Thanks to this leak (and to the idiotic flubbing of security in the first place), it will be at least a little bit harder for American diplomats to make friends who will tell them things in confidence.
And because of this, what wrong will happen? Diplomats not being able to effectively spy on UN officials?
And please don't try to say "You don't understand a shit about the diplomacy". It just may happen that I know enough to think: "I don't like it and it is not how I think the diplomacy need to be done in the third millennium"
Rationale: "redress the things" and "correct past mistakes" are two different things. Sure, I can hope for the second and hope the first would never be a reaction... but well, how representative am I? (answer: the way it is now, just a single vote to cast to one in a very limited range of choices... all of which bend the spirit of every democratic principle... the citizens are to be treated as mushrooms: keep them in the dark and feed them with shit).
My post is only irrelevant if you don't care about the quality of the information.
Let me be the one to judge the quality of information, please don't think me stupid to not be able to.
If you believe that everything Wikileaks releases is:
1) True.
The posted documents have high probability of being true... otherwise why is US so pissed about but never released an official statement stating the documents are fabricated ?
2) Unedited.
Unfortunately for my taste, they are redacted... to remove some content they thought would be for the protection of the innocent (maybe they didn't redacted all that was needed for this purpose? That's another matter). As for the question of "how much of what remained un-redacted is still authentic", see my opinion above.
3) The entire story.
I don't care if it is the entire story, I don't care about the motivations for publishing them, all I care is the authenticity of the documents. With the risk of repeating myself, until I'm not seeing anything to show that the documents are actually very skillful fabricated (and the reaction all over the US govt points toward documents are good), I reserve the right to form my opinion by myself... kindly thanking you for your efforts.
No source of information is perfect.
I'm well aware of this, this is why think myself well prepared to apply judgments based on the likelihood of being true/authentic or not
As such I need to evaluate the source to evaluate their information.
Your privilege, indeed. However, if failing to do so, denies your ability to assert the contrary. You can only say (and still be true): "I cannot trust the source... but I also cannot assess the authenticity of the documents, nor can I demonstrate any motivation from the source of the document". If you let aside the requirement of being true and step inside a system of beliefs, you can infer anything you want, just don't ask me to accept your word "as gospel truth" - everybody has the right to form beliefs for themselves and everybody has a right to reject beliefs.
This also should answer to the rest of your comment: I accept that what I do believe may be different from the truth and I think this also happens with every huiman being. Therefore, I consider any attempt to present the beliefs as "truths" is either an attempt of manipulation or a case of cognitive dissonance.
To share with you my belief in this matter: yes, I do believe that the leaked documents have high probability of being authentic authentic and not edited (just redacted), because the alleged sources of the documents (parts of US govt) don't present any evidence on the contrary and only shout "You are damaging us presenting something that is not supposed to be public".
If the documents are sufficient, I wonder how they will continue to spin corrupt financial industry practices as the fault of Obama without actually doing anything useful to stop them. 9/11 spared them from Enron, and if lightning strikes twice...
Oh, was it also Obama's administration during Enron times?
If he cared about justice, he'd order redaction of identities of innocent parties before releasing any information, and he'd keep his name out of it as well.
Does this invalidate the authenticity of the leaked documents? If not, why don't you let me make the judgment for myself?
It just means that it’s easier for honest CEOs to run an honest business, if the dishonest businesses are more effected negatively by leaks than honest businesses.
Well, there you go. You just disproved your own thesis statement.
[...]
I'll grant you this one: a counter-example that's plausible and invalidate the thesis "Absolutely and in any circumstances, leaking wrong-doings makes the respectable companies life easier". Let me point that:
a. this doesn't however prove that leaking documents of wrong-doings will always make the life harder for respectable companies (you will need to positively demonstrate that the way you described is the only way possible for the things to unfold. A counter-example only disprove something but does not positively prove anything.)
b. based on your counter-example, under no circumstances I'm going to accept that hiding the wrong-doing by stopping a leak is going to bring benefit to the consumers.
