Sorry but I would much rather trust Facebook than Google.
On what possible basis? Facebook's developers have made a hobby of obscuring its privacy settings. Each new "clarification" just makes things worse. And worse than that, the apps they allow on the site rape your personal information, and that of your friends/family/acquaintances. Someone, someday, might manage to be less trustworthy than Facebook, but they'd basically have to show up at your house with a gun and ransack the place.
All Facebook has done to improve the situation is write a blog post to make old news seem like something new.
An isolated forever alone libertarian retard like yourself would never know what it's like to stand tall with a group of people against a monstrous corporation that wants to lower the quality of your life.
And this has what, exactly, to do with committing illegal acts? If you can't win legally, then you either suck it up and go back to work, or find another job.
I say this, by the way, who spent a good deal of time unemployed in the past 2 years. I never contemplated knocking over a liquor store because I couldn't catch a break.
Is it fair? No. But does that justify illegal activity?
I don't doubt they were frustrated. But that doesn't justify illegal actions and intimidation, when they had other options. It's the "win at any cost" mentality that leads people to prison.
it's called treason when you go against your own group for your own personal benefit in a fight.
It's only "treason" if that "group" is a nation. And it's only even remotely betrayal if you are part of the organization. The person in question was not part of the union, and had no moral or ethical obligation to honor an agreement the union made.
So a), she didn't betray any of her peers, and b) it certainly wasn't treason, which, while you might find it inconvenient, actually is a word with a meaning.
Fighting unjust and repressive management is the exact same thing as fighting repressive government.
Um, no. If you've got unjust and repressive management (leaving aside the question of what "repressive" means in an employment context), you can quit. You can find some other job. That next job may not pay the same as the one you've got, and you may spend some time unemployed, buy y'know what? Those are the breaks. Most people don't work at jobs where it's completely okay for them to refuse to work until their boss raises their pay, and yet, they muddle through somehow.
Sometimes illegal action against the government is justified because a government can oppress you in a way that's not a mockery of the word. And oh, yeah: The government controls the military, which tends to raise the stakes a little.
I'm not saying that it's never justified to break the law. I'm saying that if you do break the law/engage in civil disobedience, it's not on anyone else to save you from your actions. That's especially true if your actions can't be justified.
In an interview with a local newspaper, Short said, “Sitting in front of her [a co-worker’s vehicle] lets her know that we do not approve of her crossing the picket line when she should be standing out there suffering as much as we are.”
Source
So basically, because of her self-inflicted suffering, anyone who doesn't join her has to suffer. Nice.
Did you RTFA? I did. I also read the/. summary which said NASA was associated with the "study". So you might want to have a look at your own piehole, genius.
I read the/. summary, and the actual article. The summary gives the impression that it's a NASA study. If that's not true, then okay, but the fact that studies like this are associated with NASA still gives it a black eye.
The reason NASA is facing the problems it is with the public is because of ridiculous things like this.
The idea that a civilization from another planet would consider us a threat to our galaxy is preposterous, and the article doesn't even begin to make a case for it.
I wonder how many Slashdot people actually think that people who work at Facebook should be arrested and hauled off to prison for not advertising Google Plus?
Unethical != Illegal. You can think (as I do) that Facebook is acting unethically without thinking they're acting illegally.
The Kindle and Nook lending models actually work that way: You lend someone a book with the temporary right to read it, and that right (along with the digital copy) reverts to you when the lending period is over. The only thing that's not the same (as far as I'm aware -- although I've never tried it) is that I don't think you can revoke the license to your loaned book yourself. It simply expires.
The biggest problem I think the current model has is its one-time-only nature. I somewhat understand it, because it would be too easy for someone to set up his/her own electronic lending library if the lending was unlimited, but I still think that limiting a user to one lend is excessive.
Much like music before it, publishers can't decide if books are personal or intellectual property.
Publishers can decide, and they have decided: The physical book is your personal property, and the content inside is intellectual property, which you agree to treat as such by virtue of the fact that you bought the book.
E-books are different insofar as publishers haven't got a good way to assure (with any confidence) that you don't copy the intellectual property and distribute it, while keeping your personal copy. If it could be guaranteed that you transferred your e-book to another person, irrevocably, without keeping a copy for yourself, there would be no issue, because the IP holder would only retain the right of first sale.
