291–300 of 395 posts
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The point of democracy is not that everybody is perfectly informed to come to the logically best outcome. The point is that it gives a people agency over their own future. If they choose to be ill-informed and pick bad candidates, they own the consequences. Democracy does not lead to the best outcome, but to the most fair one.
That's certainly what's wrong with democracy.
When the Snowden docs came out, the main thing that surprised me wasn't the tech, it was the scale. I thought I had seen the tip of the iceberg doing security work for over 15y prior, but I had barely seen ripples in the surface. Most of what I saw would have been in the category of "BULLRUN," which I incorporate into client threat models today, but also some of the ISP interception equipment I saw at peering points…
One thing that always bothers me when pointing the finger at US spooks is that we conveniently ignore that there are certainly Russian and Chinese spooks. If you were a spook of a geopolitical adversary, one of the most effective things you could do to undermine the US would be to undermine their (hugely powerful) intelligence apparatus. There is a reason a a lot of US-critical media comes out of Russian and Chinese…
Why because she’s anti-war? What’s your proof of this, can’t wait to hear it.
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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 tho…
The point of democracy is not that everybody is perfectly informed to come to the logically best outcome. The point is that it gives a people agency over their own future. If they choose to be ill-informed and pick bad candidates, they own the consequences. Democracy does not lead to the best outcome, but to the most fair one.
No. We own the consequences.
> the most fair one.
The most fair, yes, probably. The fairest? No. Though I’ll admit I’m stumped (though in good company I suspect) as to how to possibly achieve the fairest outcome. I suspect it’s a platonic ideal, barring a Star Trek reality coming to life.
Funny how all the comments critical of Snowden and his actions are being flagged. No dissent allowed?
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…
They didn't. You interpreted the Snowden revelations incorrectly. The government actually cares a LOT about civil liberties.
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He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia. If you speak out against the war in Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now. He's done his part imo
> He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia Says who. > If you speak out against Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now. That doesn’t mean he has to pledge allegiance during that period. Regardless it’s not what an American patriot does. That narrative is untenable now.
The primary source https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/snowden-calls-russi...
The revelations didn't even show anything malicious. He basically won the court of opinion with all his interviews and books because his opponent literally can't argue back (would reveal classified info). He sucks, and hopefully more people will come around to it, though I fear the groupthink is too strong.
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He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia. If you speak out against the war in Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now. He's done his part imo
> He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia Says who. > If you speak out against Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now. That doesn’t mean he has to pledge allegiance during that period. Regardless it’s not what an American patriot does. That narrative is untenable now.
Just a few tabloid rags like The Washington Post [1], The Guardian [2], and The Atlantic [3].
> That doesn’t mean he has to pledge allegiance during that period. Regardless it’s not what an American patriot does. That narrative is untenable now.
Pledging allegiance is required to obtain Russian citizenship, which grants him additional protections from the United States. It is also required to obtain a Russian passport, which is required because the United States revoked his American passport, made him stateless, trapped him in an adversarial foreign country, and would do everything in their considerable power to intercept him should he try to seek asylum elsewhere.
Sure, the timing makes for awkward optics, but I'm going to cut the guy some slack not only for what he's been through, but for having his reputation falsely tarnished as well.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/02...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/29/julian-assange...
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/wh...
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See Switzerland. Yes most of the time new ideas are not easily heart, but the whole population gets to hear it and vote on it. Yes more often than not Revolutionary or forward leaning ideas don't get a yes on the first glance. But at this point the whole population talked about the topic. And here comes the magic. A few years later a new idea arises better than any idea before and suddenly people get it. We talk and…
Don't get me wrong, I love the Swiss model of lots of referenda, very strong regional (canton) govt and a seven person executive, but also.. Swiss women didn't get the vote at federal level until 1991. Some changes are hard to pull off through referenda, others less so.
To be pedantic it was one Canton (Appenzell Innerrhoden) that the supreme court finally forced to let women have full voting rights, as in the rest if the Cantons, in 1990 [0]. So it was part of the state forcing this rather than through their direct democracy, which makes the issue even more interesting.
The other states were still slow at granting universal suffrage, Vaud being the first in 1959.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...