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Snowden A Hero? Gates Says No, Woz Says Yes
hcs_$reboot writes "In a lengthy interview from Rolling Stone, Bill Gates, was asked: 'Do you consider [Snowden] a hero or a traitor?' The Microsoft founder responded, 'I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero. ... You won't find much admiration from me'. What about government surveillance? 'The government has such ability to do these things. ... But the specific techniques they use become unavailable if they're discussed in detail. Rolling Stone retorts that privacy can be an issue: 'We want safety, but we also want privacy,' says the journalist. Bill Gates tells his main priority focuses on stopping the bad guys: 'Let's say you knew nothing was going on. How would you feel? I mean, seriously. I would be very worried. Technology arms the bad guys with orders of magnitude more [power]. Not just bad guys. Crazy guys.' Meanwhile, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak expressed the opposite opinion about Snowden at a tech conference in Germany. 'He is a hero to me, but he may be a traitor to other people and I understand the reasons for them to think that way. I believe that Snowden believed, like I do, that the U.S. has a right to freedom. '"
yes, technology has certainly armed you, Bill Gates, you twisted evil fuck
Good thing they executed Einstein... oh wait...
Nobody. Absolutely NOBODY.
oh, are we at war with Russia?
last I checked we were sticking our noses into Crimea situation (majority of populace ethnic Russian) but do tell what constitutes "enemies"
I seem to recall Russia calling our Homeland protectors and warning us about a particular guy. they didn't have to bother to do that, and it's an extraordinary thing that they did. Our Protectors of Der Fatherland ignored the warning. being busy courting punks and filling their heads with violent thoughts and then fake weapons so they could make headlines. And so the Boston Marathon bombings happened. So, who is the enemy of We the People?
in this case the enemy is our government. Are you taking refuge with them ?
The wealthy want to keep people under the control of the government, so they can increase their wealth and power over us.
Gates is an evil sociopath.
If 'evil sociopaths' have the eradication of malaria, the delivery of clean drinking water and readily available birth control to all as objectives, I say bring 'em on.
Certainly a bigger impact than all these so-called "Christians" blathering away on TV while doing nothing to follow Jesus's preachings.
Good thing they executed Einstein... oh wait...
Completely irrelevant analogy. He was visiting the US when Hitler came to power and decided not to go back due to the anti-semitism. It's not like he gave away secret documents from the German High Command. Analogies need to be relevant to work.
And where's my limelight?!?
Sorry, but for every good deed he accomplished he did at least two dirty deals and bribed a couple of politicians to get richer..
Yes, you would think an OS owner would champion privacy but he is not an OS owner any longer. Gates has learned the complexity of wealth and power and an alliance with his government to protect his interests is what he now champions. Anyone that lives in the US and isn't concerned about what the NSA has done is ignorant or helping them make in roads into our privacy. Snowden has done the right thing and I am grateful for his sacrifice!
I want safety but this is power hungry people with not enough safeguards to protect us from them. I don't want the technology removed, I want it governed by our people!
Ha, the russian haven't been an enemy of the US for a long time, Was their another safe place for him to go? The US would have indefinitely detained snowden or executed him after a great show trial.
Snowden is a hero, he had the conviction to stand up and say no to an organisation that would take his life for simply telling the truth.
Even evil sociopaths have to answer to their wives.
I think that most successful corporate heads these days could be called sociopaths
Gates-wise, certainly evil in the eyes of microsoft's competitors for the better part of three decades, but he has really put forward a Carnegie-esque effort to 'do good' with his accrued wealth
Snowden-wise I think that you are pretty much spot on with the whole manipulation by greenwald angle. Maybe even the idea that Snowden has a latent superiority complex that greenwald fed into and used to manipulate him,
Where does Snowden's redemption lie? Can he attempt to buy his reputation like Gates or Carnegie? Are public events like SXSW that currency that he will spend on it? If that is it, then I am not buying it. It is one thing to buy into the idea that Gates bringing clean water to Africa is a good thing, it is quite another thing to label Snowden's one-sided fear mongering as 'good'
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Gates isn't exactly neutral on this matter. Companies as big as Microsoft don't happen without close friendships with the government, and those relationships get even closer when the company is let off easy in an anti-trust case. Even if he did support Snowden, he wouldn't be able to publicly state that.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Sociopaths can donate money to charity when it helps their tax burden.
Bill Gates didn't himself do any work except public appearances...he's a **Billionaire** you don't get points for making charities to solve well-known problems that also promote your company's products
Gates **should** give his money to charity...the fact that he does **the bare minimum** to charties that spread his products to new markets...and gets a **tax write off** doesn't make him not a sociopath
Thank you Dave Raggett
OK, then, how about Fermi? Emigrated in 1938 to escape fascism and helped the U.S. (the "enemy") develop the atomic bomb.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Do YOU follow Jesus' teachings, oh perfect one? Jackass.
Where I can, yeah. But I'm not perfect.
...but I also don't go on TV claiming to be a 'christian,' then cut food stamps for poor kids and cheer executions.
Exactly this.
...Steve
Whistleblowers are not heroes or villains, They are meddlesome do gooders who are willing to destroy society and the status quo just to make a name for themselves. Sometimes, as with Snowden, they reveal practices that many would consider at least unethical and force change. They are seldom thanked for their contribution. What is always the case is that the people who have to change because of the revelations are annoyed. Changing means they lose money, power, or both.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What about someone fleeing from China to the US to whistleblow on genocide within the country? Would you think someone not a hero for going somewhere his story would be heard and that he wouldn't be in mortal danger?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
If 'evil sociopaths' have the eradication of malaria, the delivery of clean drinking water and readily available birth control to all as objectives, I say bring 'em on.
Those things are only being delivered as a means of exerting control over those countries for the next eternity. They're the foot in the door for Big Pharma, in which both the foundation and Gates are heavily invested.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
History is written by the victors and all that.
As far as I can tell, we don't want anything to do with the Crimea situation, but unfortunately the Ukraine signed an agreement that they would disarm their nuclear stockpile with the agreement that the west would protect their borders. And as such, we are now forced to intervene if we want to push forward any other nuclear disarmament agreements and not risking making other such agreements null and void.
Like it or not, the world is usually more complex than just giving one group of people what they want.
"He puts an entire nation in jeopardy."
Actually, he put an entire nation on the alert to very real abuses by our government.
I've heard the NSA complain that a journalist is not qualified to determine what is and what is not too sensitive for publication. However, I would like to submit that the NSA and like institutions are not qualified to determine what is in the best interests of a democracy.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
He's stuck in Russia, away from friends and family, probably not exactly having the best time of his life.
Sure, it's probably a cakewalk compared to what the intelligence community would put him through and where he would end up once they're 'done' - but I think he's feeling quite a few consequences of his actions and revelations, and I tend to think those consequences are plenty unjust as they are.
By your statement regarding facing consequences, I would think that you believe there should be no such thing as witness protection programs.
Though I think the basic issue with the premise of the question is that it's a false dichotomy. I don't think Snowden is a hero. I also don't think he's a traitor. At least not wholly on either. Getting people to label him as one or the other is populist journalism. Of course, this is Rolling Stone.. while held in higher regard than the usual tabloids, it is what it is.
