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Interview with Edward Snowden

spiegel.de

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Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#91

Post by eli_gottlieb »

nanomonkey wrote: post #87
pathseeker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are you supposed to do in the US if you agree that climate change is a problem? The democratic party is not interested in solving it in the time-frame required (i.e. anti-nuclear) and the republican party might be okay with nuclear but isn't really that interested in solving the issue. Which party do you try to participate in to affect change? Both have effectively given up on evidence-based policies.

Green party! Or act locally within your county and city, as any successful local model can be later taken up by other municipalities.

The Green Party loathes nuclear energy.

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#92

Post by [deleted] »

claudiawerner wrote: post #76
tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By avoiding politics you tacitly endorse the status quo. A statement wrong on so many levels. Good grief, we really need to start emphasizing philosophy again in our society. > no matter how much you would rather pretend that you are above it. And a very wrong assumption that people who would rather not engage in politics, or at least public displays of political affiliation somehow must all think they are "above"…

>A statement wrong on so many levels. Good grief, we really need to start emphasizing philosophy again in our society. Ironically, many philosophers, from Rousseau to Marx to Marcuse would probably agree at least somewhat with what GP said. It's trivial - think of any "radical" philosopher (and they are usually the ones who drive change) and then I will agree with you - we need to emphasize philosophy, just not in th…

[deleted]

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#93

Post by deanCommie »

insickness wrote: post #49
slg wrote: post #18

>The class of which I am a part of, the global technological community, was for the longest time apolitical. We have this history of thinking: "We're going to make the world better." I think a lot of people in the tech community need to come to grips with the fact that you can't be apolitical in a democratic country. Refusing to engage in politics is an abdication of your role in a democratic society. You certainly h…

> most people on HN can agree on is climate change. There are many aspects of the climate change issue where disagreement is reasonable. Does industrial progress need to be sacrificed to prevent climate change? How much governmental intervention is helpful? How accurate are predictions of what is coming? What is the most efficient way to prevent climate change and how effective will those actions be? There is no corr…

> Does industrial progress need to be sacrificed to prevent climate change?

How can you even ask such a question with a straight face? What benefit is there from a couple of additional points of GDP if we destroy our habitat?

The problem with all of the questions you raise is I have never seen anybody asking them in good faith. They are used purely to derail discussion or any active problems or solutions.

A generous explanation would be that since the two sides can't agree that there is a problem to begin with, there can be no logical debate about the right way to SOLVE it.

As such, anyone who is asking these questions never offers ALTERNATIVES - all they offer is DOING NOTHING.

Which, given the stakes involved, is not passive, but an active impediment to moving forward.

> How much governmental intervention is helpful?

Private industry never moves in a direction that compromises profits without government intervention. That is inherent in free market capitalism, and has been demonstrated again and again worldwide.

> How accurate are predictions of what is coming?

Oh no, what if we improve our planet and habitat and keep our ecosystem and food production environments stable for nothing?

> What is the most efficient way to prevent climate change and how effective will those actions be?

One side offers some ideas. The other offers doing nothing. There is no disagreement here either, just good faith and bad.

> There is no correct path forward.

I'll finally agree with you there. I sincerely hope there will be future civilizations to look back on the historical record of the time and shake their heads in amazement at our folly, because that is not a guaranteed outcome.

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#94

Post by skybrian »

slg wrote: post #41
skybrian wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is something specific you would like people to do, please do go ahead and advocate for it. What organizations do you support, and why? Not this content-free guilt-mongering, it doesn't help anyone.

>If there is something specific you would like people to do, please do go ahead and advocate for it. Become involved. I think the minimum you should do is to vote in every election in your municipality. One of the main causes of the problems in our current system is the atrocious voter turnout rate. You can even just submit your entire ballot blank. Politicians can't see who voted for what, but they can see if you sh…

>> What organizations do you support, and why?

> HN is not the place for that discussion.

I assume you're thinking of the guidelines to avoid political arguments on Hacker News. I agree that we probably shouldn't talk about politics everywhere.

But it seems rather unfortunate. If voting is important, then figuring out who to vote for is important, and we should share what we've learned?

