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Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

nytimes.com

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Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#141

Post by marrs »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #46
marrs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreement is a perfectly valid reason for downvoting someone. No. It isn't. How would you feel if people shut you out of a discussion because they disagreed with you? If someone says something you disagree with, debate them. If they say something factually incorrect, correct them. They may even thank you for it. And guess what, they may end up changing your mind, or correcting a mistake on your part. Actively seek…

I tend to read the downvoted comments first. I figure if someone doesn't want me to read something then that something is probably important/interesting.

And it usually is

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#142

Post by marrs »

bad_user wrote: post #37
marrs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreement is a perfectly valid reason for downvoting someone. No. It isn't. How would you feel if people shut you out of a discussion because they disagreed with you? If someone says something you disagree with, debate them. If they say something factually incorrect, correct them. They may even thank you for it. And guess what, they may end up changing your mind, or correcting a mistake on your part. Actively seek…

I'm shutting people out of discussing with me like all the time. I close the phone on unwanted calls, I mark unsolicited emails as spam, I tell salesmen showing up on my door to fuck off and whenever deeply flawed opinions are spoken by my friends or family (on matters important to me, like racism, privacy, free speech), I get up and leave. It's how I keep sane. And as somebody that was born in Eastern Europe in a (n…

    I'm shutting people out of discussing with me like all the time.
And if you're down-voting comments on Hacker News you're also shutting them out for me as well as everyone else on this site.

    Also, the comment being down-voted above is really noise.
No it's not. It's not going to win "insight of the month" but it's not a bait-and-switch, or a spambot, or a troll. It's a reply to a question. Do we all need to start practicing our poetry writing skills or something?

The downvoted comment was this:

I can't say I see him as a villain, but definitely not a hero. I hold back my judgement, because we are just too far away to know what's going on. He did expose some pretty bad practices to the general public, but asylum in Russia afterwards? Are you kidding me? That just looks super fishy to anyone with at least an ounce of critical thought in his brain. Especially in the context of the Crimea debacle.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#143

Post by dimino »

jordigh wrote: post #139
dimino wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way to notify your population of an action without also notifying your enemies of that action. No argument exists, to my knowledge, that a nation-state can be successful without hiding some information from other nation-states, and therefore from its people, given my first sentence. It's one reason we elect representatives, in fact.

How about the nation state stops having secrets that are making enemies for itself?

Considering there has never been a time in human history where a nation state has not had any opposition from other nation states, I suspect your suggestion is literally impossible.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#144

Post by dang »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #116
kr4 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Russian, I just don't buy into MSM propaganda. Let me give you simple fact which you can search for. during dissolution of USSR, it was agreed between West and Russia that NATO wouldn't expand into Eastern Europe but look at now, NATO is in most of Easten Europe and with Ukraine under control, it comes right on Russia's border. You say autocratic, what democratic government example you can give me in the worl…

>I'm not Russian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#145

Post by marrs »

striking wrote: post #54
marrs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreement is a perfectly valid reason for downvoting someone. No. It isn't. How would you feel if people shut you out of a discussion because they disagreed with you? If someone says something you disagree with, debate them. If they say something factually incorrect, correct them. They may even thank you for it. And guess what, they may end up changing your mind, or correcting a mistake on your part. Actively seek…

This is a common complaint from people who get downvoted, while it's been held in the community by dang and pg that people should downvote whatever they feel should be downvoted. There's no specific prescription to what can or can't be. Disagreement is often a bad reason for downvoting someone, but in this case it's disagreement with someone who is lacking facts. Also note that the guidelines note that you shouldn't…

I'm not complaining because I get down-voted - I don't contribute enough for that - I'm complaining because it constantly hinders my ability to read discussions, which is what I come to HN primarily to do.

Maybe PG and co. need to add an option in the settings to switch off the censorship for those who don't want it.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#146

Post by jordigh »

dimino wrote: post #143
jordigh wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the nation state stops having secrets that are making enemies for itself?

Considering there has never been a time in human history where a nation state has not had any opposition from other nation states, I suspect your suggestion is literally impossible.

Switzerland has been mostly without enemies for most of its existence.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#147

Post by dimino »

jordigh wrote: post #146
dimino wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering there has never been a time in human history where a nation state has not had any opposition from other nation states, I suspect your suggestion is literally impossible.

Switzerland has been mostly without enemies for most of its existence.

So about those swiss bank accounts, then...

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#148

Post by dimino »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #135
dimino wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this sentiment, but I doubt you'd continue to hold it in the event of a leak that was much less beneficial for you in particular. Consider for a moment the fictional scenario that all US tax documents were leaked, or perhaps only the tax documents of folks whose names started with Warren B. We might (in this fictional scenario) find out about some very significant tax evasion on the part of Warren Buffet…

>who works for a middle school, loses his job because it's revealed he has AIDS and the parents petition his removal from the classroom. Once again, blaming the leaker is blaming the wrong individual here. There is already a cost to society of people not seeking treatment for mental health issues on the possibility the info might be leaked, not because the leak itself is a feared occurrence (in reality it is rare) bu…

If I send my kid to visit his dad, knowing full well his dad is going to abuse him, am I at fault for sending him anyway, or are you exclusively arguing that his dad would be at fault, and I would carry zero blame?

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#149

Post by blumkvist »

kr4 wrote: post #112
dkns wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Ukraine democratic government was forcefully overthrown by a US-backed Nazi military coup what choice Russia had? Wait, wait, wait. When did this happen? Because I think I might've missed something.

Read this: The Truth Behind The Crisis in Ukraine. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-truth-behind-the-crisis-in-...

That site is your source of truth? WHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sad life.

Re: Snowden Sees Some Victories, from a Distance

#150

Post by tptacek »

blumkvist wrote: post #149
kr4 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read this: The Truth Behind The Crisis in Ukraine. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-truth-behind-the-crisis-in-...

That site is your source of truth? WHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sad life.

You have to do better than this. I know enough about the Ukraine situation to automatically be skeptical of any story valorizing Russia's involvement. But I have no idea what "GlobalResearch" is. Which, to me and, I think, most HN readers, makes your comment a smirking personal attack rather than a contribution to the conversation.

Next time, buy some room for your outraged response with a couple sentences of explanation.

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