If it is information about massive fraud and criminal enterprise against the public (and let's face it, that's exactly what it is going to be),
No, I will not accept it on its face that "that's exactly what it is going to be", because I've seen the other stuff from Wikileaks and know they lie.
You mean you contest the authenticity of the leaks posted on Wikileaks? If your assertion would be true indeed, why so much fuss with Hillary Clinton, DAPRA and all that?
Can you please present to us the evidence that the posted documents are indeed a lie?
You can't do foreign policy without secret cables flying around. You can't fight wars without intelligence.
You can't have government accountability with state secrets. I'd rather have the government accountability.
I'd rather not limit the countries who can have effective diplomatic ties to the countries who are unafraid to murder someone who becomes politically inconvenient (Russia, China, Iran, N. Korea, etc). Why do you suppose we haven't heard of any "leaks" from those countries? Are their diplomatic records so much more spotless than the US?
If US take pride of being the champion of democracy, would it be nice to start with their own practices? I mean, sort of leading by example?
What exactly has wiki leaks accomplished?
Big scandles coming out of the wars didn't come from Wikileaks they came from soldiers and pictures that ended up in the hands of the Press.
Wikileaks seems to be under the nieve 20th century notions about war and morality, or maybe he's fully aware and just exploiting it for the popularity contest people seem to like to have. Their war leaks revealed nothing of any major concern since the issues about torture in several prisons was already in public view. All they did was show one common truth about all war.
The extent in which dubious practices were applied? Possible, persons/entities responsible or involved in them that you didn't know about?
So what's this latest release going to show? That banks are money grubbing evil $&(75 who stole our money because they nearly ran everything into the ground, and where to gun shy from the great depression to let it happen again without at least doing every insain plan we can think of to stop it? If so you'd have to have been in a coma the last two years not to know that one.
If you are so kind, please enlighten us on how the banks have done it? Even assuming that you can, wouldn't it be sensible to allow other facts to surface, maybe some of us will find details that would be missing from your selection? (i.e. if you accuse Wikileaks or Assange of "propaganda", why should I believe you are not doing the same?)
you are mistaken. Wikileaks could easily filter information to further any agenda it sees fit. Assange has shown that he is NOT impartial and strongly opposes many of the Us governments policies. Which is part of the concern many people here have with them currently.
By taking sides you introduce the oppurtunity for your opponents to label you as having an agenda. And frankly they might be right. Look up some of my old posts, I had concerns about this months ago. Long before the media started spouting off about W-L.
I dont know if W-L is a problem, but Assange has hurt their credibility.
I almost take it as an insult: do you think I'm so stupid that I cannot decide by myself what opinion should I have, based on the authentic documents? Point to me to another set of authentic documents and I'll be happy to read them (as happy as I'm reading those posted by the Wikileaks). (also, do you take me of so stupid to accept your "You are mistaken" sentence without any appeal to my own judgement?)
Conscience or Ego? There is an old intelligence maxim (that Tom Clancy has put in his books) that the reasons people betray trust, commit treason, and so on are MICE: Money, Ideology, Conscience, and Ego.
Personally, I don't care his motives... I only read the leaks and I think I'm mature enough to make my own mind.
My apologies if this also means, as a matter of opinion, that I think your post is also irrelevant...
The reason for my post, a suggestion to other readers: at first, please decide for yourself if the existence of Wikileaks is good or bad irrespective of mr. Assange's motivation.
It is impossible to monitor Wikileak's integrity or transparency
If you don't trust Wikileaks integrity or transparency and you have serious doubts about the Assange's character, I beg you to open your own leaks site (Wiki or not; just don't fabricate the documents)... by all means, do it. The more the merrier... not to mention extra opportunities to point out the mistakes in today's political, economic and social life... boy, they are so many mistakes and many seem too pleased to accept them as the way of life.
Wikileaks will most likely be in the chapter "Osama's most successful operation".
Do the Americans hoi polloi actually study their history text books? Just asking to estimate what percentage of this world's population is going to take it for granted, because I almost bet that only (if ever) the US history books will present Wikileaks under this light.