It's close, but not quite the same. If you lend someone a physical book you still own the book, and can demand that they return it. If you actually transferred the ownership (gave it to them, rather than lending) they would have no obligation to give it back.
Actually, that's exactly the same as a physical book. If you lend someone a book, you're trusting that they will give it back to you when you request it, but you have no way of enforcing it, save for breaking into their home, finding it, and taking it back.
There already are a lot of short fiction magazines on the Web. It's kind of a natural environment for them, I think.:)
I think that the fact that it's so easy to self-publish now inevitably means that a lot of what's out there's going to be crap. I've read some good things on Kindle, and I've read some atrocious things -- both short and long form -- by indie authors. Having no publisher or editor means there's no one there to tell you your writing sucks. And since editors cost money (and are likely to tell you things you don't want to hear) there's little incentive for someone to hire one to read their work.
I don't say any of this to knock indie writing. I've got short stories on Amazon myself. But on average, the quality of the writing isn't going to be the same, because the infrastructure isn't there.
No one in publishing -- any kind of publishing -- likes piracy. If nothing else, it's a pain in the ass for all involved. But people (the publishers and the authors) want to get paid for what they create when people consume it. Piracy stymies that.
Having said that, I do think that there ought to be a right to resell an e-book. The digital rights to the book should be transferrable with the file, and the book should leave the original owner's device and go to the recipient's device -- similar to how the Nook and the Kindle handle lending now, but permanent.
So far, all you have said has amounted to claiming that because Assange is not a perfect man, he cannot be a good man.
I never said any such thing. No one is perfect. I would never claim otherwise. What I've been claiming is that Assange's motives in the leaks (particularly in the Afghanistan War diary leaks) weren't altruistic. He has an agenda, and part of that agenda is self-promotion. He could be a good and decent man in his personal life. I have no idea about that. I'm talking about a very specific situation, and about his motives in this context only. He could donate to 1,000 charities and adopt stray puppies, for all I know. That wouldn't change my assessment of his involvement in regards to WikiLeaks.
People are complex, and so is the world. It's entirely possible to be flawed and still be motivated by kindness.
That's entirely true. However, the milk of human kindness does not appear to be Assange's motive here. I base my conclusion on what he's said publicly, not on what might be floating around in his head, inaccessible to me.
For what it's worth, I've never called Assange a hero, or held him up as any sort of exemplar. All I've said is that his actions are not inconsistent with someone primarily concerned with injustice. That's a very small claim, and one which you haven't seriously challenged with any facts. What exactly has Assange done that can not be construed as primarily intended to help others?
How much of a help has he been to the U.S. military? How much of a help has he been to the banking industry? How helpful has his ethos, that government should not have secrets, been to discussions of government in general? My point is not that he doesn't have a right to hold his opinions or ideologies. My point has been that Assange's motives are as self-serving, just like those he opposes.
You have some pretty bizarre ideas about altruism too. The way I read you, I can be altruistic all I want by myself. But once I enter politics and try to get those altruistic ideas implemented as policy, all of a sudden I'm acting out of self interest. Bizarre.
Politics isn't about love of humanity. Politics is factional. A policy -- any policy -- that benefits one group detracts from another group. Your politics just defines whose side you're on.
To give you a concrete example: If I donate 20% of my income to charity, that's altruistic. I'm not getting anything from it, and someone else is benefiting. If I fight to have a law passed that everyone should give 20% to charity, that's not altruism anymore. Why? Because I'm not just taking my money. I'm taking other people's money, and giving it to the poor. It might be a good idea, or not, but it's not altruism.
Altruism is self-sacrifice. It doesn't cost other people anything.
And even if I agreed for the sake of argument that what Assange did was completely, 100% out of self-interest, that doesn't make him a bad person. Many people who truly deserve the title "hero" have been motivated by self interest, e.g. Captain Sullenberger.
That's absolutely true. It doesn't make him a bad person. But if he's acting out of self-interest, it's important to assess what those interests are, and not to assume that he releases the documents he does because he's such a nice guy who loves humanity so much. I would say, in the case of the Afghan War diary, that the motivation seems clear to me. If the information isn't new (which it doesn't appear to be), then the reason to release it seems to be to embarrass the U.S. There have been other leaks (such as the leak from Africa you discussed) which obviously weren't intended to embarrass the U.S. But in the case of documents that don't provide any revelatory news (which seems to be the case with a great many of the diplomatic cables leaked) the motivation seems to be to embarrass the people involved -- possibly with the subtext of, "Don't mess with us, or we'll embarrass you, too".