Snowden intended to reveal his identity, and he initiated contact with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. He also outed his own location. Or do you suggest Greenwald pushed him to out himself? As for his motivations, he hardly came off as condescending. He was polite, reasonable, and he didn't just dump the documents on the "sheeple" (which is an actual point of contention, though John Young (Cryptome) is extremist). He delivered the goods, and even Obama has been forced to agree that "it's good we're having a debate".
On his stay in Russia... Putin hardly wants Snowden around. They don't share the same values, and the "fuck the U.S." novelty will wear off eventually. And since he's been communicating regularly with the outside world, someone would notice if he was muzzled.
As someone who has had malaria, I disagree.
"Bill Gates tells his main priority focuses on stopping the bad guys"
And yet he lives in a country that's supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. You're not free if you give away your freedoms for security, and you're not brave, either. Amazing how people think the government is composed of perfect angels, even though minimal knowledge of government abuses throughout history will tell you that governments ('even' the US government) cannot be trusted with such powers.
Thank you Dave Raggett
It's so weird that he chose not to get thrown into a padded jail cell forever! Everyone knows that's the true sign of a hero anyway. /s
The more I admire Steve Wozniak. He is a true hero.
Linux forever
He seems to be of the opinion that security is more important than freedom, even though he's living in a country that is called "the land of the free." The whole notion of it being better for numerous guilty people to get away than for one innocent person to be wrongly convicted is probably equally as disgusting to him.
Not everyone likes freedom, especially those who haven't had to live without it, or those without principles.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Nobody likes a poor thief.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but I still can't see how Mr. Einstein was supposedly working for the nazis with their atomic bomb, copied all their documents and gave them to the U.S. Especially since this should have happened as early as in 1933, the year Einstein moved to there.
To my knowledge, Snowden did not reveal how the NSA lawfully conducts its business within the mandates of the law. What Showden revealed were only the abusive and illegal activities that the NSA engages in. I'll go along with the notion that sometimes the government breaks the law for the greater good, but... spying on lawyers representing a foreign government in a legal case over shrimp imports? Spying on US-to-US emails if the routes inadvertently go overseas? Collaborating with intelligence agencies in the UK and Australia so they can spy on US domestic activities and the US spies on the UK/Australia domestic activities, then they all share everything?
What Snowden did was show that the NSA is running amok. The agency is out of control, and that is the reason why Snowden did what he did. Not for money, not for fun, but out of a sense of patriotism and duty to his country.
I can see the different viewpoints of those who say Snowden is a hero, and the others who say he is a villain. It is also a good thing to know that either group does agree that whatever the act of Snowden is labeled, it is a flagrant violation of the Constitution. This is still without getting out of the US worldview of things. If we suddenly 'retreat' a bit more to get into this 'field of view' not only the US, but the World as an entity, the US worldview should learn how to queue.
But my main curiosity is this: We have two computer technology worldwide-known persons, who have expressed different opinions about the Snowden Saga. I wonder, why stop at them alone and not ask any further, how would other world-wide known computer technology persons see this matter? We could ask Larry Wall, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup, Larry Ellison... the more the better.
THEN, we could mine this data set and maybe we could even find that there is some mysterious connection between beeing a famous computer guy AND success of wealth AND which of these have thick trade-pipes with governmental contracts which in turn loopback towards their welth.
This way we would have way more accurate conclusions and much more credible ones. And with a much lower margin of error as the sampling set would be richer, supposing that the sampling set would not be cherry-picked.
Sure, it's probably a cakewalk compared to what the intelligence community would put him through and where he would end up once they're 'done' - but I think he's feeling quite a few consequences of his actions and revelations, and I tend to think those consequences are plenty unjust as they are.
I think people are wrong in saying that you have to be suicidal, a martyr, or masochistic to be a hero.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The summary didn't include the full sentence by Gates. Just for completeness, he said: "I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero."
but unfortunately the Ukraine signed an agreement that they would disarm their nuclear stockpile with the agreement that the west would protect their borders.
Treaties like that caused WWI.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
He's no more altruistic than the big pharmaceutical companies. It's not really altruism when you stand to make a large profit. Gates just figured out that the charity business can be an extremely successful one -- it gives one the ability to strong-arm entire nations all while immune to criticism under the protection of "philanthropy." The Gates Foundation, like similar foundations, exists so those of his lineage will all be filthy rich no matter what and no individual will be able to screw it all up for the rest of the family. It's like a trust fund designed to last centuries rather than decades.
Your attack on televangelists is irrelevant. They're much more an analog to Gates than a dichotomy.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Heroes do not run and take refuge with our enemies. Snowden is a traitor and should be executed.
The Founding Fathers were all traitors/terrorists to their motherland.
No one gave himself up to the Crown just to express their dissent about how the colonies were being governed.
> last I checked we were sticking our noses into Crimea situation
You mean the situation where we are a party to a treaty that says that Ukraine keeps it's borders intact in return for NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT?
You mean THAT situation?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You're either trying to whitewash away the last two decades, or you're too young to remember how Gates was in his 30s and 40s. He was WAY worse than Steve Jobs.
Much like many men in his position, charity is just a public relations whitewash. This is expecially obvious when all of this occurs in their "retirement". Of course Gates didn't invent this idea, he swiped it from someone else.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I seem to recall Russia calling our Homeland protectors and warning us about a particular guy. they didn't have to bother to do that, and it's an extraordinary thing that they did. Our Protectors of Der Fatherland ignored the warning. being busy courting punks and filling their heads with violent thoughts and then fake weapons so they could make headlines. And so the Boston Marathon bombings happened. So, who is the enemy of We the People?
Answer: The Government.
Russia failing to honor its part of the treaty may cause WW III.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Sticking around hasn't helped Manning any.
I think you're looking at "consequences" as a very black and white thing. Snowden is facing the consequences for his actions -- he's exiled from his country and may never be able to return. He's already sacrificed so much to do the right thing. Sticking around to be persecuted wouldn't help out any. He took the risk of being tortured, imprisoned, and even executed. Isn't that enough? That's the most we ask of our soldiers and then we declare them heroes -- we ask that they risk their lives. We ask that they risk sacrifice, not that they do sacrifice. Kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers have no place in the defense of our country. Why should the whistleblower be so self-sacrificial? Why is he not a hero for risking his life when that's the standard of valor we place upon ourselves?
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Always knew there was something about the Woz I really admired...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Gates is a sociopath in the same way lex luthor is a sociopath, he is someone who does do many good things but is still evil.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
OK, then, how about Fermi? Emigrated in 1938 to escape fascism and helped the U.S. (the "enemy") develop the atomic bomb.
Italy made itself his enemy with its racial laws, so his family left to become citizens in another country, the US.
Italy was the enemy, fascism was the enemy.
Are you suggesting that Snowden changed his loyalty to Russia? That would fit.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
History is written by the victors and all that.
Yes, I guess it would be going too far to condemn Italian and German fascism as an enemy of mankind.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Please see Slashdot comment #45746307 (Attached to: Bill Gates Plays Secret Santa To Reddit User). It pretty much explains Gates. Spoiler: He's better than you!
