5 ms·

Aren't you essentially saying "no amount of good done by an action can outweigh a wrong caused?"

tptacek 11y ago
No, that's not an equivalent statement. Mine hinges on the fact that we don't know everything that's been disclosed yet. Mine incorporates the current unlimited downside of the leaks.
- hobs 11y ago
  If you want to be so precise, then lets go ahead and admit that the information to be disclosed cannot have an unlimited downside (what does that even mean, if we blow up the entire world have we reached unlimited downside?)
- ellyagg 11y ago
  Considering that Snowden massively raised awareness of how much closer to 1984 we are than many people thought, and considering that 1984 is considered to exemplify a horrific dystopia, it's hard to imagine a realistic downside to a Snowden disclosure that would evict him from my head as a hero. Wanna scoff at a 1984 reference? Fine, Snowden demonstrated that the government's power and reach is much greater--much much greater--than most people imagined. Of course, if the downside risk is unlimited, if it's actually infinite, then literally no good Snowden has done could overcome it. Seems like a bit of a gotcha to me.
  - icanhackit 11y ago
    Also consider that the bad guys (insert: terrorism, Russia etc) probably had some functional understanding of what the spying capabilities were, and those doing the spying probably knew they knew. So what's left is the public being the only party who didn't know, was least prepared and least deserved it. It leaves you wondering. Now here we are, and I think that while it's nice that we're trying to fight these invasive practices in courts and through policy, security by design is what's needed most. The invasive practices were either completely unlawful or stretched the definition of what is lawful anyway, so the policy side of things should focus on protecting the legality of encryption, not making it illegal to spy. Everyone needs to understand that everyone is spying on everyone, and every time a system is implemented to protect someone from spying, the spy will test the topology of that system and find a new way in. So begins a Cold War in the protection of privacy - unending, but honest at least.
- deciplex 11y ago
  Unless the US government is hiding an unfriendly boxed AI and the Snowden disclosures have introduced a risk that this AI may unbox itself - no the downside can not be anywhere near unlimited. How about we look at what we already know of the disclosures along with reasonable guesses of what remains, along with the probability that the remaining disclosures will ever become public knowledge, and judge him based on that.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Meh... every action has "unlimited potential downside" if you engage in enough hypotheticals. We can speculate a scenario where the leaking of the Pentagon Papers results in a worldwide pandemic of a superbug 200000x more contagious and deadly than Ebola. I mean, nobody can prove that that couldn't be a possible outcome. But by the same token, there's little or no reason to believe that such a thing is likely, just like there's little or no reason to expect any sort of dramatic consequence from Snowden's leaks. I mean, really, why would we expect the papers who have the leaked data to suddenly throw caution to the wind and publish anything any more damaging than what they already have? As far as that goes, if they had anything more revealing and were going to publish it, why wouldn't they have done it earlier?
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    As a sidebar on epidemiology, a superbug 200000x more contagious and deadly than Ebola would result in a circle around the initial infection wherein everyone inside is dead, and everyone outside avoids entering it. It would be much worse to have a less deadly and more contagious pathogen. Airborne transmission, plus long linger times for surface transmission, plus long incubation periods, plus low survivability, times zero treatment options, times international airports, equals annihilated species. This might connect with government secrets somehow if there were a secret project to develop a weaponized virus, and a vaccine for it, then to sneak the vaccine into a multivalent vaccine commonly given to the domestic population, but not to foreigners. The revelation might startle another bio-capable nation into pre-emptively releasing their supervirus, relying on quarantines to save a portion of their population from the American weapon. There are practical limits on the downside. The worst we could probably do at our current tech level is kill everything on the Earth's surface except for the extremophiles like D. radiodurans, and even that would assume that a lot of people have been telling a lot of lies about existing stockpiles of cobalt-salted nuclear weapons or other types of salted nukes.
    - mindcrime 11y ago
      That's actually pretty interesting. I just threw something hyperbolistic out there to make a point, but I remember reading some stuff about Ebola a while back, where they were making some of these same points. Interestingly enough, the main "thing" that ever got me intrigued by the idea of a "deadly superbug" was reading The Stand by Stephen King.
- fineman 11y ago
  That's pretty lopsided. The leaks have the potential to save the country. Also, we're talking about blame for actions committed. I feel no remorse for the criminal, anticipating that every new leak will be the one that tightens the noose. That's their fault for the crimes they committed, not the person who turned them in. If we were talking about a poor kid who robbed a liquor store people would be saying "Can't do the time, don't do the crime."