Yes. This speaks strongly to his altruistic motives. Is he anti-war because he has personally lost family or property to the war? Or is he anti war because war is evil and bad, and the world will be a better place without it? I kind of doubt that it's the former, as I haven't heard of any personal motivations to be against these wars. If it's the latter, that's altruism.
He's against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's not against all wars. He's against these wars for political reasons, because he doesn't believe they are just. He's perfectly within his rights to be against them. He may even be right. But he's not altruistic in this situation.
By that definition, no one is altruistic. Even the most selfless get warm fuzzies from their actions.
That's patently false. There are plenty of examples of people who perform great acts of heroism who derive no reward whatsoever from having done the action. There are people who willingly sacrifice their lives for what they believe to be right. As I said, Assange benefits a great deal more than just having the "warm fuzzies". To give you a more concrete scenario: I'd be much more inclined to think Assange was being altruistic if he supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and still reported against them. He picks and chooses what he'll support, and basks in the media attention (unlike a lot of people at WikiLeaks, who resent his attention-grabbing). As long as he's not breaking any laws (and we'll have to wait and see what the courts say on that), he has every right to do what he's doing. But it's obscene to hold him up as some kind of exemplar of selfless self-sacrifice, when it's so obvious that his motives in this case are so at odds with that interpretation.
Yes, and uncovering evidence of bad deeds that don't affect you, and suffering for it, counts.
You're assuming that the Afghan war diaries don't affect him. You're wrong in that assumption. Assange is unabashedly anti-war (and more specifically, anti-U.S. foreign policy). He gains quite a bit by attacking them without them being able to touch him. He promotes his ideology. He builds up his reputation in the media.
Get back to me when he exposes some scandal that has touched an organization he does support. (Come to think of it, leaking WikiLeaks' internal documents would be a great start.) Then I'll believe he's being selfless and altruistic. If he's deriving any benefit from his actions at all (which he is, obviously) then it's not altruism. He's just playing the hero while furthering his own ideals.
Time heals all wounds. Ellsberg was a villified as Assange is now. But the decades of Bread and Circusses have dult your memory till it now seems all quant and harmless.
Hardly. Ellsberg's revelations are still far and away more important than anything leaked by WikiLeaks. Ellsberg's information was actually new, and moved people to action. The only new information that I've seen or heard of in WikiLeaks' Afghan war diaries was the names of the Afghan informants. And the only people who wanted that information released was the Taliban.
As others have pointed out, WikiLeaks occasionally leaks something that's got social value. But mostly, it's just a vehicle for Assange's self-aggrandizement. He wants the media to bow down to him and organizations he's opposed to to fear him.
He has exposed many bad deeds at great risk to his safety and comfort. That sounds like altruism to me. I can't read minds, so I don't know what his motives really are. But I don't see anything that suggests otherwise. I would do the exact same thing in his position, but for fear of my safety.
You don't have to read his mind. You can look at what WikiLeaks leaks, and how it leaks it. You can also read his interviews (such as the one he did with TIME).
Also, based on your other posts you seem to think that Assange having political motivations excludes altruism as a motive. I would argue that altruism requires political motivation.
Altruism is a selfless concern for others. Assange isn't doing this out of a selfless concern for others. He's doing it out of a concern for himself (the world he lives in, the way people see him, the ideologies he espouses).
Donating to a charity that you don't benefit from is altruistic. Donating a kidney is altruistic. Running into a burning building to save a stranger is altruistic. Leaking documents of one's political enemies (whether they're good people or bad people, by any definition) is not.
> Assange leaked documents for the sole purpose not of informing people (because most of the information had come out), but to embarrass the U.S.
Really? You don't think he found it unconscionable that our military contractors had hired "dancing boys" (underage male prostitutes) or you do think that had come out before?
That wasn't part of the Afghan war diaries. That was a diplomatic cable. And no, I don't think he found it unconscionable. I think he decided it would be embarrassing for the U.S. And in fact, the incident was reported before WikiLeaks leaked the cable. The new information is that the Afghan government tried to squash the reporting.
And what about when he leaked the information on assassination plans by a corrupt African government (his first leak). How did that come about to embarrass the USA?
I have no reason to believe it did. We were discussing the Afghan situation, not Africa. Anyway, pointing to one or two incidents in the flood of documents released by WikiLeaks doesn't absolve Assange. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry but I would much rather trust Facebook than Google.