Everything and its opposite is true. Get used to it.
A hero, in my view, isn't somebody who runs away from a fight they don't think they can win.... if it was important enough to start, then it's important enough to finish. Like I said above... it's probably not a popular sentiment.
Torturing Snowden or otherwise subjecting him to unjustified treatment in the USA wouldn't change anything that's already happened, and because particularly controversial treatment, such as violating any of his constitutional or inalienable rights, would not dare ever become public knowledge (the public outcry would be enormous if it were, and probably reach all the way to the whitehouse), it wouldn't practically serve to deter other people from doing the same thing in the future. In fact, regardless of what happened, it might even do exactly the opposite.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
hmm idk busygary...I've thought about this & i hope he's in a position where he can exchange information for some kind of reduction of charges to misdemeanors here in the USA...does the federal government even have misdemeanors? like some kind of "misuse of government property" and get a suspended sentence & the crime is gone in 5 years kind of thing. That's what I'd hope could happen.
b/c of how I view this, he's really fighting for his personal freedom right now
i think this was a PR/propaganda tactic (a new, evil but not illegal combination of the two: PRpoganda)...basically whoever is manipulating him scheduled the SXSW thing b/c they thought it would help somenow...idk...anything to get him free & not in prison
I really don't want him in prison *unless he's done stuff we dont know* of course...too many potentially good people in prison
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm not calling Gates a Hitler, this isn't really a godwin thing. But Hitler was a vegetarian and perhaps even an antivivisectionist (early form of animal rights). This illustrates that you can find good in even the most heinous people.
That Gates is using his arguably ill-gotten gains for good purposes, doesn't make him a hero. It makes him a creep who has a little good in him (although philanthropy like his is usually more about a different kind of personal aggrandizement). Secondly, think how chilling his whole law-and-order-protect-the-government stance is coming from Gates (essentially Microsoft) -- just one more bit of evidence we live in a proto-fascist America.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Geez.. I wish I hadn't already posted.. I'd mod you UP UP UP.. I STRONGLY agree with your eloquent statement on "consequences"... Snowden has sacrificed his normal life, where he will likely be permanently exiled to whatEVER country feels the cojones to stand up to what has become the American war-machine... hint: VERY few countries have these cojones... Russia being one of the very few.. If he'd stayed in the US, he'd more than likely be dead now... As much as I love America, having served in the Army in the 70s, I'm terrified of its government, which has become totally evil in the last 20 years or so..
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
look, #3526197...this is #574257)...i know that users like yourself are part of being on the internet...i don't like that you copied my user profile stuff & I wish you'd close it down...but i mean...this is the internet...
what i think crosses the line is when you **reply to the person you're imitating**
let's not shit where we eat, ok?
and really...could you just change up your sig at least? why would you want to appear to be me anyways???
Thank you Dave Raggett
Given this statement, it must just kill Woz to see what's happened to Apple.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
An interesting intellectual point. I take it you think "owning up" to asserting your rights and turning yourself in to a tyrant's forces is more somehow more heroic than doing your level best to expose and undermine the tyrant. That may be true by the definition of "hero", but I believe value to good is more important than pointless self sacrifice.
I would categorically disagree in the strongest possible terms - i.e., vehemently - with your premise that "if one isn't prepared to face whatever the consequences are for the choices that they make, then they probably shouldn't be doing that in the first place". Yes, there is a need for heroes, but asserting one's rights - the rights of the people - should not require every individual to be a hero.
Actually Snowden took a big risk on behalf of championing the rights of the people: the risk that he would be persecuted by a tyranny for the actions he took. Can you say the same? I am not willing to make the claim on my own behalf, so I have a damn high threshold for calling those who stick their necks out for me and my brothers "unheroic".
Link for above: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Everything and its opposite is true. Get used to it.
Like killing him would somehow undo what he had done? If they didn't make it public, his death wouldn't deter anyone from doing something similar, and if they *DID*, the martyr effect would probably do the exact opposite.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Gates has eradicated many vile diseases like Malaria, River Blindness, OS-X and Linux.
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;
They're the foot in the door for Big Pharma, in which both the foundation and Gates are heavily invested.
Actually, he sold his big pharma investments in 2009: http://online.wsj.com/news/art...
Maybe you should try reading the ingredients on the Kool-Aid before you drink it. >.>
You are absolutely right about this.... it does not require that every individual be a hero. And in my view, Snowden is not one. What he did was good, yes...Important, even. But heroic? Sure, he still had to make a sacrifice, but the concept of living to fight another day by however wisely choosing to run away doesn't fit that word, in my book.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You mean the situation where we are a party to a treaty that says that Ukraine keeps it's borders intact in return for NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT?
You mean THAT situation?
First, the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances isn't a treaty under US law. Second, the BMSA doesn't require the US to do anything other than "seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine" if Ukraine is the "victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used."
As the US is currently consulting with the UN and other nations on possible responses to the Russian actions in Crimea, the US has more than met it's obligations to Ukraine in THIS situation.
Of course Gates didn't invent this idea, he swiped it from someone else.
...like so much else he is incorrectly credited with.
I suspect one of the points you are missing is that Germany certainly did call Einstein a traitor, and certainly had laid the groundwork for executing him specifically for treason and not just as part of the final solution if they had captured him after a successful conclusion to their war.. Another one is that the United States has a very limited definition of treason, which is actually spelled out in the constitution.
Article 3 - The Judicial Branch
Section 3 - Treason
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
By that definition, neither Einstein nor Snowden would even possibly count as a traitor. The arguement you're making comes off as everyone should use some other definition of traitor that is broader than in the US Constitution, but somehow doesn't allow the sort of abuses a nation such as Nazi Germany would commit with such a legal basis, so that Snowden might count while Einstein, Fermi, et. al. couldn't possibly. .Unless you care to formally offer such a definition, and see what happens when a few hundered Slashdotters try to pick it apart and you find it isn't anything like any of either the precise LEGAL, the proper ETHICAL or the GENERALLY ACCEPTED definitions of treason, the side you're supporting boils down to saying "I know it when I see it, and everybody else needs to just shut up and let me decide". You can guess how well that will be received playing to this crowd.
The point is, we have two entities who appear to fall in the same domain (non-treasonous things). Someone created an analogy that correctly asserts these two entities do in fact belong in the same domain. Then someone else declared, by apparent fiat, that the analogy was irrelevant. Not flawed, not violating some principle of logic, but simply irrelevant. Every analogy is imperfect. All are flawed to some extent, and matter only because they can still be useful to get to a correct conclusion despite the flaws. This analogy may have more flaws than a great many, (In fact, I think analogies of this sort seldom lead to the correct conclusion, and generally shed more heat than light on their subjects) but still, in this case, it has somehow led to the correct conclusion, therefore it simply cannot be irrelevant. Declaring it irrelevant is thus not a counterargument, but an attempt to suppress speech. You probably don't want to endorse the AC doing that, instead of rationally addressing the flaws specifially and not just dismissing the whole.
Who is John Cabal?
First of all, you don't have to be a hero to do something extremely important or valuable, or even worthy of being admired by others.
