101–110 of 168 posts
Of course the US would not push him through a window but someone that wanted to damage the US international image might...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
My take on these questions:
> How much governmental intervention is helpful?
Climate crisis is similar to slowly unfolding war with a powerful, but slow adversary. A world war. So our good experiences and lessons from how to win a war could be helpful, including questions regarding government.
How much government intervention is helpful in WWII?
> How accurate are predictions of what is coming?
Nice question, but sort of beside the point. Can be answered, but it leads away from the problem.
Suppose our predictions are not too accurate. Given the stakes, we still have to do a lot of efforts, since in case we overestimated the problem the downside isn't big - comparing to potential downside of doing nothing.
The truth is that we don't really know the certainty of predictions. Last time I've heard the climatologists were trying to be conservative - they reported about problems they were fairly sure to see, to avoid being called alarmists. Now we see that predictions were rather rosy comparing to actual - more grim - situation. But that's what I've heard.
> What is the most efficient way to prevent climate change and how effective will those actions be?
Start running right now. Otherwise - imagine similar question asked to JFK, when he announced the Moon race. How long would you think people can debate rather silly and theoretical topic at the time of flying to the Moon? Given that USSR wasn't that keen to fly there in the first place, there were plenty of reasons to be reasonable and save a lot of efforts and money. Didn't USA have better things to do?
We can debate about effectiveness, but only if we're already running. Before that we first need to start running, however counterintuitive it could sound.
>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…
There is also a lot of evidence that finding a civil society group of some kind is very good emotionally for individuals, so it's a win win
>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…
He's under FSB protection, the only threat on him now is if he violates their rules. edit i'm sorry does HN not like me pointing out their golden boy is a Russian agent? (intel asset under protection)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No. It's simple. Snowden = Good. Sure, if you only read his side of the story. Anyone looks good if they get to make up their own narrative about themselves. The fact is that anyone with half a brain should have known decades ago that the US government, like all governments, does all kinds of surveillance and classifies all kinds of information, and not all of it is going to be pretty. When you tell the government…
I'm with you, except for the last paragraph. There, I'm more ambivalent. Yes, I kind of agree with you on your general point. But if we don't know what the government is doing, and we aren't going to be told, how are we supposed to hold them accountable? In general, you're right, but there does come a point at which a whistleblower is in fact necessary. Whether this one reached that point is a separate question.
By voting out of office the elected officials that allowed us not to be told what was going on.
The members of the intelligence committees in both houses of Congress are cleared for everything. If they are too incompetent to spot, for example, when an agency director is lying to them (as Snowden alleges that James Clapper did), then vote them out and get competent ones in there who can do their homework and spot the lies and call the director on them.
But actually I don't think most of them are that incompetent. I think the idea that all this was happening and no elected representatives knew about it, they all just took the agencies' word that oh, no, perish the thought, of course we wouldn't bend the rules, is ridiculous. The elected representatives knew what was going on and let it happen. If you don't like that, vote them out. The same goes if years go by and no information ever seems to come out about what the agencies are doing, and nobody in Congress seems to have any curiosity about it. Oversight is their job. If they're not doing it, vote them out.
>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…
In a democracy trusting the system ultimately means trusting the rest of the population in theory and trusting the people who actually vote in practise.
If your are ok with that, you can disengage, but you have to understand that system is ultimately the people who are actually voting and that they all may have a different agenda than you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No. It's simple. Snowden = Good. Sure, if you only read his side of the story. Anyone looks good if they get to make up their own narrative about themselves. The fact is that anyone with half a brain should have known decades ago that the US government, like all governments, does all kinds of surveillance and classifies all kinds of information, and not all of it is going to be pretty. When you tell the government…
> The fact is that anyone with half a brain should have known decades ago that the US government, like all governments, does all kinds of surveillance [...] Before Snowden you could say that TLAs were surely reading everything, but no one took that seriously -- "what a tinfoil hatter" might have been their internal response. After Snowden we all know that TLAs are reading everything. > Also, while it's perfectly reas…
If this is true (I'm not sure it is, "no one" is a pretty strong claim), why not?
> it happened, and now we have to decide if what Snowden did is good or bad
No, we don't. We only have to decide if, given this additional information we now have about what the government is doing (if it was additional to you--it wasn't really additional to me, I had for years assumed that something similar was going on even if I didn't know every little detail), we should do something about it. That doesn't require us to pass judgment at all on Snowden.
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…
> 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-qua…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you, except for the last paragraph. There, I'm more ambivalent. Yes, I kind of agree with you on your general point. But if we don't know what the government is doing, and we aren't going to be told, how are we supposed to hold them accountable? In general, you're right, but there does come a point at which a whistleblower is in fact necessary. Whether this one reached that point is a separate question.
> if we don't know what the government is doing, and we aren't going to be told, how are we supposed to hold them accountable? By voting out of office the elected officials that allowed us not to be told what was going on. The members of the intelligence committees in both houses of Congress are cleared for everything. If they are too incompetent to spot, for example, when an agency director is lying to them (as Snow…