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Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

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Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#191

Post by Argorak »

aidenn0 wrote: post #190
Argorak wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unhelpful, following this track, no discussion can happen without taking the full context of the universe into account. This might be fun for your 2-sentence statement, when discussing an entity as large as Google in relation to an entity as large as states, I'd be impressed to see you putting all context on the the table before I die. Also, you cannot put the whole context on the table, as some of this is se…

Reading my example it is obvious that the facts I state don't support the position that worshiping Thor prevents lightning strikes; reading a position where someone makes statements of fact that sound ominous without certain context, but are benign in-context, it is reasonable to assume that either: 1) They don't know what they are talking about 2) They are being deceitful

Or

3) Doesn't merit that piece of context as you do. See my other comment about adding context is an important part of debate, but not necessarily of every individual statement.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#192

Post by aidenn0 »

Argorak wrote: post #191
aidenn0 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading my example it is obvious that the facts I state don't support the position that worshiping Thor prevents lightning strikes; reading a position where someone makes statements of fact that sound ominous without certain context, but are benign in-context, it is reasonable to assume that either: 1) They don't know what they are talking about 2) They are being deceitful

Or 3) Doesn't merit that piece of context as you do. See my other comment about adding context is an important part of debate, but not necessarily of every individual statement.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at; if they don't merit that piece of context as I do then either I'm wrong or they are (the latter of which would fall under #1, and the former of which I cannot learn from their statements since they never addressed that piece of context in the first place).

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#193

Post by xnull »

colordrops wrote: post #132
krapp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you tell the difference between a shill and someone who actually holds an opposing point of view? It might be true, but Hacker News has a diverse userbase and it might as well be false. Using the term seems to me to be just a way to dismiss the credibility of critics - it's a thought terminating cliche.

Shills are easy to detect, as they out of character with the typical tone and style of messages on a particular forum. They also tend to have egregious flaws in reasoning and use emotional and heated personal attacks against the person or topic in question. The posts often get pushed to the top more quickly than usual. It has already been revealed that government agencies use sock puppets and other techniques to mani…

"Planned Research

There are three components of our proposed research focusing on persuasive messaging, norms-based influence, and social media effects respectively.

1. Persuasive messaging-based influence

2. Norms-based influence

3. Neural predictors of Twitter impact in Cairo"

http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf

"Here we report results from a randomized controlled trial of political mobilization messages delivered to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 US congressional elections. The results show that the messages directly influenced self-expression, information seeking, and real world voting behavior of millions of people. Furthermore the messages not only influenced the users who received them but also the users' friends, and friends of friends."

http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/massive_turnout.pdf

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#194

Post by mpyne »

Zigurd wrote: post #121
mpyne wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The last forty years have seen a huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy." This one is especially ironic, given that WikiLeaks has been reduced by now to a proxy political action arm for the Kremlin. The world is still waiting for the WikiLeaks "secrets on Moscow" that Assange threatened to release in 2010. RT at least got…

"WikiLeaks has been reduced by now to a proxy political action arm for the Kremlin" Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Assange himself stated bluntly that he told Snowden to go to Russia (not Cuba, nor any of the leftist South American nations).

DDB left WikiLeaks due in part to the ongoing association of WikiLeaks with authoritarian figures like Israel Shamir.

WikiLeaks could choose to start today and bring "transparency" to an increasingly opaque Russian situation, especially since Russia has recently passed laws requiring all media outfits to have no more than 20% foreign ownership, passed laws requiring bloggers to register themselves with central authorities, passed laws legalizing Internet surveillance even more extensive than is legal in the U.S. (and even U.K.) and much more.

WikiLeaks could do this today, there are half a million civil liberties organizations in the Western world focusing on the Western democracies and seemingly no powerful groups in Russia.

But despite their stated pro-transparency aims, WikiLeaks refuses to do this.

