 points by CorsairSanglot 12y ago

kauffj 12y ago
Therefore the only playing field left is: what do they have and what do they know? This portrays people as something akin to a Markov process: if you know these two properties, you can make meaningful predictions about the future. Are people so memoryless? It strikes me that at a minimum, history, experience, and culture would all influence behavior and aren't so neatly stateful.
- Umn55 12y ago
  > Are people so memoryless? It strikes me that at a minimum, history, experience, and culture would all influence behavior and aren't so neatly stateful. Problem is all of this can be reduced to a single dimension - health and energy. No matter what information is going on in your head, your body requires energy to move and to think, thereby limiting the possible future states out of sheer necessity.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  >>> It strikes me that at a minimum, history, experience, and culture would all influence behavior and aren't so neatly stateful. At least in the US, clearly history has taught us nothing. Our leaders continually make the same errors in regards to foreign policy, military intervention, and myriad of other things.
  - oafitupa 12y ago
    Those are not mistakes, they [the leaders] benefit directly from that.
    - junto 12y ago
      This is spot on. The 'right' decisions are profit for a very small minority. Those same decisions are nearly always negative to the majority, especially in a global arena where Iraqi civilians for example don't have the chance to vote democrat or republican!
xnull2guest 12y ago
This goes to some lengths to explain why Assange is willing to publish anything, no matter how damaging in the short term it may be to particular interests. He doesn't want to be a curator or a decision maker about what information is or is not available. He is interested in solving the architectural problem of removing the ability to having political interests or personal bias influence control what gets published. From his perspective, he is merely a cog in that system he's trying to create - an automaton who doesn't get to make decisions about the content of diplomatic cables, etc. In this sense it's probably better to think of Assange as an engineer as opposed to a journalist, dissident or politician. It's just that this system he's been trying to create crosses those circles - when the system effects knowledge/power relations and to the degree his system is successful what's left to do is to effect Wikileaks. Another note: I am in agreement with and happy that Assange recognizes that Wikileaks in a young and incomplete prototype. There are tons of operational questions left: Who gets Wikileaks when Assange passes away? How do you vet a new member? How do you prevent bribery? Isn't it a problem that there is any centralized control of Wikileaks to begin with? Countries have been successful in preventing journalists from partnering with Wikileaks - how does one secure that pipeline?
- steve19 12y ago
  Nonsense. Assange goes to great lengths to spin his political agenda. For example the "Collateral Murder" video. He did not publish raw source material, he published his narrative: http://www.collateralmurder.com/ http://www.collateralmurder.com/ He is no Snowden. Snowden was upfront and honest from the start about what he was trying to achieve. I used to admire Assange, now Assange is caught up in his own myth and he seems desperate to keep that myth alive. The world needs a WikiLeaks 3.0, one that looks like the original 1.0 (the actual wiki before the cable leaks). For those of you that forgot what it was originally: https://web.archive.org/web/20080102184708/http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks https://web.archive.org/web/20080102184708/http://www.wikile...
  - corin_ 12y ago
    Pretty much agree - I never agreed with everything Assange was doing, but I at least thought he was doing it for the right reasons and respected him for that, but as time goes on he just seems more deluded and often self-interested. I suppose in his defense it can't be easy being stuck in an embassy for two and a half years.
Sniperfish 12y ago
The parent article links to Assange's comments after meeting with Schmidt "Google is Not What it Seems" [1] which has some interesting discussion of the links between Google's senior level and politicians. Published yesterday, I don't recall seeing it linked. [1] http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...
- eternalban 12y ago
  https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
  - youngtaff 12y ago
    The article makes many assertions of connections, without really backing up those assertions.
    - finid 12y ago
      You don't have to depend on an article to provide evidence of a connection between Google's execs and the political leadership. The fact that those execs were getting cheap gas for their private jets is more than enough for anybody to put 2 and 2 together and get the right result.
- yuhong 12y ago
  I think there is another HN thread on this. I don't believe the conspiracy theories, but this did remind me of the employee poaching fiasco.
- nl 12y ago
  That's been on HN at least twice.
ridgewell 12y ago
Assange is an arsehole who's only interest is in publishing documents to damage short-term political interest without interest for morality, the safety of other human beings and the disregard for all things right.
- xj9 12y ago
  While I wasn't 100% on board with the cable leaks, I do think disrupting political interests and forcing transparency in government is a good idea.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Maybe so, but when you take on a role associated with the media, you take on the responsibilities associated with being the media. Assange wants it both ways: he wants to be a media-like outlet, but not have the moral responsibilities. It doesn't work that way. Worse, by all accounts its mostly because he knows it would be a lot of time and effort to safely disclose the types of things he did/advocates should be. There's a very great personal convenience for him to "believe" he's no responsibility to safely redact documents.
tn13 12y ago
As I moved out of my teens (and after watching GoT) I learned that nothing often resembles to what is claimed and nothing can be painted in black and white. Assange or Snowden are not really white knights. While Snowden did an heroic act without being biased towards any specific political ideology, Assange has made a good enough career by playing his cards with good political acumen as people have shown in the comments. Honestly, I think Assange is just as bad as our politicians but in a way he brings some balance to an otherwise tightly controlled political narrative.
bleblabla 12y ago
Assange is a honeypot, please, PLEASE - everyone who is sitting on some documents worth sharing, either wait or use a different aproach

121 points by CorsairSanglot 12y ago

Therefore the only playing field left is: what do they have and what do they know? This portrays people as something akin to a Markov process: if you know these two properties, you can make meaningful predictions about the future. Are people so memoryless? It strikes me that at a minimum, history, experience, and culture would all influence behavior and aren't so neatly stateful.