On what possible basis? Facebook's developers have made a hobby of obscuring its privacy settings. Each new "clarification" just makes things worse. And worse than that, the apps they allow on the site rape your personal information, and that of your friends/family/acquaintances. Someone, someday, might manage to be less trustworthy than Facebook, but they'd basically have to show up at your house with a gun and ransack the place. All Facebook has done to improve the situation is write a blog post to make old news seem like something new.
An isolated forever alone libertarian retard like yourself would never know what it's like to stand tall with a group of people against a monstrous corporation that wants to lower the quality of your life.
And this has what, exactly, to do with committing illegal acts? If you can't win legally, then you either suck it up and go back to work, or find another job. I say this, by the way, who spent a good deal of time unemployed in the past 2 years. I never contemplated knocking over a liquor store because I couldn't catch a break.
Is it fair? No. But does that justify illegal activity? I don't doubt they were frustrated. But that doesn't justify illegal actions and intimidation, when they had other options. It's the "win at any cost" mentality that leads people to prison.
It's only "treason" if that "group" is a nation. And it's only even remotely betrayal if you are part of the organization. The person in question was not part of the union, and had no moral or ethical obligation to honor an agreement the union made. So a), she didn't betray any of her peers, and b) it certainly wasn't treason, which, while you might find it inconvenient, actually is a word with a meaning.
Um, no. If you've got unjust and repressive management (leaving aside the question of what "repressive" means in an employment context), you can quit. You can find some other job. That next job may not pay the same as the one you've got, and you may spend some time unemployed, buy y'know what? Those are the breaks. Most people don't work at jobs where it's completely okay for them to refuse to work until their boss raises their pay, and yet, they muddle through somehow. Sometimes illegal action against the government is justified because a government can oppress you in a way that's not a mockery of the word. And oh, yeah: The government controls the military, which tends to raise the stakes a little.
I'm not saying that it's never justified to break the law. I'm saying that if you do break the law/engage in civil disobedience, it's not on anyone else to save you from your actions. That's especially true if your actions can't be justified.
Source So basically, because of her self-inflicted suffering, anyone who doesn't join her has to suffer. Nice.
Agreed. Workers should be treated fairly, but if they don't act legally, screw 'em -- they should've been arrested and fired.
Did you RTFA? I did. I also read the /. summary which said NASA was associated with the "study". So you might want to have a look at your own piehole, genius.
I read the /. summary, and the actual article. The summary gives the impression that it's a NASA study. If that's not true, then okay, but the fact that studies like this are associated with NASA still gives it a black eye.
The reason NASA is facing the problems it is with the public is because of ridiculous things like this. The idea that a civilization from another planet would consider us a threat to our galaxy is preposterous, and the article doesn't even begin to make a case for it.
Unethical != Illegal. You can think (as I do) that Facebook is acting unethically without thinking they're acting illegally.
And yet, they don't. That's the point. Try and find a Comcast channel you can't find a FIOS ad on.
Thanks for the explanation. :)
The Kindle and Nook lending models actually work that way: You lend someone a book with the temporary right to read it, and that right (along with the digital copy) reverts to you when the lending period is over. The only thing that's not the same (as far as I'm aware -- although I've never tried it) is that I don't think you can revoke the license to your loaned book yourself. It simply expires.
The biggest problem I think the current model has is its one-time-only nature. I somewhat understand it, because it would be too easy for someone to set up his/her own electronic lending library if the lending was unlimited, but I still think that limiting a user to one lend is excessive.
But in both cases, loaning vs. giving is a verbal agreement. You'd be dead in the water without a witness involved, wouldn't you?
Much like music before it, publishers can't decide if books are personal or intellectual property.
Publishers can decide, and they have decided: The physical book is your personal property, and the content inside is intellectual property, which you agree to treat as such by virtue of the fact that you bought the book.
E-books are different insofar as publishers haven't got a good way to assure (with any confidence) that you don't copy the intellectual property and distribute it, while keeping your personal copy. If it could be guaranteed that you transferred your e-book to another person, irrevocably, without keeping a copy for yourself, there would be no issue, because the IP holder would only retain the right of first sale.
It's close, but not quite the same. If you lend someone a physical book you still own the book, and can demand that they return it. If you actually transferred the ownership (gave it to them, rather than lending) they would have no obligation to give it back.
