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Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

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Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#81

Post by SapphireSun »

pyre wrote: post #37
p90x wrote: post #4

Seeing Americans companies take sides in the politics of foreign countries in such enthusiastic, carefree ways leaves me feeling very uneasy.

'Not taking sides in foreign politics' also brings us things like US networking supplies companies selling dictatorships that means to suppress free speech on their countries' internet access. The real questions is: how does one 'take no sides' when dealing with international commerce? Is selling weapons to both sides, 'taking no sides?' Or is the only true way to 'take no sides' just to refuse to do international bu…

That's what George Washington advocated, but then in times of an extremely different nature. (There are subtitles, but his primary position was isolationist to protect the growing country).

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#82

Post by nicpottier »

Uhm.. isn't this what SMS is for? For one it is way cheaper for the callers, for two it innately enforces the Twitter character limit. Doing voice to text seems like a pretty roundabout way to do this, anybody have any clues?

It's nice and all, but just seems like a solution looking for a problem.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#83

Post by p90x »

jbooth wrote: post #70
p90x wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know what is going on in Egypt other than sound bites from CNN. It's our flavor of the month. We don't have anything invested in the country, and don't have to deal with the consequences of any of our actions there. Considering all that, is it ethical for us to get involved? Ultimately, this system is an interesting use of technology and makes for good infotainment. I have doubts to the extent which social n…

We don't have anything invested in the country? You really didn't look closely at the tanks and guns on TV.

When I said "we" I was referring to the tech community in general, and tech activists in particular.

But you bring out a good point. The American government is approaching the crisis in a responsible, and moderate way precisely because they have an investment in Egypt and will have to deal with the consequences of the crisis.

Tech activists are behaving irresponsibly, and encouraging civil disobedience precisely because they have no investment in Egypt and can walk away if things there deteriorate. Armchair revolutionaries.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#84

Post by p90x »

icandoitbetter wrote: post #51
p90x wrote: post #4

Seeing Americans companies take sides in the politics of foreign countries in such enthusiastic, carefree ways leaves me feeling very uneasy.

Let's just remember that taking sides = enabling free speech in this case.

I don't believe in the universal superiority of American style free speech.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#85

Post by corin_ »

gbhn wrote: post #80
elliottcarlson wrote: post #73

I am surprised no one is concerned about this in regards to the safety of the callers. The government is obviously taking all steps in silencing in or outbound communication - with the obvious control structure in place over communications, it would seem feasible for the government to trace calls to these specific numbers (even if they block them) and punish people who do so. Don't get me wrong, I want to know what i…

Of course. Protests and revolutions are dangerous business. It makes me thoughtful about whether I'd be brave enough to take advantage of these kinds of tools should the necessity arise.

I'd rather take my chances of being one of hundreds (or thousands) of people speaking out on twitter than being one of hundreds of thousands marching on the streets against tanks and men with guns.

Regardless, personally I'd do both. While it's nowhere near comparable to the situation in Egypt, witnessing police brutality in English demonstrations (yes, FAR FAR FAR less severe than in Egypt, but still... one of my earliest memories was being on a political demonstration at age four in which troops of policemen on horses were charging at us with riot police behind) hasn't stopped me. And, where I in the Egyptians' situation, it wouldn't stop my then, either. The danger is far worse, but so the need for action is also far greater.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#86

Post by iacvlvs »

randomtask wrote: post #53
JonnieCache wrote: post #10

Some amazing stuff on there. This message brings a tear to my eye. http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=TkxFNENGTHVQQzdTdVE4N0...

Yeah, that one got me too.

I can't listen to it right now. Could someone please transcribe it?

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#87

Post by rayval »

nicpottier wrote: post #82

Uhm.. isn't this what SMS is for? For one it is way cheaper for the callers, for two it innately enforces the Twitter character limit. Doing voice to text seems like a pretty roundabout way to do this, anybody have any clues? It's nice and all, but just seems like a solution looking for a problem.

SMS was shut down at the same time.

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#88

Post by psyklic »

iacvlvs wrote: post #86
randomtask wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that one got me too.

I can't listen to it right now. Could someone please transcribe it?

I strongly recommend listening for the full effect, but here is a rough translation for those who cannot. My apologies on likely misspelling the lady's name. The grammar tries to reflect her speed/pauses/etc:

Hi, this is Monasef from Cairo. I just wanted to let the world know that we have been disconnected from our last point of communications through the Internet .. and there is a strong word going around that we will be again disconnected from mobile phone calls. So I wanted everyone to know, in case we don't get .. in case you don't get any feedback from what's happening tomorrow .. and I didn't want anyone to worry about us.

They did this before ... the only difference is the last time when they did this I was completely freaked out I was so scared they are going to shoot us all and nobody would know about it. This time, I am not scared at all. I see that this .. like I wanna tell them bring it on! - we are excited we are happy we are going to be at Tahrir Square tomorrow, we are going to be huge and we are going to do our march and do our protest .. and Mubarak is going -- out -- cry of relief/excitement> Be with us! byebye

Re: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

#89

Post by nkassis »

hugh3 wrote: post #64
jbri wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, let's support brutal dictatorships on the off-chance that a revolution might result in an even more brutal dictatorship.

The sarcasm is unbefitting of the seriousness of the occasion. What if it's not an "off-chance" but a 90% probability. Or even a 50% probability? The situation the way I see it is this: currently the bad guys are in power. The opposition forces are the not-so-bad guys (liberal democracy types) and the much worse guys (radical Islamists). The Muslim Brotherhood ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood ) are,…

The support for the Muslim brotherhood is overestimated. By the best data we can have they have about a 25% support rate. That is not enough in my view to take over. The situation in Egypt right now and in Iran during their revolution is very different.
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