Umn55 12y ago
> Are people so memoryless? It strikes me that at a minimum, history, experience, and culture would all influence behavior and aren't so neatly stateful. Problem is all of this can be reduced to a single dimension - health and energy. No matter what information is going on in your head, your body requires energy to move and to think, thereby limiting the possible future states out of sheer necessity.
at-fates-hands 12y ago
>>> It strikes me that at a minimum, history, experience, and culture would all influence behavior and aren't so neatly stateful. At least in the US, clearly history has taught us nothing. Our leaders continually make the same errors in regards to foreign policy, military intervention, and myriad of other things.
- oafitupa 12y ago
  Those are not mistakes, they [the leaders] benefit directly from that.
  - junto 12y ago
    This is spot on. The 'right' decisions are profit for a very small minority. Those same decisions are nearly always negative to the majority, especially in a global arena where Iraqi civilians for example don't have the chance to vote democrat or republican!

xnull2guest 12y ago

This goes to some lengths to explain why Assange is willing to publish anything, no matter how damaging in the short term it may be to particular interests. He doesn't want to be a curator or a decision maker about what information is or is not available. He is interested in solving the architectural problem of removing the ability to having political interests or personal bias influence control what gets published. From his perspective, he is merely a cog in that system he's trying to create - an automaton who doesn't get to make decisions about the content of diplomatic cables, etc. In this sense it's probably better to think of Assange as an engineer as opposed to a journalist, dissident or politician. It's just that this system he's been trying to create crosses those circles - when the system effects knowledge/power relations and to the degree his system is successful what's left to do is to effect Wikileaks. Another note: I am in agreement with and happy that Assange recognizes that Wikileaks in a young and incomplete prototype. There are tons of operational questions left: Who gets Wikileaks when Assange passes away? How do you vet a new member? How do you prevent bribery? Isn't it a problem that there is any centralized control of Wikileaks to begin with? Countries have been successful in preventing journalists from partnering with Wikileaks - how does one secure that pipeline?

steve19 12y ago
Nonsense. Assange goes to great lengths to spin his political agenda. For example the "Collateral Murder" video. He did not publish raw source material, he published his narrative: http://www.collateralmurder.com/ http://www.collateralmurder.com/ He is no Snowden. Snowden was upfront and honest from the start about what he was trying to achieve. I used to admire Assange, now Assange is caught up in his own myth and he seems desperate to keep that myth alive. The world needs a WikiLeaks 3.0, one that looks like the original 1.0 (the actual wiki before the cable leaks). For those of you that forgot what it was originally: https://web.archive.org/web/20080102184708/http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks https://web.archive.org/web/20080102184708/http://www.wikile...
- corin_ 12y ago
  Pretty much agree - I never agreed with everything Assange was doing, but I at least thought he was doing it for the right reasons and respected him for that, but as time goes on he just seems more deluded and often self-interested. I suppose in his defense it can't be easy being stuck in an embassy for two and a half years.

Sniperfish 12y ago

The parent article links to Assange's comments after meeting with Schmidt "Google is Not What it Seems" [1] which has some interesting discussion of the links between Google's senior level and politicians. Published yesterday, I don't recall seeing it linked. [1] http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...

eternalban 12y ago
https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
- youngtaff 12y ago
  The article makes many assertions of connections, without really backing up those assertions.
  - finid 12y ago
    You don't have to depend on an article to provide evidence of a connection between Google's execs and the political leadership. The fact that those execs were getting cheap gas for their private jets is more than enough for anybody to put 2 and 2 together and get the right result.
yuhong 12y ago
I think there is another HN thread on this. I don't believe the conspiracy theories, but this did remind me of the employee poaching fiasco.
nl 12y ago
That's been on HN at least twice.

ridgewell 12y ago

Assange is an arsehole who's only interest is in publishing documents to damage short-term political interest without interest for morality, the safety of other human beings and the disregard for all things right.

xj9 12y ago
While I wasn't 100% on board with the cable leaks, I do think disrupting political interests and forcing transparency in government is a good idea.
- XorNot 12y ago
  Maybe so, but when you take on a role associated with the media, you take on the responsibilities associated with being the media. Assange wants it both ways: he wants to be a media-like outlet, but not have the moral responsibilities. It doesn't work that way. Worse, by all accounts its mostly because he knows it would be a lot of time and effort to safely disclose the types of things he did/advocates should be. There's a very great personal convenience for him to "believe" he's no responsibility to safely redact documents.

tn13 12y ago

As I moved out of my teens (and after watching GoT) I learned that nothing often resembles to what is claimed and nothing can be painted in black and white. Assange or Snowden are not really white knights. While Snowden did an heroic act without being biased towards any specific political ideology, Assange has made a good enough career by playing his cards with good political acumen as people have shown in the comments. Honestly, I think Assange is just as bad as our politicians but in a way he brings some balance to an otherwise tightly controlled political narrative.

bleblabla 12y ago

Assange is a honeypot, please, PLEASE - everyone who is sitting on some documents worth sharing, either wait or use a different aproach