Actually, that's exactly the same as a physical book. If you lend someone a book, you're trusting that they will give it back to you when you request it, but you have no way of enforcing it, save for breaking into their home, finding it, and taking it back.
There already are a lot of short fiction magazines on the Web. It's kind of a natural environment for them, I think. :)
I think that the fact that it's so easy to self-publish now inevitably means that a lot of what's out there's going to be crap. I've read some good things on Kindle, and I've read some atrocious things -- both short and long form -- by indie authors. Having no publisher or editor means there's no one there to tell you your writing sucks. And since editors cost money (and are likely to tell you things you don't want to hear) there's little incentive for someone to hire one to read their work.
I don't say any of this to knock indie writing. I've got short stories on Amazon myself. But on average, the quality of the writing isn't going to be the same, because the infrastructure isn't there.
No one in publishing -- any kind of publishing -- likes piracy. If nothing else, it's a pain in the ass for all involved. But people (the publishers and the authors) want to get paid for what they create when people consume it. Piracy stymies that.
Having said that, I do think that there ought to be a right to resell an e-book. The digital rights to the book should be transferrable with the file, and the book should leave the original owner's device and go to the recipient's device -- similar to how the Nook and the Kindle handle lending now, but permanent.
So far, all you have said has amounted to claiming that because Assange is not a perfect man, he cannot be a good man.
I never said any such thing. No one is perfect. I would never claim otherwise. What I've been claiming is that Assange's motives in the leaks (particularly in the Afghanistan War diary leaks) weren't altruistic. He has an agenda, and part of that agenda is self-promotion. He could be a good and decent man in his personal life. I have no idea about that. I'm talking about a very specific situation, and about his motives in this context only. He could donate to 1,000 charities and adopt stray puppies, for all I know. That wouldn't change my assessment of his involvement in regards to WikiLeaks.
People are complex, and so is the world. It's entirely possible to be flawed and still be motivated by kindness.
That's entirely true. However, the milk of human kindness does not appear to be Assange's motive here. I base my conclusion on what he's said publicly, not on what might be floating around in his head, inaccessible to me.
For what it's worth, I've never called Assange a hero, or held him up as any sort of exemplar. All I've said is that his actions are not inconsistent with someone primarily concerned with injustice. That's a very small claim, and one which you haven't seriously challenged with any facts. What exactly has Assange done that can not be construed as primarily intended to help others?
How much of a help has he been to the U.S. military? How much of a help has he been to the banking industry? How helpful has his ethos, that government should not have secrets, been to discussions of government in general? My point is not that he doesn't have a right to hold his opinions or ideologies. My point has been that Assange's motives are as self-serving, just like those he opposes.
You have some pretty bizarre ideas about altruism too. The way I read you, I can be altruistic all I want by myself. But once I enter politics and try to get those altruistic ideas implemented as policy, all of a sudden I'm acting out of self interest. Bizarre.
Politics isn't about love of humanity. Politics is factional. A policy -- any policy -- that benefits one group detracts from another group. Your politics just defines whose side you're on.
To give you a concrete example: If I donate 20% of my income to charity, that's altruistic. I'm not getting anything from it, and someone else is benefiting. If I fight to have a law passed that everyone should give 20% to charity, that's not altruism anymore. Why? Because I'm not just taking my money. I'm taking other people's money, and giving it to the poor. It might be a good idea, or not, but it's not altruism.
Altruism is self-sacrifice. It doesn't cost other people anything.
And even if I agreed for the sake of argument that what Assange did was completely, 100% out of self-interest, that doesn't make him a bad person. Many people who truly deserve the title "hero" have been motivated by self interest, e.g. Captain Sullenberger.
That's absolutely true. It doesn't make him a bad person. But if he's acting out of self-interest, it's important to assess what those interests are, and not to assume that he releases the documents he does because he's such a nice guy who loves humanity so much. I would say, in the case of the Afghan War diary, that the motivation seems clear to me. If the information isn't new (which it doesn't appear to be), then the reason to release it seems to be to embarrass the U.S. There have been other leaks (such as the leak from Africa you discussed) which obviously weren't intended to embarrass the U.S. But in the case of documents that don't provide any revelatory news (which seems to be the case with a great many of the diplomatic cables leaked) the motivation seems to be to embarrass the people involved -- possibly with the subtext of, "Don't mess with us, or we'll embarrass you, too".
