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Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

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Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#401

Post by DEADBEEFC0FFEE »

BFatts wrote: post #235
ShamelessC wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally on Assange's side in all of this. I agree he shouldn't be charged and this is all a disgrace. Having said that, I once went to wikileaks and found a PDF of Steve Job's supposed STD test which claimed he was HIV positive. That was a surprise to me as my understanding was that he died of cancer. I looked into it and no one could corroborate the story and the general consensus seemed to be that it was fake…

I'm generally against Assange on all of this. Hacking is an illegal activity that results in the disclosure of information that the hacker does not own. This is theft of information and a federal offense. Anyone engaging is nefarious hacking should be jailed, if caught, and never allowed to use technology again. We have very lax laws when it comes to hacking - they need to be stronger.

Is criminal hacking such a awful crime that the punishment should include a custodial sentence and never having access to technology.

A lifetime ban seems completely inappropriate. Which specific technology did you have in mind?

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#402

Post by krapp »

SkyBelow wrote: post #390
aka1234 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pizzagate != Epstein Leaking Podesta's email spawned a conspiracy theory that high-ranking Democrats were a part of a satanic child abuse and traffic ring. It was specifically partisan. Meanwhile there are multiple layers to the Epstein case. Yes, Epstein was a nexus of child abuse. He was a terrible human being who got away with years of child abuse because of his money and powerful connections. Yes, he died under m…

Imagine if there was something larger than just what that one billionaire was involved in. Kinda like how when stories about the Catholic Church broke there were just a few high level Bishops involved until much more work was done to pull back the curtains. Now imagine some of that gets leaked in a partisan fashion. Maybe on purpose. Maybe by chance. A cover up could be attempted, but that might bring in more investi…

"I'm not saying it's true, but what if it was true enough?"

You could speculate that about literally anything. It's meaningless conjecture.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#403

Post by mindslight »

tptacek wrote: post #347
mindslight wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsubstantiated rebuttals are fun to say on message boards too, I guess. It certainly seems like when the de facto government has an agenda (eg attacking Iraq), they all broadcast that message simultaneously. It certainly seems like they choose which presidential candidates are "electable" and then downplay the others (Sanders, Paul, Dean). It certainly seems like they suppress narratives that are unfavorable to the…

The bar for how good an argument needs to be before it demands substantiation on HN is low, but it does not in fact touch the ground. Sometimes, it's worth pointing out that a piece of hyperbolic rhetoric is just that, just so we can keep our premises clear. "I don't trust the WSJ or NYT" is a colorable argument we could debate. But "The WSJ and NYT are analogous to state-run media" is not; if you believe that, there…

Okay then, your comments have been hyperbolic viewpoint-dismissing rhetoric, along with the one I responded to - "It makes me sick to my stomach that he cloaks his actions in the hard work and bravery of our free press."

Sure, my original comment was too general. I've come to that pattern over many specific occurrences, and it keeps my headspace clear by tying mainstream media to a powerful other. But I understand that stating it head-on won't convince anyone.

Narrowing down that heuristic to what is pertinent here:

The mainstream reporting on Iraq from 2003-2007 by (NYT, WSJ, WaPO, FOX, CNN, etc) all overwhelmingly marketed the war to the population. Referring to an alternative of some noble vibrant "free press" is ridiculous when they all were pushing the same government-friendly narrative. Wikileaks was an inevitable response to the lack of investigative journalism opposing the unilateral war, and thus had to function independently with much fewer resources. If anybody from the traditional institution had been doing their purported job, they would have easily scooped Wikileaks and could have spent effort scrubbing the sources. In fact, we saw a lot less of Wikileaks when the mainstream media actually bothered to report on the Snowden revelations.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#404

Post by ClumsyPilot »

thatlongthrow1 wrote: post #124
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see two possible interpretations: A - This is a special process meant to assure that reports are truly independent and neutral. These conclusions are even more trustworthy. B - UN Special Rapporteur can't be trusted, it's is a random nobody that can publish untrue allegations and slap UN logo on top. It appears you are implying B is the correct interpretations. If so, why? Additionally, can you suggest a more trust…

OK I'll be explicit. You attempted to spin the opinion of special rapporteur into that of the UN. In every special rapporteur article they have to put the disclaimer I posted because of people like you attempting to frame something in false or malicious ways. To recap your claim: >Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion. UN's actual position as stated in the article you posted: >The Special Rapporteurs are part o…

This paragraph contains neither "UN's actual position" nor a disclaimer, so I don't why you keep posting it.

If you actually understand how the UN works, clarify for the rest of us, who would be the UN authority on the matter. I would humbly accept the enlightenment.

Alternatively, if you don't know, you should not be running around and accusing people of "false or malicious ways" and "spin". You seem to be misinterpreting the statement .

Not everything UN does needs to be a resolution passed passed by 194 countries in the general assembly.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#405

Post by tptacek »

mindslight wrote: post #403
tptacek wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bar for how good an argument needs to be before it demands substantiation on HN is low, but it does not in fact touch the ground. Sometimes, it's worth pointing out that a piece of hyperbolic rhetoric is just that, just so we can keep our premises clear. "I don't trust the WSJ or NYT" is a colorable argument we could debate. But "The WSJ and NYT are analogous to state-run media" is not; if you believe that, there…

Okay then, your comments have been hyperbolic viewpoint-dismissing rhetoric, along with the one I responded to - " It makes me sick to my stomach that he cloaks his actions in the hard work and bravery of our free press. " Sure, my original comment was too general. I've come to that pattern over many specific occurrences, and it keeps my headspace clear by tying mainstream media to a powerful other. But I understand…

I don't know that we even need to reach the question of whether the NYT, WaPo, and CNN uniformly marketed the Iraq war to dispose of this argument. Consider: the NYT, WaPo, and CNN are unanimously pushing the same narrative about combating the pandemic, and, with one very notable exception, that narrative is the same as the public health establishment. The pandemic will kill far more Americans than the Iraq war did; it's a generation-defining story. Is the press "un-free" because they're warmly reporting on lockdown, social distancing, and mask-wearing measures by the government? Or can the press sometimes simply agree organically about things?

