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Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

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Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#251

Post by mixmastamyk »

nyokodo wrote: post #214
opportune wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the reasoning then? As far as I can tell he thought he was doing the right thing at the time, even if you might think he was naive or misguided. Surely the support for his actions indicates to you there are people out there who would have done what he did if they were in his position no? I guess, to me being a traitor has connotations of deliberate intent to do harm due to some kind of external loyalty. While…

> As far as I can tell he thought he was doing the right thing at the time That’s what he said, that’s not necessarily what was actually true. I no longer believe him given his subsequent actions. > Surely the support for his actions indicates to you there are people out there who would have done what he did If you’re suggesting that there could have been genuine patriotic whistleblowers, I agree. But Snowden’s actio…

Sounds like you expect him to die in Russia. To prove to an internet nobody that he’s loyal—very privileged take there.

I’m guessing you never risked anything in your life, ammirite?

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#252

Post by rmwaite »

markdown wrote: post #204
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important to remember that they invaded Ukraine for no reason This is not true. Real people have motives, „being evil“ is a child's explanation for things it doesn’t understand.

I mean, "no reason" is understood to mean no good reason. Say you walk next door and shoot your neighbour dead. Many people, even when they know it's because he made friends with his other next-door neighbour when you demanded he only be your friend, will say that you killed your neighbour for no reason. > "being evil“ is a child's explanation Fair enough. It was because Putin is a good person who was lonely and want…

I don’t know that I agree. At least personally, I think there is a big distinction between a bad reason and no reason. No reason means random. A bad reason you can at least seek to understand - what caused this person to make this decision? We’re they abused? Mentally ill? Etc etc.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#253

Post by still_grokking »

pmoriarty wrote: post #247
still_grokking wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be…

"We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody." Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable. Technology is the disease here, not the cure. I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots.

> Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable.

Sure. And elections in general aren't malleable? In a lot of cases that's even simpler than hacking a distributed cryptographic system.

The problem with electronic voting is not the security. It's "just" the secrecy. That's the only hard problem.

> I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots.

So you should stop trusting in any decision made in most parliaments on this planet. Almost all of them are made by primitive and completely nontransparent "press the button" electronic voting, which can be trivial hacked. But "voting" in parliaments is anyway just show for the dump masses. All the decisions are pre-made behind closed doors, of course.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#254

Post by account-5 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #247
still_grokking wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be…

"We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody." Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable. Technology is the disease here, not the cure. I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots.

Provided of course you trust the person counting those ballots.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#255

Post by vasco »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #176

Years ago, when I interviewed at places that did USG-related work, the stuff I heard about that I didn't have to sign an NDA to hear , scared me enough that I knew Snowden-scale stuff was entirely within the capabilities of the US Govt. I didn't realize they would use it against us just blatantly in direct violation of every law put in place to prevent it, though. I think the lesson I learned from the Snowden leaks i…

This is what proponents of small government fear, and by extension why creating more organizations where a small group of people deciding for a large group is bad, because they can be corrupted. See for example any union that has existed for more than 10 years and how they are called "corporate unions", in an intentionally blind case of "no true Scotsman".

Also one of the reasons communism doesn't work - the mechanisms needed for it to be implemented centralize even more power to a central committee than with other systems of government.

I agree, the world-view really changes once you realize this.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#256

Post by account-5 »

still_grokking wrote: post #250
phs318u wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure democracy as you describe it, even if technically feasible, would still result in tyrannies and terrible outcomes. The biggest problem isn't lack of influence on the laws, it's lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. And that problem exists whether it's x number of people influencing the outcome, or 1,000,000x. Every negative influence that politicians are open to, the masses are also open to (thou…

You've just made an anti-argument to your own claim. As people are people, real democracy would not be worse than the status quo as we're already ruled by people with lack of knowledge, reason, understanding and empathy. But you can't for example corrupt the majority of all people. So real democracy would be at least in this point better. By no means worse, but better in some regards is a clear win imho! > lack of kn…

I'd love to agree with you but people in general are easily manipulated on mass.

Currently the majority are too I'll informed to make appropriate decisions about anything, making them even easily to manipulate. I'll include myself in this.

For real democracy to work it's more than giving all people the right to vote on all things. They need to all be informed about all the issues in an impartial way in a way that those people can fully understand. That I'd say is impossible.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#257

Post by still_grokking »

account-5 wrote: post #254
pmoriarty wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody." Electronic voting machines and vote counting machines are hackable. Technology is the disease here, not the cure. I wouldn't trust anything other than hand-counted paper ballots.

Provided of course you trust the person counting those ballots.

"I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how."