If it's because Russia has threatened WikiLeaks with actual physical harm (something the U.S. government has never done) then WikiLeaks shouldn't have acted as collaborators with Russia by telling Snowden to go there instead of South America.

But I don't think it's a physical threat at all, the cooperation of WikiLeaks with Russia since 2010 has gone on for so long (and Assange has been cooped up in Ecuador for so long) that one would think the physical threat has subsided, at least enough for WikiLeaks to quietly stay away from Russia instead of actively assisting them, as they did in 2013.

The most charitable explanation for all of this is that a common enemy (for WikiLeaks and Russia) makes strange bedfellows... but that doesn't change the fact that WikiLeaks has been actively collaborating with the Kremlin

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#195

Post by mpyne »

Argorak wrote: post #139
valas wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define a "lie"? It is full of misinformation and omission of fact which then creates a false narrative. There are a few options then: a) Assange is omitting important facts intentionally (which I don't think is the case). In this case you can call this misinformation a "lie". b) Assange truly believes in the narrative and honestly thinks the important facts are not that important. In this case, well, he is…

Omissions are not lies. Yes, it's true that a lot of PhD-Students get DARPA funding, but that doesn't make the fact less true that Google also gets this. All you are presenting is different interpretations of facts and weighting them differently - which is completely okay and a politics standard. I disagree with you on one thing: if the main asset of google is trust, how come it aggressively lobbies against german co…

There is a reason that the oath of witness in U.S. court systems requires telling not only the "truth" (i.e. facts or truthful opinions), but "the whole truth" (i.e. all important contextual information/opinions relevant to the question).

The best you can say about Assange building a narrative with carefully-manipulated facts and opinions is that it's manipulative, even if not false.

After all, that's what you guys all say when the NSA does it, is it not? The NSA isn't even this bad, they generally choose to be completely silent instead of feeding manipulative facts.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#196

Post by alexqgb »

colordrops wrote: post #131
alexqgb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply calling somebody a nut instead of pointing out the flaws in their argument is a proper example of the ad hominem fallacy. However, taking aim at the argument itself, successfully demonstrating its nuttiness, and concluding that one would have to be a nut to try making such a case is not a failure of reason. Quite the opposite. After all, the ad hominem rule is not some generalized prohibition against personal…

In essence you are saying that you don't agree with Assange so his name should be smeared to keep his opinions from reaching the public. You are claiming that you are able to parse and analyze his statements for their truthfulness, whereas the rest of the public will be hoodwinked. What an arrogant and elitist way to think. Arguments should stand or fall based on merit, not on labels like "nutjob" or "conspiracy theo…

Actually, that's not what I'm saying, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#197

Post by mpyne »

colordrops wrote: post #132
krapp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you tell the difference between a shill and someone who actually holds an opposing point of view? It might be true, but Hacker News has a diverse userbase and it might as well be false. Using the term seems to me to be just a way to dismiss the credibility of critics - it's a thought terminating cliche.

Shills are easy to detect, as they out of character with the typical tone and style of messages on a particular forum. They also tend to have egregious flaws in reasoning and use emotional and heated personal attacks against the person or topic in question. The posts often get pushed to the top more quickly than usual. It has already been revealed that government agencies use sock puppets and other techniques to mani…

> Shills are easy to detect, as they out of character with the typical tone and style of messages on a particular forum. They also tend to have egregious flaws in reasoning and use emotional and heated personal attacks against the person or topic in question.

So in other words, you're claiming that non-accordance with the groupthink of that particular forum implies that the poster is a shill.

Furthermore, you claim that using "proper" reasoning and unemotional informational content is evidence that the poster is likely not a shill, as if it's that hard to actually shill for something without resorting to crackpottery or emotional appeals.

I don't accept either premise, and nor should you.