If the press needs to function like a series of warring contrarian subreddits to validate itself for you, we're operating from incompatible premises.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#406

Post by ClumsyPilot »

macspoofing wrote: post #164
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any government discredits itself when it commits horrible acts, like torture. When these actions become public, their reputation suffers, that's right and proper. > Facts always need to be contextualized in some narrative or ideology Like we contextualized Covid19 in Republican ideology to refuse to wear masks? Facts stand for themselves, ideology is harfull.

>Facts stand for themselves, ideology is harfull. When the George Floyd protests were ramping up 3 weeks ago, the media and many public health officials made statements in support of them and minimized (or outright dismissed) the risks of breaking bans on large public gatherings. Apparently the facts around COVID infection rates couldn't be taken at face-value but needed to be balanced with the righteous intent of th…

Your observation supports my point of view: when ideology trumps facts and proper understanding, it is harmful.

We have a moral obligation to have policy that makes best use of available facts. And for most areas of policy we have a lot of knowledge: we know that 'broken windows policing' delivers terrible results, we know that rehabilitation services deliver better ones. We know that advocating abstinence is worse that contraception at reducing teenage pregnancies, and we know "trickle down economics" is a joke, and a thousand other things.

Sure there are areas that are largely unknown, but even there the people of relevant expertise are not described as "a Marxist and a Libertarian"

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#407

Post by sushshshsh »

op03 wrote: post #17

Feels like the last decade has shown Leaking to the General Public is not very productive. As in outcomes are poor. There is always something else lined up every 2 minutes to pull attention away from the leak. I am not sure if anyone studies "leaking effectiveness" but I am guessing in info tsunami conditions larger the leak less impact it has. Cause no one knows whose network of power is going to get impacted so eve…

What I think is actually worse is that the majority of people dont even care, actually. Not a very woke world we live in

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#408

Post by mindslight »

tptacek wrote: post #405
mindslight wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay then, your comments have been hyperbolic viewpoint-dismissing rhetoric, along with the one I responded to - " It makes me sick to my stomach that he cloaks his actions in the hard work and bravery of our free press. " Sure, my original comment was too general. I've come to that pattern over many specific occurrences, and it keeps my headspace clear by tying mainstream media to a powerful other. But I understand…

I don't know that we even need to reach the question of whether the NYT, WaPo, and CNN uniformly marketed the Iraq war to dispose of this argument. Consider: the NYT, WaPo, and CNN are unanimously pushing the same narrative about combating the pandemic, and, with one very notable exception, that narrative is the same as the public health establishment. The pandemic will kill far more Americans than the Iraq war did;…

You're comparing sensible response to a shared public health issue, with an elective war for economic empire? Mainstream media also agrees that you should brush your teeth every day, but I don't attribute that to business relationships with P&G/Unilever. Continuing your argument, you're implying that invading other countries is just common sense, or at least was at the time. Maybe it seemed that way to you, but most everyone I knew was ardently against the war.

The press certainly can agree organically about things. We generally talk in terms of causality, but feedback cycles mean that things act mutually on each other - including the population being preached to (eg choosing to promote those fucking yellow ribbons). But exploring this way leads us deeper into handwaving territory, which is a lot easier to shoot down with a dismissive blunt response, as you did to my initial comment.

For the Iraq war specifically, I do agree that many journalists were likely in agreement to begin with. But the ones that were not were filtered out by management and ownership (cf Clear Channel's list of songs to censor), resulting in the unified presentation. I'm not claiming grand conspiracy, but rather emergent behavior with the net effect of squashing big-business-inconvenient narratives.

Also, I'd be thankful to anybody who leaked information that punched holes in the COVID-19 narrative. I don't think that will happen, because I think it is a very real crisis, but I would welcome being wrong. That's another huge difference between your points of comparison - COVID-19 analysis survives open discussion, while the pro-war camp relied on silencing dissent.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#409

Post by thatlongthrow1 »

monocasa wrote: post #336
thatlongthrow1 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason people have to put annoyingly long official titles in when discussing persons and their opinions. "UN Special Rapporteur" does not equal the UN, it specially does not equal an official position of the UN which is what the user tried to do. You have to be specific. "UN Special Rapporteur" does not equal the UN, which is why that specific language is put onto the footer of all their articles.

> it specially does not equal an official position of the UN I don't know how you cans ay that, when the UN press briefings literally refer to them as a "UN expert". Yes it's a financially independent position to remove as much bias as possible, but it is very much an official UN position.

>I don't know how you cans ay that, when the UN press briefings literally refer to them as a "UN expert".

His claim:

>Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion.

It's not the UN's position, its a position of a Special Rapporteur for the UN. Thats why I can say it. You are arguing a different subject, if he is a UN expert. Notice I'm not debating his affiliation with the UN. A position of the UN would be a decision made by council, not by someone who:

>are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

According to UN, the body.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#410

Post by dang »

AnHonestComment wrote: post #131
thatlongthrow1 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological flamewar. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

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

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