If it ends up that the new leaks target all kinds of banks and companies, then no. If they are all conveniently US banks and companies, then I'd say that lends some credence to the anti-US idea. I mean after all in terms of corporate leaks you have one of three situations:
Failure of imagination, failure in argumentation or just "loaded argumentation"? (i.e. do you care to demonstrate that only the 3 alternatives above can really exists?)
American Exceptionalism is the sadly more and more common belief that America, by its very nature, can do no wrong. It is Manifest Destiny written on a global scale.
Yet America is still one of the few countries willing to honestly face its past and try to redress things it's done wrong.
Just as a personal opinion: I personally can't wait for that, from where I stand the "trying to redress things it's done wrong in the past" part is not noticeable enough.
Or is the fact that they are going to release data on US based corporations just going to be viewed as more evidence of an anti-US sentiment?
Could't it be because US was the most active (on both fronts: govt and economic) in the last decades? I mean: with more action comes the opportunity of making more mistakes.
Now, the human brain is very funny... if the mistakes go unpunished, then the action is should be acceptable; an that no matter the long term consequences ("the price of a home never goes down" was an argument en vogue about 2 years or something ago).
My point is: wipe the mistakes under the carpet (instead of learning from them) and in time the carpet in your home lays on a huge amount of garbage: what will you do, take offence if everybody start noticing the stench coming from inside you home (instead of throwing out the garbage and keep your home clean)?
It would make measures like the Australian blacklist falderall all that much more difficult to actually pull off, and would render efforts like COICA similarly difficult.
Do it. Do it now.
If it is for making the Big Brother's job slightly more difficult, until yet-another-TDL-DNS gets created, maybe you can trust some OpenNIC DNS-es? Just asking.
A lot of girls secretly get pregnant on purpose in order to save a failing relationship, or even cement one that is working. Immortality will not fix that.
If they get pregnant to fix something, assuming the immortality, chances are they'll have an eternity to regret.
Because the cause that I see is: highly qualified or not, such a job would require better motivation for those doing it. Maybe if the company hiring them would spend a bit more from the money you(we) paid through the your(our) nose to pay the loaders better, the parcels will be better handled? Maybe the very company you think is slammed has part of the responsibility?
When I was in college my roommate had a job loading parcels, it paid more than double minimum wage and the only requirement was to be able to lift 20lb. I learned pretty quickly that "fragile" doesn't mean shit. Of course the company has responsibility...
I didn't say that the employer should have spend more money giving higher salaries, but increasing the motivation.
Let's go a bit in the details: quality is expensive, requires at least control (if not a well designed process to act on the prevention). Of course, being expensive, the corporates (mainly) substitute it with risk mitigation (instead of risk prevention): they take insurance, pay lawyers to defend them in case of claims and do the minimum so that they balance between price they charge, risks and costs. If you need citation: have it here. Or here for example in other industries,.
...but I think it starts with the hiring process, not the pay.
Yes, among others, they can address the hiring process. Or they can address the control/supervision (mainly during night shifts - this would be negative motivation). Or they can be picky when they accept parcels marked fragile but with shitty packaging. In any case, the company has more ways to address the internal issues and has to have more responsibility towards you, the customer... the obligation resulted from accepting a payment from you is with them and should stay with them. By contrast, the loaders have no obligations towards you, the customer (only towards their employers).
Put in short: I don't see why a simple loader with bad attitude deserves to be trashed (yes, he does) but the company that hires him doesn't deserve to be slammed.
Plus imagine what would happen to the population if people started living forever. Living forever means being able to fuck forever. Of course mandatory sterilization would be impossible to implement, and of course the babies would want to live forever too, so we would truly see a population explosion like never before.
Assuming you know you are to live forever, what's the rush in breading children? At least until the Earth runs out of latex, you can keep fucking.
Slashdot Mirror
At least isn't that what the government tells us?
Thanks to this leak (and to the idiotic flubbing of security in the first place), it will be at least a little bit harder for American diplomats to make friends who will tell them things in confidence.
And because of this, what wrong will happen? Diplomats not being able to effectively spy on UN officials?