No, that's not an equivalent statement. Mine hinges on the fact that we don't know everything that's been disclosed yet. Mine incorporates the current unlimited downside of the leaks.

hobs 11y ago
If you want to be so precise, then lets go ahead and admit that the information to be disclosed cannot have an unlimited downside (what does that even mean, if we blow up the entire world have we reached unlimited downside?)
ellyagg 11y ago
Considering that Snowden massively raised awareness of how much closer to 1984 we are than many people thought, and considering that 1984 is considered to exemplify a horrific dystopia, it's hard to imagine a realistic downside to a Snowden disclosure that would evict him from my head as a hero. Wanna scoff at a 1984 reference? Fine, Snowden demonstrated that the government's power and reach is much greater--much much greater--than most people imagined. Of course, if the downside risk is unlimited, if it's actually infinite, then literally no good Snowden has done could overcome it. Seems like a bit of a gotcha to me.
- icanhackit 11y ago
  Also consider that the bad guys (insert: terrorism, Russia etc) probably had some functional understanding of what the spying capabilities were, and those doing the spying probably knew they knew. So what's left is the public being the only party who didn't know, was least prepared and least deserved it. It leaves you wondering. Now here we are, and I think that while it's nice that we're trying to fight these invasive practices in courts and through policy, security by design is what's needed most. The invasive practices were either completely unlawful or stretched the definition of what is lawful anyway, so the policy side of things should focus on protecting the legality of encryption, not making it illegal to spy. Everyone needs to understand that everyone is spying on everyone, and every time a system is implemented to protect someone from spying, the spy will test the topology of that system and find a new way in. So begins a Cold War in the protection of privacy - unending, but honest at least.
deciplex 11y ago
Unless the US government is hiding an unfriendly boxed AI and the Snowden disclosures have introduced a risk that this AI may unbox itself - no the downside can not be anywhere near unlimited. How about we look at what we already know of the disclosures along with reasonable guesses of what remains, along with the probability that the remaining disclosures will ever become public knowledge, and judge him based on that.
mindcrime 11y ago
Meh... every action has "unlimited potential downside" if you engage in enough hypotheticals. We can speculate a scenario where the leaking of the Pentagon Papers results in a worldwide pandemic of a superbug 200000x more contagious and deadly than Ebola. I mean, nobody can prove that that couldn't be a possible outcome. But by the same token, there's little or no reason to believe that such a thing is likely, just like there's little or no reason to expect any sort of dramatic consequence from Snowden's leaks. I mean, really, why would we expect the papers who have the leaked data to suddenly throw caution to the wind and publish anything any more damaging than what they already have? As far as that goes, if they had anything more revealing and were going to publish it, why wouldn't they have done it earlier?
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  As a sidebar on epidemiology, a superbug 200000x more contagious and deadly than Ebola would result in a circle around the initial infection wherein everyone inside is dead, and everyone outside avoids entering it. It would be much worse to have a less deadly and more contagious pathogen. Airborne transmission, plus long linger times for surface transmission, plus long incubation periods, plus low survivability, times zero treatment options, times international airports, equals annihilated species. This might connect with government secrets somehow if there were a secret project to develop a weaponized virus, and a vaccine for it, then to sneak the vaccine into a multivalent vaccine commonly given to the domestic population, but not to foreigners. The revelation might startle another bio-capable nation into pre-emptively releasing their supervirus, relying on quarantines to save a portion of their population from the American weapon. There are practical limits on the downside. The worst we could probably do at our current tech level is kill everything on the Earth's surface except for the extremophiles like D. radiodurans, and even that would assume that a lot of people have been telling a lot of lies about existing stockpiles of cobalt-salted nuclear weapons or other types of salted nukes.
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    That's actually pretty interesting. I just threw something hyperbolistic out there to make a point, but I remember reading some stuff about Ebola a while back, where they were making some of these same points. Interestingly enough, the main "thing" that ever got me intrigued by the idea of a "deadly superbug" was reading The Stand by Stephen King.
fineman 11y ago
That's pretty lopsided. The leaks have the potential to save the country. Also, we're talking about blame for actions committed. I feel no remorse for the criminal, anticipating that every new leak will be the one that tightens the noose. That's their fault for the crimes they committed, not the person who turned them in. If we were talking about a poor kid who robbed a liquor store people would be saying "Can't do the time, don't do the crime."