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America’s Open Wound
171–180 of 349 posts
Re: America’s Open Wound
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
No — the US feeds of the speech all had the tight red framing, while international ones did not. That photo is the same framing as his speech broadcast on US networks. Such a market split indicates the framing was intentionally authoritarian and meant to provoke/intimidate political rivals.
No it's not, stop being a joker. Here is what US sources had: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JemWkV2Vcic&t=967s That is massively different than the pic in the article.
90% of the video you linked is the sinister-looking closeup. It looks an awful lot like you cherry picked the few seconds not of that view.
Re: America’s Open Wound
#173I think I was already aware of most of the facts presented, but I'm not sure I know what argument is being made? That the CIA has not enough oversight? This is like a standard plot element in Hollywood movies and comic books, so that seems a little obvious. That the President of the United States shouldn't mention it if he learns someone is plotting a coup or terrorism in his country because that's hypocrisy? Legacy…
The most concerning thing for me is how the CIA and other branches of our intelligence agencies avoid oversight by funneling work through foundations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democra... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Democratic_Institute and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Republican_Insti... etc. If we have no accountability for our intel agencies then what do…
An army. It was an advantage at times.
Re: America’s Open Wound
#174Has everyone on Hacker News lost their minds? I come here to read and sometimes participate in rational discussions. These comments are some of the lowest effort, least rigorous, paranoid bullshit I’ve ever seen on this site. We’re a step above Facebook comments on NPR articles, here. Partisanship, viciousness and lazy conspiracy theories are not a good look for this site.
Yes, the amount of hate for Snowden and Assange is dismaying. These men sacrificed their lives to expose the crimes of one of - if not the most -powerful organizations on Earth. And people nitpick that they’re not criticizing the other most powerful entities too. Basically they’re criticizing them for not committing suicide in the name of a people which were impotent of unwilling to do anything with the revelations p…
I can disapprove of Snowden in general, and also see that he has a point in this article. The article is not political. Both Republicans and Democrats are equally blamed but the photo he chose is of the sitting president, a Democrat. The only problem I have with the article is our current internal politics work against reform and he did not address this, nor did he suggest any specific reforms he would recommend. For someone with such a decent understanding of the CIA, why didn't he? Does he just like to set fires and watch them burn?
Re: America’s Open Wound
#175I think I was already aware of most of the facts presented, but I'm not sure I know what argument is being made? That the CIA has not enough oversight? This is like a standard plot element in Hollywood movies and comic books, so that seems a little obvious. That the President of the United States shouldn't mention it if he learns someone is plotting a coup or terrorism in his country because that's hypocrisy? Legacy…
The thesis seems to be that America's recent civil unrest is not exceptional, and only continues the pattern that the founding of the CIA and NSA started. The implication seems to be that making federal agencies more transparent would result in more widespread acceptance of American democracy internally, though that's never explicitly stated.
Let’s all let ourselves believe that the para-military movement is authentically at odds with any law enforcement agency.
Re: America’s Open Wound
#176Did any American read this without alarm? If so, why not?
'Alarm' is not really the right word; the CIA and its lack of accountability is a problem, but it's not a new problem or a particularly recently-worsening problem. It's one of the bad things about America that needs to be fixed, but Snowden does not provide any new information here. And honestly, while I agree with the gist of what he's saying here, I tend to view his more recent stuff with a bit of a suspicious eye;…
Kind of convenient that Snowden has been pushed into that corner, isn't it?
Re: America’s Open Wound
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a clear case of the "ad hominem" fallacy. You are saying his argument is wrong because of who he is. Just because he is doing something odd (holed up in Russia) doesn't mean he is wrong.
I think pointing to someone's motivations is not ad hominem.
It is if it makes someone reject the argument.
This is identical to saying "Climate change doesn't exist because Al Gore flies in airplanes," or "Ralph Nader cannot be a critic of capitalism because he made a million dollars of his books."
Motivations have nothing to do with it, that is exactly what an ad hominem attack is. If you reject the argument because of the person's motivations, you are calling an argument false without evaluating the argument itself. That is broken reasoning, which is why the term "fallacy" exists.
Re: America’s Open Wound
#178Has everyone on Hacker News lost their minds? I come here to read and sometimes participate in rational discussions. These comments are some of the lowest effort, least rigorous, paranoid bullshit I’ve ever seen on this site. We’re a step above Facebook comments on NPR articles, here. Partisanship, viciousness and lazy conspiracy theories are not a good look for this site.
Or perhaps we don't need HN exceptionalism? Intelligence isn't translated universally onto all subject matters. Just because someone is good at writing code doesn't make them well-suited to understand any non-programming topics to have a well-informed or rational discussion about it. There's no reason why HN should have a higher quality discussion on these subjects than some generic subreddit or FB comment sections.…
> Or perhaps we don't need HN exceptionalism?
It's not exceptionalism to lament the downfall of the tradition of carefully cultivated discourse. I still remember when this community used to be different, and this site was the one I went to first.
> There's no reason why HN should have a higher quality discussion than some generic subreddit or FB comment sections.
Yes, there is. HN uses to have a higher quality discussion because it was carefully moderated both by the community itself and the moderators. Sadly, it seems that all communities deteriorate eventually.
Re: America’s Open Wound
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not, stop being a joker. Here is what US sources had: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JemWkV2Vcic&t=967s That is massively different than the pic in the article.
90% of the video you linked is the sinister-looking closeup. It looks an awful lot like you cherry picked the few seconds not of that view.
I didn't cherry pick anything. I just clicked randomly through the video to refresh my memory before replying and that is the last place I was at.
90% of the video is not sinister-looking.
Re: America’s Open Wound
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think pointing to someone's motivations is not ad hominem.
It is if it makes someone reject the argument. This is identical to saying "Climate change doesn't exist because Al Gore flies in airplanes," or "Ralph Nader cannot be a critic of capitalism because he made a million dollars of his books." Motivations have nothing to do with it, that is exactly what an ad hominem attack is. If you reject the argument because of the person's motivations, you are calling an argument fa…
You're acting like people are rational, and they aren't.