And please don't try to say "You don't understand a shit about the diplomacy". It just may happen that I know enough to think: "I don't like it and it is not how I think the diplomacy need to be done in the third millennium"
Rationale: "redress the things" and "correct past mistakes" are two different things. Sure, I can hope for the second and hope the first would never be a reaction... but well, how representative am I? (answer: the way it is now, just a single vote to cast to one in a very limited range of choices... all of which bend the spirit of every democratic principle... the citizens are to be treated as mushrooms: keep them in the dark and feed them with shit).
My post is only irrelevant if you don't care about the quality of the information.
Let me be the one to judge the quality of information, please don't think me stupid to not be able to.
If you believe that everything Wikileaks releases is:
1) True.
The posted documents have high probability of being true... otherwise why is US so pissed about but never released an official statement stating the documents are fabricated ?
2) Unedited.
Unfortunately for my taste, they are redacted... to remove some content they thought would be for the protection of the innocent (maybe they didn't redacted all that was needed for this purpose? That's another matter). As for the question of "how much of what remained un-redacted is still authentic", see my opinion above.
3) The entire story.
I don't care if it is the entire story, I don't care about the motivations for publishing them, all I care is the authenticity of the documents. With the risk of repeating myself, until I'm not seeing anything to show that the documents are actually very skillful fabricated (and the reaction all over the US govt points toward documents are good), I reserve the right to form my opinion by myself... kindly thanking you for your efforts.
No source of information is perfect.
I'm well aware of this, this is why think myself well prepared to apply judgments based on the likelihood of being true/authentic or not
As such I need to evaluate the source to evaluate their information.
Your privilege, indeed. However, if failing to do so, denies your ability to assert the contrary. You can only say (and still be true): "I cannot trust the source... but I also cannot assess the authenticity of the documents, nor can I demonstrate any motivation from the source of the document".
If you let aside the requirement of being true and step inside a system of beliefs, you can infer anything you want, just don't ask me to accept your word "as gospel truth" - everybody has the right to form beliefs for themselves and everybody has a right to reject beliefs.
This also should answer to the rest of your comment: I accept that what I do believe may be different from the truth and I think this also happens with every huiman being. Therefore, I consider any attempt to present the beliefs as "truths" is either an attempt of manipulation or a case of cognitive dissonance.
To share with you my belief in this matter: yes, I do believe that the leaked documents have high probability of being authentic authentic and not edited (just redacted), because the alleged sources of the documents (parts of US govt) don't present any evidence on the contrary and only shout "You are damaging us presenting something that is not supposed to be public".
Are we still going to ask them to stop doing what they are doing ?
Depends on how many of us will be asking it.
If the documents are sufficient, I wonder how they will continue to spin corrupt financial industry practices as the fault of Obama without actually doing anything useful to stop them. 9/11 spared them from Enron, and if lightning strikes twice...
Oh, was it also Obama's administration during Enron times?
Assange is one of the bastards.
If he cared about justice, he'd order redaction of identities of innocent parties before releasing any information, and he'd keep his name out of it as well.
Does this invalidate the authenticity of the leaked documents? If not, why don't you let me make the judgment for myself?
It just means that it’s easier for honest CEOs to run an honest business, if the dishonest businesses are more effected negatively by leaks than honest businesses.
Well, there you go. You just disproved your own thesis statement.
[...]
I'll grant you this one: a counter-example that's plausible and invalidate the thesis "Absolutely and in any circumstances, leaking wrong-doings makes the respectable companies life easier". Let me point that:
a. this doesn't however prove that leaking documents of wrong-doings will always make the life harder for respectable companies (you will need to positively demonstrate that the way you described is the only way possible for the things to unfold. A counter-example only disprove something but does not positively prove anything.)
b. based on your counter-example, under no circumstances I'm going to accept that hiding the wrong-doing by stopping a leak is going to bring benefit to the consumers.
If it is information about massive fraud and criminal enterprise against the public (and let's face it, that's exactly what it is going to be),
No, I will not accept it on its face that "that's exactly what it is going to be", because I've seen the other stuff from Wikileaks and know they lie.
You mean you contest the authenticity of the leaks posted on Wikileaks? If your assertion would be true indeed, why so much fuss with Hillary Clinton, DAPRA and all that?