But no matter how prudent or practical running away might be, it isn't heroic.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
They (indirectly) executed Alan Turing, though.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Or von Braun. SS officer, stole a bunch of his own files and then told the allies where they were.
Gates' hedge funds are owned through his foundation, it's all bullcrap!
I keep forgetting the proper term is "evil twisted fund" --- thanx
. . .have run away from their obligation to serve in the US military --- a whole effing boatload, so shut your yap, moron!
Gates is nearing 60, he isn't going to be exerting control over anything for much longer.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Both of them can choose exactly how much privacy they want, because they're both rich. Gates is maybe three orders of magnitude richer than Woz, but both of them are at least three orders of magnitude away from the American median income ($45K or so).
Also, neither of them can just go out in public in the US without being recognized.
That's the problem with the privacy "discussions" in the US - most of the people who can actually change things are members of a minority who gave up big swaths of their privacy, voluntarily, as an entrance requirement for their profession. They can say "privacy is an illusion - get over it" with a straight face, because they haven't had any themselves for decades.
They may be over it, but I'm not, and it pisses me off that they get to choose my privacy level.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
So you are in favour of a global thermonuclear war? Because that certainly would reduce the birth rate worldwide.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Gates is a sociopath in the same way lex luthor is a sociopath, he is someone who does do many good things but is still evil.
I'd say in the same way that oligarchs generally are; the result of all his philanthropy will not change the way society is ruled by sociopathic oligarchs and their ilk, rather it will be more firmly established, and the common folk less upwardly mobile than ever. For the most part, our rulers believe they are entitled to the bulk of the world's good things because they are a better race of human. A modest and decent person will never come to possess $76 billion.
Everything and its opposite is true. Get used to it.
...This illustrates that you can find good in even the most heinous people.
Say what you want about Hitler, he sure was good at making collectibles!
Everything and its opposite is true. Get used to it.
Gates seems to be forgetting that other Three Letter Acronym agencies were already standing in line to access the "metadata" and some were already actively using it, with the caution that the source could never be disclosed. And once the TLAs had their fill, the FLAs are next (Four Letter... as in MPAA or RIAA).
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
While it is irrelevant, Germany did want to.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hmmm.
Einstein was doing nothing with Germany's military projects before he came to the US, nor did he seek to steal any state secrets to bring here. Yes, Einstein was declared a traitor by Germany, but only later on, and not for spying and stealing.
Snowden has openly stated to others that he stole these documents. He has said exactly how he did it. And multiple other witnesses who were part of this are backing up his story ("I gave my credentials to snowden", etc).
Sorry, but in any nation in the world, Snowden would be a traitor, while Einstein would only be a traitor by those that say that all ex-pats with value are traitors (like china still does, and USSR used to do).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Rolling Stone retorts that privacy can be an issue: 'We want safety, but we also want privacy,' says the journalist. Bill Gates tells his main priority focuses on stopping the bad guys: 'Let's say you knew nothing was going on. How would you feel? I mean, seriously. I would be very worried. Technology arms the bad guys with orders of magnitude more [power]. Not just bad guys. Crazy guys."
“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
-Benjamin Franklin
I wish I could just beat that into the head of the majority of people. We as a people should be firmly on the side of privacy over safety, it should not even be a question. Many do not see the big picture, but rather focused on a phantom enemy and see Snowden as betraying us against that enemy. Snowden is a true patriot, and indeed a hero, simply in the sense that he EXPOSED OUR PRIVACY BEING USURPED BY OUR OWN GOV'T. I'm pretty young (30 this year) but I'd imagine there was a time when the end of the last sentence would've incensed the MAJORITY of Americans, not just the one's paying attention. We must not sacrifice our freedom (in the form of privacy in this case) for safety. We cannot. And that is more important than some false sense of them doing this for our own good to "catch the bad guys". Secret courts, indefinite detention, etc. should NOT be happening in the land of the free. People wake the fuck up. /rant
As for Gates, obviously he would not be a fan of Snowden...it's people like him who pull the strings of our gov't anyways. I wish I could say I was surprised.
It doesn't surprise me that Bill Gates would identify with the megomaniacal dictatorship mentality that permeates our Federal Government. He was the megomanical dictator of a multinational corporation for so many years, that he can't understand an organization working in any other manner.
LOL; Right now, Large businesses and foreign gov. are buying America's gov. That is true. BUT, TRUE fascism is where the gov. controls businesses. By far, the best example of that is NOT the west, but China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and somewhat socialist nations in Europe.
BUT, America got businesses to go along with this by offering up contracts (Verizon, ATT and Qwest very much got contracts for allowing a lot more ).
But declaring America as a whole to be fascists is a joke. I will say that the republican party fits the very definition, but they do not control everything.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
True, but apparently, we have not honored our part either. We told Gorby that we would NOT be going after old warsaw pact nations, but we have.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There's a pretty big difference between walking away from a fight that is already done and over with, and running away from a fight you can't or you do not think you can ever win. Snowden did the latter... and however wise that choice might have been (I don't fault him for it for a second), it definitely was not cut from the same cloth as what I would call a hero.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No he would not likely be dead by now. Had he stayed here, he would have been prosecuted for the original revelations, claimed and won whistle-blower status and been acquitted or pardoned. And that would have been the end of it. When he made his original revelations of the surveillance program he was a hero. That needed to be revealed, and his choosing to flee to another country to make the revelation is semi-understandable though less than the honorable act of standing by your actions when you reveal government wrong doing.
But!
Because he fled the country, and has to keep his value to his current hosts in order to retain his guest status, he's kept revealing stuff that has gone far beyond whistle-blower status. We the people did need to know that our government was collecting our data, and most likely in violation of the Constitution (gotta leave the final decision to the courts but I think it was illegal). But we did not have any need to know about our collection efforts directed at foreign leaders, even if they are allies. It's the Intelligence game, everybody collects on everybody, allies and enemies both. A political and Military Ally is still an economic competitor, and politically we don't agree on everything so even in that realm is there cause for intelligence collection. Neither did we need any knowledge of the UK surveillance program nor the Aussie program. Nor anything else he's released. And it was all those revelations that pushed him from Hero Whistle-blower to Traitor.
Had he stayed and faced the music he likely would have been acquitted by now as a Whistle-blower. We would still have had the national discussion about the surveillance program and even were he to be convicted he would be considered a Hero for protecting the Constitution. And had he stayed he likely would not have had the opportunity to dip into treason by revealing the stuff that did not concern us as constitutional violations.
We do owe him a debt of gratitude, but he ruined that by revealing classified information that did not concern violations of our constitutional rights and damaged our valid intelligence collection efforts. He has tarnished his Hero status and now stands as a traitor.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
They become dependent upon feedings and lose their ability to survive in the wild. Ultimately, they become violent when not fed the attention the poor widdle things crave.
I will say that the republican party fits the very definition ...
Not really, no.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I suspect it's the latter, and I note that Melinda isn't giving so much away that her lifestyle is being impacted.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of philanthropy - but giving away something you don't even have a use for is different from sacrificing to help others.