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#258

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

roenxi wrote: post #244
FormerBandmate wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His motive is that he wants to reestablish the Russian Empire and he views the Euromaidan as the US taking Ukraine from him

> Mr. Putin framed his decision to invade Ukraine as a last-ditch effort to halt the West’s hostile expansion ever closer to Russia’s borders. ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukrain... > It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response…

He is completely correct. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia repeatedly tried to join NATO. It was rebuffed by the US - why? Instead of forging a new alliance, the west preferred to uphold old friend-enemy distinctions, and instead moved the NATO ever closer to Russia‘s border, ignoring its security needs and breaking old promises (as evidenced by the embassy cable leaks).

Then, Ukraine shelled the Russian civilian minority population for years after the manufactured coup of the 2014 Euromaidan revolution. It started to suppress Russian language and culture. The Azov Nazi army committed cruel war crimes. Guarantees regarding the black sea fleet were no longer trustworthy. Essentially, they „kicked the dog until it bites“ and then blamed the dog. Putin repeatedly and very clearly communicated his (reasonable) terms for peace, and still people act like he can’t be reasoned with. Instead the West decided to send Ukrainian men into a meatgrinder, probably until the supply of recruits is exhausted.

Prominent establishment people like John Mearsheimer have been warning that this would be the inevitable outcome of Nato expansion, all the way back in the 90s, and that it was the greatest strategic error of the west. They were ignored by the same people that lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction to start another war.

The US State Department has a lot of blood on its hands.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#259

Post by brabel »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #176

Years ago, when I interviewed at places that did USG-related work, the stuff I heard about that I didn't have to sign an NDA to hear , scared me enough that I knew Snowden-scale stuff was entirely within the capabilities of the US Govt. I didn't realize they would use it against us just blatantly in direct violation of every law put in place to prevent it, though. I think the lesson I learned from the Snowden leaks i…

Transparency is the key. Governments love secrecy because that allows them to do whatever nasty stuff they want while pretending to be righteous at the surface.

Just look at past secrets that have been disclosed recently and think: should those things really be secret? I say absolutely no.

The mentality of keeping things secret to hide your real intentions, or to not upset people too much (or they will panic!), or to keep other governments on their toes so you're ready to take them by surprise in the event of a conflict (how has that worked so far? The real threat actors will know anyway what naughty stuff you're doing to make sure they'll be the losers if the need arises - like when you just urgently need more cheap oil) is something we, all peoples of the world, need to overcome as soon as possible.

You may argue the situation in the world right now proves that governments need to be ready for conflict all the time, and secrecy gives them more power to take enemies by surprise... but you're mistaken, it's exactly the opposite! The whole China/Russia animosities are due to the West patently doing things, like keeping military bases in every weak country[1] that will let them around China and Russia, that clearly shows they have every intention to escalate to a war with them at the earliest sign of trouble, yet we lie without hesitation about it... like we're the peaceful people who keep trying to convince evil governments to change their belligerent ways. Perhaps if we stopped putting weapons pointing right at them, right at their neighbourhood, they would be better persuaded that war is not a possibility?

We do the same with climate change by the way... we want everyone else to change, or we won't do it alone, forgetting that we're the ones who pumped 90% of the CO2 into the atmosphere over the last 200 years of industrialization, while some countries that are now considered "climate villains" have been on it for only a couple of decades... hypocrisy at its worst.

[1] https://www.rferl.org/a/where-are-us-and-russian-military-ba...

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#260

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

nyokodo wrote: post #160

[flagged]

Your assertion makes no sense. Snowden gained nothing from going to Russia, except for protection from the US government. He went from living in Hawaii on a very decent salary to living in a country in which he has no family, can't speak the language well, and can't travel internationally. Snowden has been very clear and consistent from the beginning about why he did what he did, and his reasons are justified.

If you're going to criticize Snowden for living in Russia, you'll have to propose a better course of action. There are very few countries in which American dissidents are safe. If Snowden had gotten to Ecuador, they would have turned him over by now, just like they did with Assange. EU countries wouldn't have protected Snowden - they wouldn't even give him a visa to allow him to testify in person about US spying on Europe.[0] If you want to see just how subservient the EU is to the US on these issues, recall that when the Americans thought Snowden might be aboard the Bolivian President's plane, they successfully pressured the Europeans to force the plane to land and to submit to a search.[1] They were willing to humiliate a foreign head of state just to hand Snowden over to the Americans.

If you go down the list of countries that are capable and willing to shield someone on the US' enemy list, you end up with a very short list. You can't blame Snowden for saving himself after handing over the documents to journalists. He's in one of the few countries that can actually shield him.

> When he voluntarily became a Russian citizen, swearing an oath of allegiance to Russia during their war of aggression against Ukraine I couldn’t maintain that view.

Does everyone who becomes a naturalized American citizen automatically support the Iraq War, the bombing of Libya, drone strikes throughout the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, the supply of weapons for the war in Yemen, America's support for Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories, and everything else the US does? Snowden has been forced by circumstance to live in Russia. Becoming a citizen of the country you live in generally makes sense, as it affords you more rights and permanent status. That doesn't make Snowden a spy.

0. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/01/germany-edward...

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden...

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