Can you please present to us the evidence that the posted documents are indeed a lie?
You can't do foreign policy without secret cables flying around. You can't fight wars without intelligence.
You can't have government accountability with state secrets. I'd rather have the government accountability.
I'd rather not limit the countries who can have effective diplomatic ties to the countries who are unafraid to murder someone who becomes politically inconvenient (Russia, China, Iran, N. Korea, etc). Why do you suppose we haven't heard of any "leaks" from those countries? Are their diplomatic records so much more spotless than the US?
If US take pride of being the champion of democracy, would it be nice to start with their own practices? I mean, sort of leading by example?
What exactly has wiki leaks accomplished? Big scandles coming out of the wars didn't come from Wikileaks they came from soldiers and pictures that ended up in the hands of the Press. Wikileaks seems to be under the nieve 20th century notions about war and morality, or maybe he's fully aware and just exploiting it for the popularity contest people seem to like to have. Their war leaks revealed nothing of any major concern since the issues about torture in several prisons was already in public view. All they did was show one common truth about all war.
The extent in which dubious practices were applied? Possible, persons/entities responsible or involved in them that you didn't know about?
So what's this latest release going to show? That banks are money grubbing evil $&(75 who stole our money because they nearly ran everything into the ground, and where to gun shy from the great depression to let it happen again without at least doing every insain plan we can think of to stop it? If so you'd have to have been in a coma the last two years not to know that one.
If you are so kind, please enlighten us on how the banks have done it?
Even assuming that you can, wouldn't it be sensible to allow other facts to surface, maybe some of us will find details that would be missing from your selection? (i.e. if you accuse Wikileaks or Assange of "propaganda", why should I believe you are not doing the same?)
you are mistaken. Wikileaks could easily filter information to further any agenda it sees fit. Assange has shown that he is NOT impartial and strongly opposes many of the Us governments policies. Which is part of the concern many people here have with them currently.
By taking sides you introduce the oppurtunity for your opponents to label you as having an agenda. And frankly they might be right. Look up some of my old posts, I had concerns about this months ago. Long before the media started spouting off about W-L.
I dont know if W-L is a problem, but Assange has hurt their credibility.
I almost take it as an insult: do you think I'm so stupid that I cannot decide by myself what opinion should I have, based on the authentic documents? Point to me to another set of authentic documents and I'll be happy to read them (as happy as I'm reading those posted by the Wikileaks).
(also, do you take me of so stupid to accept your "You are mistaken" sentence without any appeal to my own judgement?)
Conscience or Ego? There is an old intelligence maxim (that Tom Clancy has put in his books) that the reasons people betray trust, commit treason, and so on are MICE: Money, Ideology, Conscience, and Ego.
Personally, I don't care his motives... I only read the leaks and I think I'm mature enough to make my own mind.
My apologies if this also means, as a matter of opinion, that I think your post is also irrelevant...
The reason for my post, a suggestion to other readers: at first, please decide for yourself if the existence of Wikileaks is good or bad irrespective of mr. Assange's motivation.
It is impossible to monitor Wikileak's integrity or transparency
If you don't trust Wikileaks integrity or transparency and you have serious doubts about the Assange's character, I beg you to open your own leaks site (Wiki or not; just don't fabricate the documents)... by all means, do it. The more the merrier... not to mention extra opportunities to point out the mistakes in today's political, economic and social life... boy, they are so many mistakes and many seem too pleased to accept them as the way of life.
Wikileaks will most likely be in the chapter "Osama's most successful operation".
Do the Americans hoi polloi actually study their history text books? Just asking to estimate what percentage of this world's population is going to take it for granted, because I almost bet that only (if ever) the US history books will present Wikileaks under this light.
If it ends up that the new leaks target all kinds of banks and companies, then no. If they are all conveniently US banks and companies, then I'd say that lends some credence to the anti-US idea. I mean after all in terms of corporate leaks you have one of three situations:
Failure of imagination, failure in argumentation or just "loaded argumentation"? (i.e. do you care to demonstrate that only the 3 alternatives above can really exists?)