In the case of Malaria, treatment is essential to eradication. You quite simply can't eliminate it without treating those who have it, because the host makes a new generation of the pathogen every year or two. To fight malaria you need to (1) treat victims as soon as possible to avoid the disease spreading, and (2) control mosquito population and take measures to prevent mosquito bites - the vector by which it spreads from person to person - in order to reduce the number of victims who need treatment. (1) is the crux of eliminating the disease, (2) is something necessary to make (1) feasible.
Malaria infects all sorts of vertebrate animals, but is rather dependant on humans and cattle to maintain high levels of infection. If you can magically prevent all mosquito bites from spreading the disease for a few years but the victims remain infected, the disease bounces back to where it was quickly after the magic spell ends. But if you are somehow able to treat all those humans (and treat or cull the cattle - the latter isn't generally considered an option for humans) who keep the disease alive then you will have a comparatively easy time dealing with the new cases that emerge from time to time (from birds and other wildlife, to cattle, to humans, via mosquitos)
Don't be so quick to insult someone who makes an argument just because you don't see why it's a good argument. It ends up making you look like the fool.
That's an extremely narrow perspective on heroism, and it would likely exclude the winners of many prestigious military medals. Your definition of hero would exclude even Robin Hood, practically an archetypal hero. You are basically speaking of a strict militaristic honor code, which is not something the general public applies to heroes.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It's just "Ukraine", not "The Ukraine".
The word you should be using is totalitarian regime - this is the name of the idea that the state is directed towards one goal. This isn't something unique with Fascism rather the reverse - in some form this have been promoted by most ideologies including neo-Libertarians (not that they admit it but...).
Also the idea that a government would have to direct businesses and other aspects of the life within a state to it to be totalitarian is wrong - the ideal is of course that the people themselves strives towards the goals of the state and the government only stepping in when people goes against those goals. A variant of the night watchman idea.
And lastly I note that the Fascistic states that have existed didn't in practice have more control of their businesses than most other state systems in a similar situation. But Totalitarian states have and do exist separated from the political ideologies.
He did sacrifice a lot to release this information. That he choose not to ritually sacrifice himself to satisfy your blood lust doesn't change that fact.
OPERATION PAPERCLIP
"To circumvent President Truman's anti-Nazi order and the Allied Potsdam and Yalta agreements, the JIOA worked independently to create false employment and political biographies for the scientists. The JIOA also expunged from the public record the scientists' Nazi Party memberships and régime affiliations. Once "bleached" of their Nazism, the scientists were granted security clearances by the U.S. government to work in the United States. Paperclip, the project's operational name, derived from the paperclips used to attach the scientists' new political personae to their "US Government Scientist" JIOA personnel files."
* Otto Ambros was a Third Reich chemist who served as director of the German corporation that produced the gas used in the death camps. He was tried at Nuremberg, found guilty of mass murder, and sentenced to eight years. While he was serving time in prison, Operation Paperclip officials arranged for his sentence to be commuted. In 1951, Ambros was hired to work at a clandestine facility north of Frankfurt called Camp King. His work, sanctioned by the Defense Department, ultimately involved the testing of sarin toxins on American soldiers without their knowledge.
* Arthur Rudolph was a Nazi rocket scientist who played a key role in the V-2 rocket program. One of Operation Paperclip's earliest hires, Rudolph, in the U.S., worked his way up through the ranks of NASA to become project director of the Saturn V rocket program. Ultimately, Rudolph was led to confess to war crimes, but his work is all over the U.S. aeronautics technology.
* Kurt Blome, a virologist, pioneered Hitler's secret germ warfare program. Specializing in plague research, Blome conducted human tests on concentration camp prisoners and was a defendant at the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial. Acquitted, Blome was instrumental in the U.S. germ warfare program.
* Kurt Debus was a V-weapons engineer who oversaw mobile rocket launches at Peenemunde. An ardent Nazi, he wore the SS uniform to work and after Paperclip, became the first director of NASA's JFK Space Center in Florida.
* Hubertus Strughold was in charge of the aviation research in the Reich Ministry and despite his war crimes was hired by the Americans to eventually become America's father of Space Medicine.
The notorious CIA interrogation techniques and other mind-control programs and projects had their beginnings in a camp near Franfurt called Camp King. It was there where Operation Bluebird experiments involving LSD and other drugs started with Paperclip personnel and research.
The US Army's herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War, in which 11.4 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over more than 24 percent of South Vietnam was the brainchild of Fritz Hoffmann, another Nazi war criminal.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Russia has a SOF agreement with Ukraine as a part of the Sevastapol lease agreement - good well past a 2017 renewal. It allows for 35,000 Russian Troops in Crimea. The Russians are legally in Crimea under the same kind of frameworks that legally allow US troops in Bhagram, Afghanistan.
The Crimean referendum is being conducted under the precedent most recently, of Kosovo and South Sudan.
Good for the goose? Good for the gander.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
There are no terrorists. They are as fictional - in EVERY sense, as the "terrorists" in the movie "Brazil".
But?
Edward Snowden is definitely a "Harry Tuttle".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Geez.. I wish I hadn't already posted.. I'd mod you UP UP UP.. I STRONGLY agree with your eloquent statement on "consequences"... Snowden has sacrificed his normal life, where he will likely be permanently exiled to whatEVER country feels the cojones to stand up to what has become the American war-machine... hint: VERY few countries have these cojones... Russia being one of the very few.. If he'd stayed in the US, he'd more than likely be dead now... As much as I love America, having served in the Army in the 70s, I'm terrified of its government, which has become totally evil in the last 20 years or so..
Dead? Not unless it was done in secret.
What he probably could have looked forward towards was sitting in a federal super max cell locked in for life, 23 hours per day with no communication allowed.
I'd think* anyone not an introvert loon would prefer death before that. Not an option though.
(* but given what people can tolerate while keeping their will to live this may be very wrong)
snowden took a huge risk and endured a massive disruption to his personal life in order to show the NSA/surveillance state for what it is. he did this explicitly to help the people of the US -- those are the actions of a hero. He did the exact polar god damn opposite of committing treason against the US.
"Traitor" is both a legal term AND a value judgement.
The people calling Snowden "traitor" are not simply saying so in a 'technical legal sense', they wish to invoke the emotional sense and lead us to imagine him as someone who has betrayed us.
I think Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. already knew or suspected the capabilities that Snowden has exposed. In fact, I'm sure they also have or are working on those very same capabilities. The only difference is that the public (i.e. the ones being tracked) now know as well.
And exposing those capabilities is not why Putin is going into Crimea. Putin is going in to Crimea to prevent what he sees as a shift in the Ukraine away from Russia and towards Europe putting Russia at a perceived disadvantage politically, militarily and more imporatntly economically. Well, that and he's batsh*t crazy.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
Microsoft... Just like the NSA has management issues...
Einstein didn't steal state secrets and give them to the enemy either.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The government is doing some really bad shit and we want them to stop.
You think you want them too. You like waking up ? The stuff the government is doing behind your back is helping your ability to continue to do that.
Sometimes you have to do questionable things to combat the bad guy. They dont play by 'the rules'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No.... someone who sticks it out and wins a fight can be a hero too... martyrdom is not remotely necessary.
But running away is not heroic.
Is what Snowden did a good thing? Yes... that doesn't make him a hero, however.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Is this from personal introspection, A/C?
