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America’s Open Wound

edwardsnowden.substack.com

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Re: America’s Open Wound

#291

Post by meragrin_ »

daemoens wrote: post #44
roenxi wrote: post #13

I have to ask, because I know that Biden was said to give a speech with bad optics but I never looked it up seriously - is that photo doctored?^W^W^W I just googled it myself. Whoever is doing his PR needs to be sacked for leaving him open to a photo like that.

Yeah the real photo with the full background is much more mundane but this is how politics will always be.

No, the red was intentional. They knew exactly what they were doing. Biden was the speaker and not the building. They put red behind him with full knowledge the broadcast would be a tight shot on him from directly in front. It was fully intentional.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#292

Post by daemoens »

meragrin_ wrote: post #291
daemoens wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the real photo with the full background is much more mundane but this is how politics will always be.

No, the red was intentional. They knew exactly what they were doing. Biden was the speaker and not the building. They put red behind him with full knowledge the broadcast would be a tight shot on him from directly in front. It was fully intentional.

Do you honestly believe Biden wanted to make himself look evil on purpose?

Re: America’s Open Wound

#293

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

CodeMage wrote: post #178
ssnistfajen wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discus…

What HN actually does is police the tone.

I've seen some pretty heinous opinions expressed on HN, but because they're expressed with the correct tone, the ones responding to them are the ones that get moderated.

---

It's just not a solvable problem. No matter what dang, et al, do, they're creating a place they themselves WANT, and most people conform or skirt just within the edges.

But you can always tell when you're interacting with someone not worth interacting with, because they'll skirt the tone bounardaries while still being just as much of an argumentative jackass as they would on reddit.

---

This imagined superiority of discourse is just pompous arrogance on the part of a few people who actually think what dang, et al, have set out to do is solvable. If they solve it, they've solved humans. The only thing they can do is change their view over time on what is acceptable, and that's really what you're seeing. Them changing as humans over years.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#294

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #249
CodeMage wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 discus…

Carefully cultivated discourse is still abundant on HN, which is why I read this site regularly. They just aren't usually found under threads that touch non-strictly tech things like geopolitics, history, natural sciences, or lifestyle. Although I do agree the moderation needs to be more responsive in some of these situations, I have made peace with the fact that HN doesn't have 100% high quality discussion.

I wonder if in 100 years from now society will make fun of "carefully cultivated discourse" the way we make fun of the aristocrats who drink tea with their pinky out to show how refined they were.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#295

Post by roflyear »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #289
roflyear wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes... but it's a joke to suggest it is anything like the picture in the article.

I don't want to get drawn into your flame war, but that picture from the article is exactly the same as what's in the bulk of that YouTube video, just from a slightly different angle. You're acting like Snowden deceptively cherry-picked a photo to look like Dictator Biden, but any screengrab from that YouTube video link you posted is going to look almost as malicious as the photo Snowden picked

"it's exactly the same, but here are a bunch of differences"

Re: America’s Open Wound

#296

Post by softcactus »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #251
NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* Snowden is "a serial exaggerator and fabricator" who told a series of untrue stories about his health, education and performance reviews.* Oh look, propaganda in the form of an ad hominem fallacy.

Have you read the intelligence report that the NPR article references? It's good. It even says Snowden had whistleblower protection but never tried to use it. Nobody he worked with remembers him bringing it up. Etc. Had he gone to Congress he would be considered a whistleblower. That report is what made me do a 180 on Snowden fyi Pdf warning: https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pd...

Just finished reading through the whole thing. I am curious which part changed your opinion on him? I'll go through my thoughts:

1. I don't think whistleblower protection would have applied anyways since what the government was doing was technically legal.

2. Snowden seems like an asshole and a nightmare to work with, but I don't think that should factor in to the credibility of any arguments he makes which are backed up with sufficient evidence.

3. The biggest thing that changed his perception for me was how much he leaked. It would have been better if he had only gone after documents that pertained to privacy of US citizens.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#297

Post by ZeroGravitas »

eternalban wrote: post #286

Truman's letter to Washington Post, 1963, a month after JFK's assassination, in full: -- begin quote -- The Washington Post (December 22, 1963) "Limit CIA Role To Intelligence" by Harry S Truman INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. 21 — I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought i…

This just prompts more questions, he lauds Allen Dulles:

> Allen Welsh Dulles (/ˈdʌləs/, /ˈdʌlɪs/; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he oversaw the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, the Lockheed U-2 aircraft program, the Project MKUltra mind control program and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He was fired by John F. Kennedy over the latter fiasco.

So, was he not aware of this stuff, did he think things got worse after him?

Or is this bit ...

> With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda about "Yankee imperialism," "exploitive capitalism," "war-mongering," "monopolists," in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing we needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a subverting influence in the affairs of other people.

... basically expressing his own opinions about Dulles and the others, but putting it in the mouths of "Communist propaganda" as a way to reframe the criticism?

Re: America’s Open Wound

#298

Post by ZeroGravitas »

CharlesW wrote: post #230

Note for writers: In paragraph 3, Snowden uses the word "premises" but means "premise". These are similar-looking words with very different meanings. My inner paranoid now wonders if Snowden wrote this, because in my experience this is a mistake most commonly made by ESL writers. It would be interesting to perform stylometry on his history of work to see if there's a break.

That's just the plural form, is it not?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/premises#English

Re: America’s Open Wound

#299

Post by Firmwarrior »

roflyear wrote: post #295
Firmwarrior wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to get drawn into your flame war, but that picture from the article is exactly the same as what's in the bulk of that YouTube video, just from a slightly different angle. You're acting like Snowden deceptively cherry-picked a photo to look like Dictator Biden, but any screengrab from that YouTube video link you posted is going to look almost as malicious as the photo Snowden picked

"it's exactly the same, but here are a bunch of differences"

Seriously? Look at that youtube link you posted again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JemWkV2Vcic&t=44s

You don't think there's anything scary or fucked up about the imagery Biden is presenting, where it's him in front of a red-and-black shadowy military force?

Re: America’s Open Wound

#300

Post by dang »

idontpost wrote: post #213
gnaritas99 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Get your head out the fantasy world of utopia and see the real world Oh, the irony is delicious, you delusional fascist.

We've banned this account for repeatedly and egregiously breaking the site guidelines. That's not allowed here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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