American Exceptionalism is the sadly more and more common belief that America, by its very nature, can do no wrong. It is Manifest Destiny written on a global scale.
Yet America is still one of the few countries willing to honestly face its past and try to redress things it's done wrong.
Just as a personal opinion: I personally can't wait for that, from where I stand the "trying to redress things it's done wrong in the past" part is not noticeable enough.
Or is the fact that they are going to release data on US based corporations just going to be viewed as more evidence of an anti-US sentiment?
Could't it be because US was the most active (on both fronts: govt and economic) in the last decades? I mean: with more action comes the opportunity of making more mistakes.
Now, the human brain is very funny... if the mistakes go unpunished, then the action is should be acceptable; an that no matter the long term consequences ("the price of a home never goes down" was an argument en vogue about 2 years or something ago).
My point is: wipe the mistakes under the carpet (instead of learning from them) and in time the carpet in your home lays on a huge amount of garbage: what will you do, take offence if everybody start noticing the stench coming from inside you home (instead of throwing out the garbage and keep your home clean)?
Redundant, huh?
Guess yet another mod that likes paying taxes in an undisclosed amount, if possible in a supplier lock-in situation.
call it the 'XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System' and get your $35,000 worth
35 K for the rifle... how much per ammunition round?
Guess is safer to ask first, last time it happened to me when I bought an inkjet printer.
It would make measures like the Australian blacklist falderall all that much more difficult to actually pull off, and would render efforts like COICA similarly difficult.
Do it. Do it now.
If it is for making the Big Brother's job slightly more difficult, until yet-another-TDL-DNS gets created, maybe you can trust some OpenNIC DNS-es? Just asking.
A lot of girls secretly get pregnant on purpose in order to save a failing relationship, or even cement one that is working. Immortality will not fix that.
If they get pregnant to fix something, assuming the immortality, chances are they'll have an eternity to regret.
Because the cause that I see is: highly qualified or not, such a job would require better motivation for those doing it. Maybe if the company hiring them would spend a bit more from the money you(we) paid through the your(our) nose to pay the loaders better, the parcels will be better handled? Maybe the very company you think is slammed has part of the responsibility?
When I was in college my roommate had a job loading parcels, it paid more than double minimum wage and the only requirement was to be able to lift 20lb. I learned pretty quickly that "fragile" doesn't mean shit. Of course the company has responsibility...
I didn't say that the employer should have spend more money giving higher salaries, but increasing the motivation.
Let's go a bit in the details: quality is expensive, requires at least control (if not a well designed process to act on the prevention). Of course, being expensive, the corporates (mainly) substitute it with risk mitigation (instead of risk prevention): they take insurance, pay lawyers to defend them in case of claims and do the minimum so that they balance between price they charge, risks and costs. If you need citation: have it here. Or here for example in other industries,.
Yes, among others, they can address the hiring process. Or they can address the control/supervision (mainly during night shifts - this would be negative motivation). Or they can be picky when they accept parcels marked fragile but with shitty packaging. In any case, the company has more ways to address the internal issues and has to have more responsibility towards you, the customer... the obligation resulted from accepting a payment from you is with them and should stay with them. By contrast, the loaders have no obligations towards you, the customer (only towards their employers).
Put in short: I don't see why a simple loader with bad attitude deserves to be trashed (yes, he does) but the company that hires him doesn't deserve to be slammed.
Is our children learning?
No, they aren't. They will still continue to use FB, in spite of another proof of predatory behavior: Bush will be there to sell his book.
Assuming you know you are to live forever, what's the rush in breading children?
Well, if you want to live forever, that makes a lot of sense. Grilled is healthier than fried.
What??? Ah, I see...
Mod parent +Insightful, failed to look at the issue from this angle!!!
Plus imagine what would happen to the population if people started living forever. Living forever means being able to fuck forever. Of course mandatory sterilization would be impossible to implement, and of course the babies would want to live forever too, so we would truly see a population explosion like never before.
Assuming you know you are to live forever, what's the rush in breading children? At least until the Earth runs out of latex, you can keep fucking.