The earth is capable of sustaining everyone one of us.
This is not really true, though. Sure the land can grow enough food to support quite a bit more population, but the energy needed to harvest and distribute it? And how do we know it won't eventually turn into desert as we push it more and more? But by far the most important factor is that society itself cannot support more population, we already vastly out populate meaningful social roles. See: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org...
So what exactly happened in Universe 25? Past day 315, population growth slowed. More than six hundred mice now lived in Universe 25, constantly rubbing shoulders on their way up and down the stairwells to eat, drink, and sleep. Mice found themselves born into a world that was more crowded every day, and there were far more mice than meaningful social roles. With more and more peers to defend against, males found it difficult and stressful to defend their territory, so they abandoned the activity. Normal social discourse within the mouse community broke down, and with it the ability of mice to form social bonds. The failures and dropouts congregated in large groups in the middle of the enclosure, their listless withdrawal occasionally interrupted by spasms and waves of pointless violence. The victims of these random attacks became attackers. Left on their own in nests subject to invasion, nursing females attacked their own young. Procreation slumped, infant abandonment and mortality soared. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes on penthouse levels. Other males, a group Calhoun termed “the beautiful ones,” never sought sex and never fought—they just ate, slept, and groomed, wrapped in narcissistic introspection. Elsewhere, cannibalism, pansexualism, and violence became endemic. Mouse society had collapsed.
Heroes don't run away from fights that they might find themselves in, simply because they know that they cannot win. That's what makes them heroes, and what really distinguishes them from everyone else.
Is it a narrow view of heroism? Perhaps... but I don't think that everybody is cut out to actually *be* a hero. In fact, most aren't.
That doesn't mean that every single person is not capable of doing tremendous good, or making a positive difference in the world around them, however.
But running away is just not something I can associate with heroism.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It is written like a semi-illiterate or the person copied and pasted it in the wrong order. either that or they are secretly drugging and polluting the brains of people in the U.S. turning them into semi-illiterates. U.S. people relying on Windows products and its voice recognition and other Gadgets and programs just a function in life tut tut tut. Have a burger watch a commercial and go back to sleep you obese fat bastards.
Let us not forget that the Soviets had their Germans scientists as well. And the Soviets didn't give them a choice, they arrested and moved thousands of them long after the war.
The Rest of the Rocket Scientists - Some went west. This is the story of the ones who went east.
More
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
A hero, in my view, isn't somebody who runs away from a fight they don't think they can win....
Sure. Also, true heros don't wear protective gear. All those "heroic" firemen who have run into burning buildings? Did they run in naked without respirators? Well, obviously not heroes then. In fact, if they didn't go in and stand in the fire heroically until the fire burned out, then they're obviously not heroes.
For me, the NSA is the enemy. People who constantly spy on me are the enemy. It's that simple.
Failure at the NSA may cause you to lose WW III. Currently, the successes of the NSA are basicly pissing everyone off, weakening anything that could help protect information and not producing anything worthwile. The only result ever the NSA produced in the War on Terror so far seems to be detecting one wire transfer to Somalia.
Winners of prestigious military medals stand in the face of danger. It's why they earned their medals. Snowden faces no danger whatsoever because he ran away. Putin loves this guy and he'll live a long life there. The problem with what the general public calls a hero these days is that the definition has become so broad as to become nearly meaningless. If you're not putting yourself into a position of substantial danger, you're not a hero...period.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
You illustrate nicely why I tend to dislike your country so much.
The US is behaving like shit towards its "friends", and though its part of the game, there are things that go too far. Somehow it is OK to ignore *any* laws when it concerns people from outside of your country.
Apart from being foolish (you really seem to believe he would stand a chance in his own country; I do not. I am sure he himself also doubts this, so far, you are in the minority here...), you are also blind. Snowden has shown us a lot about the exchange of info between spy-programs. You can freely spy on not-americans, and the Brits can freely spy on Americans, so you needed to know the whole thing. I cannot understand how the foreign part is not relevant to the discussion, you are deluding yourself. Your info will simply be collected by a foreign entity, and than given to the NSA. Poof...there go your rights and constitution, without doing anything illegal! How nice!
Snowden did not release anything (apart from things he said in interviews). The call what to release and when to release it was made by journalists. So he did not go from hero to traitor, he did everything at the same time. Oh, and I actually see nothing tarnishing about being a traitor to the dark side.
This is such a glass-is-so-full-it's-causing-problems-with-laws-of-physics hindsight view of what happened. More likely he would have ended up an Aaron Schwartz, only he would never have seen the sunlight again after they got a hold of him. There is nothing worse you can do to people who love power than shame them, and that's what he did.
Maybe you should try reading the ingredients on the Kool-Aid before you drink it. >.>
If you're so big on reading before replying, perhaps you should consider addressing the issue of Gates' personal investments. As well, The foundation is still invested in biotech, which is tied to big pharma. And they have expanded their investments in energy companies, which kill people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In other news no-one should care about, Cheney has blamed Ukraine's invasion on Obama and George Zimmerman has released a video about how he's a great guy.
The stuff the government is doing behind your back is helping your ability to continue to do that.
Unsubstantiated claim, but also an irrelevant one. Even if true, fundamental freedoms, privacy, and the US constitution are simply more important than safety.
Sometimes you have to do questionable things to combat the bad guy.
If the "question things" involve violating the constitution or people's liberties, then the government *becomes* the bad guy.
They dont play by 'the rules'.
But governments are damn well supposed to. They're supposed to be better than the 'bad guys.' That's why we have constitutions, checks and balances, and rules to begin with.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Let's get one thing straight. I am giving the detractors a pass on the term "hero", but that doesn't mean Snowden is not an admirable and highly effective actor in the current play of tyranny against human rights, and there are sure damn few of those.
I am already kind of regretting paying too much attention to what Wikipedia calls "the will for self sacrifice" as a determinant for who deserves the term "hero". The Greek root for hero means "protector" or "defender".
The best example I can think of for true misuse of "hero" is the pilot of a jetliner whose skill saves the occupants of a jetliner in a ditching or crash landing. That pilot is saving HIMSELF as well as everybody else on the plane. The lives of those other occupants have absolutely zero bearing on what he must do.
And that would have been the end of it.
Or maybe he'd be absolutely miserable, like how other whistleblowers ended up.
We do owe him a debt of gratitude, but he ruined that by revealing classified information that did not concern violations of our constitutional rights and damaged our valid intelligence collection efforts.
I for one am thankful that he gave us a more in depth view of what our government is doing. Just because some of the activities he revealed aren't related to our constitutional rights doesn't mean that the activities are moral, or that we shouldn't know they're happening.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Russia has a SOF agreement with Ukraine as a part of the Sevastapol lease agreement - good well past a 2017 renewal. It allows for 35,000 Russian Troops in Crimea. The Russians are legally in Crimea under the same kind of frameworks that legally allow US troops in Bhagram, Afghanistan.
The Crimean referendum is being conducted under the precedent most recently, of Kosovo and South Sudan.
Good for the goose? Good for the gander.
But Putin already told us that those 20.000 troops with russian military hardware that man road blocks and besiege ucrainian barracks are in fact not russian soldiers. Also are you certain that those recreational activities are covered in the lease agreement?