> Also, as many of you here on Hacker News should know, marginally ethical marketing techniques are commonly used by tech and other companies, including bought articles and opinion pieces, astro turfing, sock puppets, guerrilla marketing, software to assist in targeting specific forums and message boards, vote brigading etc. See:

The fact that "Commonly-used" techniques exist implies absolutely nothing by itself about whether a given comment is from a shill, unless you're willing to believe that the base rate for shill/non-shill is significantly biased towards shills and sockpuppets on a normal basis.

For instance, Ebola is "common" in Liberia, but someone coming in with the symptoms of fever and headache are still at least as likely to have flu (or even Lassa fever) as they are to have Ebola.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#198

Post by alexqgb »

colordrops wrote: post #131
alexqgb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply calling somebody a nut instead of pointing out the flaws in their argument is a proper example of the ad hominem fallacy. However, taking aim at the argument itself, successfully demonstrating its nuttiness, and concluding that one would have to be a nut to try making such a case is not a failure of reason. Quite the opposite. After all, the ad hominem rule is not some generalized prohibition against personal…

In essence you are saying that you don't agree with Assange so his name should be smeared to keep his opinions from reaching the public. You are claiming that you are able to parse and analyze his statements for their truthfulness, whereas the rest of the public will be hoodwinked. What an arrogant and elitist way to think. Arguments should stand or fall based on merit, not on labels like "nutjob" or "conspiracy theo…

"In essence you are saying that you don't agree with Assange so his name should be smeared to keep his opinions from reaching the public."

Nope. And even if I did think smearing people was okay, there's no need for dishonest characterizations when the man is openly making a fool of himself. If honest discussion about what he's actually doing makes him look bad then the fault lies with him, and not the people who are simply noticing that he's losing the thread.

"You are claiming that you are able to parse and analyze his statements for their truthfulness, whereas the rest of the public will be hoodwinked"

Oh really? Do say where.

"Arguments should stand or fall based on merit,"

Well, at least you're right about one thing. And speaking of arguments falling on merit, yours begins by distorting something I said to assert something I neither said nor even implied, then departs even further from reality by asserting I'm "claiming" something about my own abilities in relation to those of "the rest of the public" even though I made precisely zero mention of either. Seriously, at this point you're just making shit up. So of all the faults in your position, I'd say basic dishonesty tops the list. And that's a bit rich coming from a guy who started by railing against "smears."

But thanks for playing.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#199

Post by yuhong »

Argorak wrote: post #139
valas wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define a "lie"? It is full of misinformation and omission of fact which then creates a false narrative. There are a few options then: a) Assange is omitting important facts intentionally (which I don't think is the case). In this case you can call this misinformation a "lie". b) Assange truly believes in the narrative and honestly thinks the important facts are not that important. In this case, well, he is…

Omissions are not lies. Yes, it's true that a lot of PhD-Students get DARPA funding, but that doesn't make the fact less true that Google also gets this. All you are presenting is different interpretations of facts and weighting them differently - which is completely okay and a politics standard. I disagree with you on one thing: if the main asset of google is trust, how come it aggressively lobbies against german co…

That is a completely different topic, but yes I am glad Vic Gundotra was fired.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#200

Post by wutbrodo »

chippy wrote: post #165
valas wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define a "lie"? It is full of misinformation and omission of fact which then creates a false narrative. There are a few options then: a) Assange is omitting important facts intentionally (which I don't think is the case). In this case you can call this misinformation a "lie". b) Assange truly believes in the narrative and honestly thinks the important facts are not that important. In this case, well, he is…

Do you have folks in your company with the red ID badges? I think that they are the security vetted employees. These people are working on projects that you, your boss and their bosses do not and cannot know anything about. Are they super pissed also? Are you allowed to ask them?

Wherever you got your information from, they're hilariously wrong. I'm sincerely sorry that they made you look so stupid... red badges are for contractors and vendors, so you see them on the security guards and the bus drivers and the cafe workers. This is public knowledge (at the very least, Gizmodo published a sensationalized article containing this information like.... 3 years ago).
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