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#95

Post by mac01021 »

forgingahead wrote: post #68
slg wrote: post #18

>The class of which I am a part of, the global technological community, was for the longest time apolitical. We have this history of thinking: "We're going to make the world better." I think a lot of people in the tech community need to come to grips with the fact that you can't be apolitical in a democratic country. Refusing to engage in politics is an abdication of your role in a democratic society. You certainly h…

Please stop this. You're just buying into the false narrative, pushed specifically by media companies, that "you can't disengage". This specifically serves their purpose of creating content for the sake of conflict, in order to make money off your attention. You can disengage. In fact, I highly encourage it, and one's mental health greatly benefits from it. You're not more "enlightened" or "wise" if you follow along…

I think this is a false dichotomy. Most people should probably be less engaged than they are with the daily/weekly news and might even do well to ignore it entirely. But that need not have anything to do with how engaged you are with the democracy you live in or how much effort you spend trying to change society for the better.

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#96

Post by slg »

deanCommie wrote: post #88
forgingahead wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop this. You're just buying into the false narrative, pushed specifically by media companies, that "you can't disengage". This specifically serves their purpose of creating content for the sake of conflict, in order to make money off your attention. You can disengage. In fact, I highly encourage it, and one's mental health greatly benefits from it. You're not more "enlightened" or "wise" if you follow along…

That is a highly privileged position from someone who benefits from the current system, or at the very least isn't actively harmed by it. I realize I know nothing about your station, but understand that being able to make that statement is inherently privileged, and one millions of people around the world cannot proclaim. If you have access to benefits and advantages in the system that others do not, then if you are…

People hate the word privilege nowadays (and that is probably why you are being downvoted), but I really can't think of any other word for the idea that something like civil rights for LGBTQ+ people happens out of some type of "self-correction". People fight for that. They literally die for that. It doesn't just happen automatically.

To quote Desmond Tutu:

>If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#97

Post by avmich »

mythrwy wrote: post #85
avmich wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Importantly we need to understand that we can't require first to have that agreement and only after that start addressing the problem itself. Just like with space exploration, where we can't postpone it till there will be no hunger on Earth, we can't postpone acting on climate crisis until we agree on how to act. We have to act without full agreement.

And at best we will get expansive half measures. The best thing that could happen to climate science would be to decouple from political ideology.

That's a really tall order. To have science - in general, since if that happens with climate it probably happens with other areas - to be decoupled from politics is to significantly change our current practices of governance. Hopefully for better - but it's a hard task to do.

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#98

Post by kingbirdy »

forgingahead wrote: post #68
slg wrote: post #18

>The class of which I am a part of, the global technological community, was for the longest time apolitical. We have this history of thinking: "We're going to make the world better." I think a lot of people in the tech community need to come to grips with the fact that you can't be apolitical in a democratic country. Refusing to engage in politics is an abdication of your role in a democratic society. You certainly h…

Please stop this. You're just buying into the false narrative, pushed specifically by media companies, that "you can't disengage". This specifically serves their purpose of creating content for the sake of conflict, in order to make money off your attention. You can disengage. In fact, I highly encourage it, and one's mental health greatly benefits from it. You're not more "enlightened" or "wise" if you follow along…

> Please stop this. You're just buying into the false narrative, pushed specifically by media companies, that "you can't disengage". This specifically serves their purpose of creating content for the sake of conflict, in order to make money off your attention.

You're creating a false dichotomy; being engaged with the political process is not the same thing as consuming a lot of media. Provided you're getting high-quality news you don't need to spend a ton of time to get a good grasp of the issues.

> Trust the system you live in

The "system you live in" is other people who are choosing to be engaged with the political process and shaping it based on their desires. If you chose to disengage, that doesn't stop their participation, but it means your interests aren't represented. That's your prerogative, but as OP says, it's an active endorsement of the status quo - you're choosing not to participate because you're happy enough with how things are for you right now and don't feel the need to affect change for others.

Re: Interview with Edward Snowden

#100

Post by drdeca »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #73
forgingahead wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop this. You're just buying into the false narrative, pushed specifically by media companies, that "you can't disengage". This specifically serves their purpose of creating content for the sake of conflict, in order to make money off your attention. You can disengage. In fact, I highly encourage it, and one's mental health greatly benefits from it. You're not more "enlightened" or "wise" if you follow along…

>Trust the system you live in, and for most HN readers, from developed western economies, things will self-correct. The people are the system in a democracy. While I can understand not worrying about every little decision the government makes, ignoring it completely is what leads a community to decay. Any illusion of the system self correcting is a consequence of the US and western world’s dominance after winning WW2…

“The people” are not the entirety of the system. The mechanisms in place for aggregating the inputs from the individuals also has an impact. There is no canonical “most democratic” way to do this, only a variety of different democratic mechanisms, which can produce different results even if the individuals made the same choices.

That isn’t to say that people don’t have a responsibility to endeavor to vote well.

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