Gates is nearing 60, he isn't going to be exerting control over anything for much longer.
I've read your comments, you cannot possibly be this stupid. You have to be aware that corporations outlive people. So, why did you leave this comment? The deal Gates was obviously offered when the USDoJ had him over a barrel clearly does not benefit the rest of us in the long run. If the heavily moneyed interests would just butt out of a lot of these countries, and let them make their own deals with whoever they like, these nations could lift themselves out of their own problems. Take the foot off of their head and they can save themselves from drowning. But a lot of people have been hoodwinked into thinking that Gates is a good guy, when history proves that he has a small, dark heart.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Providing aid and comfort to enemies" can be interpreted pretty damned broadly.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Wow, there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to begin.
Let's start with the "claimed and won whistle-blower status". That is completely false. First off, the whistleblower laws only apply to government employees. As a contractor, they did not protect him at all. Second, he is charged under the Espionage Act, which does not have any whistleblower or "public good" exception. People prosecuted under this law are forbidden from telling a jury that they were acting for the greater good, the only thing that the jury is allowed to hear is that the law was broken.
http://www.politifact.com/pund...
Second, as for "the worst thing that could happen to him", consider the prior example of Thomas Drake, who was a whistleblower years before Snowden, followed the letter of the law precisely, and as a result had his house raided by armed FBI agents. They also raided the houses of three other people who knew Drake, the FBI holding the families of these associates at gunpoint. The prosecution of Drake was in fact persecution, as Richard D. Bennett of the Federal District Court said explicitly when he called it "unconscionable".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
He has not "kept revealing stuff" in order to "keep his value". He gave his documents to a few trusted reporters before he fled, and since he left he has not released a single thing. The continuing revelations are from his original release to the reporters, he is not providing anything new at all. He says he has none of the documents anymore, and the NSA and CIA and FBI have not shown any evidence that he does have them. The intelligence agencies have instead used weasel-words to insinuate that he does without literally accusing him of it.
The collection efforts directed at our allies need to be revealed, because they are part of a larger pattern of flagrant disrespect and veiled acts of war the intelligence agencies are perpetuating universally across the globe. Do you even realize we are talking about universal surveillance of every man, woman, and child on Earth? The reality is far worse than any dystopian science fiction you can find. The NSA is worse than the Stasi, as said by a former Stasi official.
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
As for our political and military allies also being economic competitors, how the hell do you justify spending more on our intelligence budget than the rest of the First World nations combined? In what possible way is that an economic advantage?
The worst part of all this is that I cannot ever know for sure if you are simply grossly misinformed, or you are a government shill paid to deliberately post false information in an organized propaganda attempt.
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
You, sir, terrify me almost as much as the totalitarian government intelligence agencies.
What does serving in the US military have to do with anything?
Authoritarians are not simplistic 1 dimensional or binary extremes. Given how important the Anarchy to Authoritarian scale are to human existence you would think we would study and educate people on this aspect of life/politics/economics etc.
Gates is an Authoritarian, he is not a dictator but he is not in the middle either. It is understandable that Gates would take authoritarian positions given his bias; he can identify with and agree with similar reasoning to his own in other areas.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I don't know if I'd agree that a person who is trying to save himself can't be a hero.... I would actually place the criteria for hero as being someone who actually personally faces some level of danger, and whether or not they personally overcome it, somehow manages to help one or more other people get past a threat that they are facing. A hostage victim who manages to foil the plans of the people who have taken them and others hostage certainly has a personal vested interest in trying to get out of the situation, but I wouldn't hesitate to call such a person a hero when his or her actions have saved the lives of others. I find myself ambivalent on your example of a pilot being a hero, however. I think I'd really be willing to use the word to describe a pilot only in circumstances where the pilot had shown personal creativity and resourcefulness in overcoming the situation that went far beyond what he or she was actually trained to do in such circumstances, and by all rights and reason they should not have survived at all.
To that end, ordinary people may become heroes, but heroes are anything but ordinary.
And Snowden didn't face any real danger by doing what he did. In the end, he still ran away.
That doesn't make what he did meaningless, it just means he's not cut from the same cloth as what I'd call a hero.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
A free thinker. Which means I will perform thought experiments, with assumed values that are contrary to my observation or bias, and see where that leads. Often an otherwise undiscovered insight or new set of observable conditions can arise - to be confirmed with primary documentary sources.
One thing I can assure you - the USA is no inherently or morally "better" than Russia. Their murdered millions were mostly within the borders of their assumed territory. US's are continual, in secondary economic fiefdoms.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If you go back all the way to the beginning of Gates's career, then it should be obvious that he is no friend to freedom, and he never has been.
In the beginning, there was no open source movement, because all software was open source. Computers were so difficult and non-standard, that software was one-off for each machine, and everybody shared everything just to get the darn things to work. Gates was born into the economic elite (his father was a lawyer and his mother was a rich civic busybody), and he brought elite paternalism into computing. The software we run is only by his permission, and we should all pay him for the privilege of improving and distributing it.
Wozniak came from a different mindset. His father was an engineer, and he learned the morality of engineers. He wrote the first BASIC for Apple, but licensed Microsoft's BASIC for later models. When somebody at Apple wrote MacBasic, Bill Gates had the gall to cancel it and not release a decent Basic for the Mac. So, Wozniak experienced Gates's ruthlessness, but he's too nice to say anything about it.
Have a nice time.
You're an idiot, COINTEL, or both.
Snowden hasn't revealed anything. All the disclosures have come from media outlets. Snowden claims to no longer be in possession of intelligence materials. And whether you believe him or not, the slow leaks that have been coming out are clearly from Greenwald and the Washington Post. Both Greenwald and the Washington Post are in possession of those materials.
Snowden planned the slow leaks from the day one. Everything he's done since handing over the material to the media has been to stay out of jail, pure and simple. There is no quid-pro-quo happening, as far as we can know. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
And there are no whitleblower protections for Snowden. For one thing, he was a gov't contractor, which nixes even the most theoretical possible defense. For another, similar whistleblowers--actual government employees--have already been convicted.
"The Russians did it too." is not an excuse. Not that I'd expect any better from an NSA shill of course.
No excuse is needed for that. You should be thankful since it helped keep the free world free, not that you probably care.
What a pity, you precious snowflake, you encountered an opinion you disagree with. Did it scar you for life?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I'd be a lot more threatened by your opinions if they'd ever shown a sign of involving any actual thought. As it is, they just seem to repeat whatever the intelligence state decided to try to throw out today.
It was enough for Einstein to just "have helped the US" to be deemed a traitor. He didn't have to copy or steal anything, since the US was deemed an enemy.
idk he replied below maybe if you ask him he'll give a different answer that is more revealing
i think it's someone I pissed off who is mad that I got upmodded when their response didnt or something on a long-dead thread...this isn't likely though, as they post quite a bit
that or they just picked to Karma Whore me b/c of random reasons
i honestly can't tell you...it's weird b/c I do have 'excellent' karma but i'm not really a 'slashdot fixutre' or anything just a random guy who hates M$, false dichotomies, republicans, and artificial scarcity....i post mostly in the space, programming, 'social media' and free speech areas
i seriously have **no idea** why anyone would want the world to think they are me!!!!