Yes. This speaks strongly to his altruistic motives. Is he anti-war because he has personally lost family or property to the war? Or is he anti war because war is evil and bad, and the world will be a better place without it? I kind of doubt that it's the former, as I haven't heard of any personal motivations to be against these wars. If it's the latter, that's altruism.
He's against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's not against all wars. He's against these wars for political reasons, because he doesn't believe they are just. He's perfectly within his rights to be against them. He may even be right. But he's not altruistic in this situation.
By that definition, no one is altruistic. Even the most selfless get warm fuzzies from their actions.
That's patently false. There are plenty of examples of people who perform great acts of heroism who derive no reward whatsoever from having done the action. There are people who willingly sacrifice their lives for what they believe to be right. As I said, Assange benefits a great deal more than just having the "warm fuzzies". To give you a more concrete scenario: I'd be much more inclined to think Assange was being altruistic if he supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and still reported against them. He picks and chooses what he'll support, and basks in the media attention (unlike a lot of people at WikiLeaks, who resent his attention-grabbing). As long as he's not breaking any laws (and we'll have to wait and see what the courts say on that), he has every right to do what he's doing. But it's obscene to hold him up as some kind of exemplar of selfless self-sacrifice, when it's so obvious that his motives in this case are so at odds with that interpretation.
Yes, and uncovering evidence of bad deeds that don't affect you, and suffering for it, counts.
You're assuming that the Afghan war diaries don't affect him. You're wrong in that assumption. Assange is unabashedly anti-war (and more specifically, anti-U.S. foreign policy). He gains quite a bit by attacking them without them being able to touch him. He promotes his ideology. He builds up his reputation in the media.
Get back to me when he exposes some scandal that has touched an organization he does support. (Come to think of it, leaking WikiLeaks' internal documents would be a great start.) Then I'll believe he's being selfless and altruistic. If he's deriving any benefit from his actions at all (which he is, obviously) then it's not altruism. He's just playing the hero while furthering his own ideals.
Time heals all wounds. Ellsberg was a villified as Assange is now. But the decades of Bread and Circusses have dult your memory till it now seems all quant and harmless.
Hardly. Ellsberg's revelations are still far and away more important than anything leaked by WikiLeaks. Ellsberg's information was actually new, and moved people to action. The only new information that I've seen or heard of in WikiLeaks' Afghan war diaries was the names of the Afghan informants. And the only people who wanted that information released was the Taliban.
As others have pointed out, WikiLeaks occasionally leaks something that's got social value. But mostly, it's just a vehicle for Assange's self-aggrandizement. He wants the media to bow down to him and organizations he's opposed to to fear him.
He has exposed many bad deeds at great risk to his safety and comfort. That sounds like altruism to me. I can't read minds, so I don't know what his motives really are. But I don't see anything that suggests otherwise. I would do the exact same thing in his position, but for fear of my safety.
You don't have to read his mind. You can look at what WikiLeaks leaks, and how it leaks it. You can also read his interviews (such as the one he did with TIME).
Also, based on your other posts you seem to think that Assange having political motivations excludes altruism as a motive. I would argue that altruism requires political motivation.
Altruism is a selfless concern for others. Assange isn't doing this out of a selfless concern for others. He's doing it out of a concern for himself (the world he lives in, the way people see him, the ideologies he espouses).
Donating to a charity that you don't benefit from is altruistic. Donating a kidney is altruistic. Running into a burning building to save a stranger is altruistic. Leaking documents of one's political enemies (whether they're good people or bad people, by any definition) is not.
> Assange leaked documents for the sole purpose not of informing people (because most of the information had come out), but to embarrass the U.S.
Really? You don't think he found it unconscionable that our military contractors had hired "dancing boys" (underage male prostitutes) or you do think that had come out before?
That wasn't part of the Afghan war diaries. That was a diplomatic cable. And no, I don't think he found it unconscionable. I think he decided it would be embarrassing for the U.S. And in fact, the incident was reported before WikiLeaks leaked the cable. The new information is that the Afghan government tried to squash the reporting.
And what about when he leaked the information on assassination plans by a corrupt African government (his first leak). How did that come about to embarrass the USA?
I have no reason to believe it did. We were discussing the Afghan situation, not Africa. Anyway, pointing to one or two incidents in the flood of documents released by WikiLeaks doesn't absolve Assange. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.