Thank you Dave Raggett
Snowden would be a traitor in any *autocratic* nation in the world. By definition you cannot be a traitor if your "betrayal" was in keeping with your oath of citizenship and protecting the nation and people from illegal acts.
Or to put it another way: It's not stealing to take a purse back from a purse thief and give it back to its owner.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Bill, we've been over this before. Snowden tried the legal channels, informing his superiors 10x, and got nowhere. If you bothered to closely follow the story, you'd see your suggestions were tried and failed.
Armchair critics are stupid. "Why couldn't Rosa Parks just ask the bus driver for permission, did she really need to get arrested?"
He didn't do it for fame. he didn't do it for power. He didn't do it for money.
He did it for us.
The NSA was lying to the American people and to congress. And snowden blew the whistle on that for us all.
And this is so far what he gets as thanks.
Can't wait for the current group of crooks to get sunsetted out of office so the next batch can save face by granting the guy amnesty.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Gates is doing things to fix the world. Woz hasn't done much since designing the Apple II disk controller. Who to listen to?
i didn't say that
i said ***all he does is write checks***
that's very VERY different from what you, trollingly, claimed I said
Thank you Dave Raggett
Bill Gates brain is poisoned by his billions of filty lucre. Plus he's a shill for the State. Who gives a flying fuck what he says. Transparency like a gun causes people to be polite. Snowden is a gorram hero! Happy Sunday,,,
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
Snowden should have his genitals cut off and stuffed down his throat
Wrong, those programs are classified for a reason. The country that has no secret will not stand. So many on /. think we have some right to know everything our government does, but no such right or need exists. You have no need or right to know about those programs. They do not encroach on constitutional rights therefore they are entirely legal, and are thus moral. Well as moral as anything in the international espionage game is. Just because you want to know does not mean you need or have any need or right to know. And his publication of those programs put them at risk and damaged our collection efforts, which in turn damages our ability to negotiate effectively for treaties. And in turn damages our freedoms. Because if our government cannot negotiate with the best hand, it hurts our interests, and our economy.
Everybody spies on everybody, the Germans certainly didn't stop their efforts to collect on us just because we were forced to halt a very effective program on our part.
Oh and get your own ID, stop trying to live off the reputation of the real globaljustin.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Wrong, those programs are classified for a reason.
It's nice that you have so much faith in governments thugs, even though the hundreds of millions of people abused and/or murdered throughout history by various governments (including the US government) give you no reason to do so. Oh, wait, it's not nice.
Go back to lickin' those boots.
and are thus moral.
Legal != moral. Illegal != immoral. You're an idiot.
Just because you want to know does not mean you need or have any need or right to know.
I don't "need" freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, or various other rights. The fact that you do not "need" something means nothing. As for a "right," well, the government says many things that I think should be rights are not rights. I do not care what the government says; they infringe upon our rights all the time.
And in turn damages our freedoms.
You're really, really trying hard to make this seem like a bad thing, aren't you?
Posts like yours contribute to the mentality that we're the only important ones in the world, which in turn leads to heavy-handed foreign policies that damages our worldwide reputation. That, in turn, damages our freedoms, because it further provokes certain people to attack us, and then governments use that as an excuse to violate our freedoms in the name of safety.
Damn, that was easy. I could do this about anything, even copyright infringement (pretty much already been done, in a way).
Frankly, even if what you said *were* true, knowing this does not damage my freedoms. The only ones effectively capable of that are government thugs; they're who I truly fear. And for what it's worth, I believe innocent people in other countries also deserve privacy.
Everybody spies on everybody
"Everybody's doing it!" is not an excuse.
a very effective program
Unsubstantiated and irrelevant claim. Irrelevant because freedom and privacy are more important than security to begin with.
Fuck off, you insolent bootlicker.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Let me ask you a silly question:
If somebody stops a theft, but then shoots his way out murdering 100 ppl which were not connected to the theft, is he a hero in your POV?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This!
Heros don't pick fights they cannot possibly win. They jump in having a good notion of the risks they face. They PREPARE for those risks. Fire fighters, EMTs and many beat cops are heros because they use(d) their training and equipment to help people, and protect property.
full disclosure: I am a trained & experienced FFT2 with high-angle rescue and white-water rescue training.
I'm glad you call that a silly question because that's exactly what it is. You may as well ask me if two plus two equals an apple for all that question is related to the situation at hand.
You can try as hard as you want to shill for the traitors who've decided to burn the constitution for profit, exposing their treason is by definition not a crime.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I find that assertion very difficult to sustain when there are major political leaders (like Senator McCain, Feinstein, et Al) calling Snowden a "traitor". When you have so many wealthy and powerful individuals labeling Snowden as a traitor it is superbly implausible that Snowden would garner whistleblower status under our judicial system. Once the elites have scapegoated someone, the expectation of just treatment is ludicrous.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Heroes *face* adversity... They do not run away from challenges simply because they may not overcome them. In this case snowmen didn't personally face anything... He basically fought by "remote control" and ran away when he was going to be caught. However good what he dd was, it's still not heroic.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yeah, I figured that you would not use any logic or thought behind this. That is why I considered it a silly question. Just as silly as talking to a wall.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? I don't see why does it have to be that way. While not saying what my opinion is, as I don't see how that's matter whether what he is to me. What matter is what he did? I think it's kinda pointless what to label him. In fact, even if he is being labeled both, as I see that they can be mutually inclusive, we wouldn't have been all pissed off at the NSA if not for what he did. Yes, even people who call him traitor can still pissed at NSA, and they all wouldn't say so if not for what Snowden leaked. While many want to argue that what NSA did was with in the power granted by Patriot Act. But as I recalled, there were many who weren't happy when we first heard of the Patriot Act either. Regardless of what it was, the leak is definitely in a good timing. As many now know that there need to be a change and in favor for the change toward more privacy and the time for the Patriot Act to be review is soon. It could be worse if the leak were to come out much later, say after Patriot Act get a permanant stamp.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If picture worth a thousand words, how many megapixels is it? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Being heroic is not the same thing as being intelligent or wise... It might very well be smart or prudent to run away from a foe that can harm you... but that's still not heroic.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Risk isn't what makes somebody a hero... Neither is sacrifice. The latter makes one a martyr, and the former makes one a gambler. Heroism is defined by actually facing whatever it is that is being overcome. Whether the battle was ever realy his to finish or not, running away isn't facing anything.
That doesn't make what he did something not good or worth to be respected, but it does mean he's not a hero.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This. Lol BG a redditor Hivemind FTW!
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
I guess I'll take that as a compliment since you acknowledge my comments have something to do with intelligence. I regret that I can't return the favor.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Oh yes, in exactly the same way that an ice cube has something to do with heat.
Water freezes at 273K. That is pretty warm.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Crimea was autonomous region; also, our Constitution says Senate ratifies treaties. guess what?
No, bullshit. wrong. read the memorandom (not a treaty), there are no assurances of any military protection from the USA
not a treaty, no such military protection was offered or promised
Crimea was an autonomous region, they autonomously decided to rejoin Russia.
not our problem