Should Edward Snowden Get Pardoned...
16 2016-09-17 by theultimatewarriors
Notice the title is an elipses, not a question. It's assuming the fact, not because Edward Snowden should or shouldn't be pardoned, because I can't possibly know. But this will attempt to address what's happened since then, and the effects of Snowden on the internet, and why it led to the biggest Pro-Control shift in the internet's history, and finally the gigantic shift that occured at the same time which included the silent end of the Occupy Wallstreet movement, and the popularity of the Gamergate and BlackLivesMatter movement which could be seen as dividing a population into men vs. women and white vs. black as well as diverting away from 1% vs. 99%. Also the biggest shift in pirating and hacking away from the internet and onto a separate network for the pro users (TOR). But I should also state, I'm by no means an expert, and many things of the old internet were awful, and a final note that I'm just a simple dude in this world, I'm easy to attack for any ideas held here and a general idiot, so please feel free to attack me and my ineptitude.
1. The Internet is Controllable Since Snowden's Reveal
In the years leading up to 2012 the internet was more like a big monster of self-published and self-hosted content than it was a series of communities that required you to sign up. More so, it used to be encouraged to not use your real name when signing up for services (including youtube itself). If you wanted to know something you searched for it, and google became king because it was the best at crawling websites and metadata across the internet and being fast at delivering them (rather than being able to try and "guess" what you are looking up for like it's starting to do, AKA, providing you with both the information and the questions, rather than the answers to your questions). Since Snowden, encryption has taken off. Encryption at it's best has many positives but also has had massive effects on how the internet is structured. Instead of being a lot of self-published content being gathered up by search engines, the internet has turned into communities that are predictable to some extent. If I were to look at your subscribed subreddits, your posting history, and what posts you visit, I could being to make assumptions about who you are. Reddit already does this, but this goes beyond reddit. Since encryption, tiny web communities that collect user info or require your name have emerged, and at the very least things that are predictable to some extent, and gather data in a closed way (facebook, google, pinterest, tumbler, snapchat, instagram, more and more I can't think of in 2 seconds).
The rise of the phone especially helped this since now we're identifiable through so many aspects of our phone, even by the supercookies Verizon was caught sharing, but especially since apps have replaced browsers for a lot of sites, making accounts even more identifiable. Everything someone looks up, is interested in, their browsing habits, their desires, the very questions their brain is curious about in the world we all live in... all of that now is in some way being provided by each of us, and in some way leaving something that can be traced, tracked, or discovered. Authorities were installed in the far reaching cases that came before snowden (child porn, jailbait, attempts to stop pirating or drug selling) and authorities were created, which meant the boundary of the territory was set. Encryption created the divisions of population. Man vs. Woman, and White vs. Black are two of the saddest fights in American history, because all of us are more affected by rich vs. poor, and all of us would do much better to embrace each other and fight that fight. With territories though, it was possible to separate users of the internet, and even the smartest users were encouraged to use a new internet on TOR (tell me again, who invented TOR?) And the internet now reaches even the poorest third world country's citizens. The amount of 16 year old that sign up for a bank account on their phone this year alone is a staggering number that is 100's of millions more than it was in 2012. Smart phones changed the game.
2. America had Control of the Internet by being First, and Controlling the Internet is a ridiculous advantage. Encryption has stopped other countries from catching up or copying.
The internet was invented in America, and slowly but surely we became more and more aware in the years preceding Snowden that the NSA and other's were monitoring everything people were doing on the internet and trying to track us as we moved around it. Tracking cookies were ridiculous and so bad that incognito mode is as amazing as it is (google product). The game changed though as money started getting poured in to the startup scene, and into angel investing and money for buyouts. The amount of independent sources has changed, and even Reddit itself is owned by a larger corporate company who bought it. The internet changed from a wild west into a few extremely large populations on a couple large players services. Encryption makes the data that's available now gated behind communities, and certainly not openly accessible or copyable to other countries.
3. What could be more powerful than knowing people's thoughts and desires, and controlling what info they are likely to recieve?
If the internet is controllable, there really isn't anything more powerful than literally being able to know what people are thinking, who they're communicating with, what mass thought movements are happening, and what people are saying about any subject (but especially about things of interest). There would never be a more powerful form of control that the worlds seen, and certainly fits all the characteristics of control in the past:
* A highway that delivers information was created.
* Boundaries were created by extreme case scenarios on this system which necessitated appeals to authority.
* This territory was separated into a distribution system, based on preferences and natural communities that formed.
* This separation naturally divided into pockets of controllable distribution which then became predictable based on the communities past.
* The distribution system then is sectioned off (encryption) and further authorities are instituted (you remember the big moderation fiasco that occured along with the Pao stuff on reddit? When did that happen, and who bought reddit?)
* The population was divided & conquered as hate on the internet reached an all-time high, and groups were separated.
Rome became a super power because it built the best roads in the world, that naturally became a distribution system, that naturally had to have authority, which became the system that built rome. You don't have to conquer an entire people's when you can make divide them into controllable groups, even better if they fight themselves, even better for you to conquer them.
4. Snowden didn't reveal much that William Binney didn't already reveal long before him.
This is the big kicker. Snowden may be anything, but he wasn't the first to reveal this stuff, so why did a movie get made about him? Because he's ex CIA? Ex NSA? William Binney revealed a lot more a long time ago, and was the guy that helped design a lot of the system, yet the same big effects weren't announced on all the news channels, or movies, or major websites. That's the big kicker. Snowden can be anything, but the effects he had were so negative to the internet, that it really doesn't matter if he was controlled or not. Everything he's done has led to a much more controllable internet.
28 comments
3 ToastyJames 2016-09-17
Yes
3 HangoutUnlimited 2016-09-17
ALL THEATER ANYWAY.
SURE.
PARDON HIM.
Good end to the story.
2 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-17
agreed, good 'story'
2 HangoutUnlimited 2016-09-17
We even get a oliver stone blockbuster out of it to set the narrative in "stone".
2 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-17
oliver shittyphilosopher stone -- worlds most disappointing alchemist
2 grndzro4645 2016-09-17
Yes he should. It's clear the current powers want to shred the constitution, and drive the US into third world territory while reaping all the profits from doing so.
Snowden threw the first brick, and he should be hailed as a hero.
2 petrus4 2016-09-17
Exactly. Snowden and Assange are both controlled Goldsteins. If the intelligence community had truly wanted it, neither of them would still be breathing. I would bet money that Manning has been extensively tortured in custody; I have never heard of a single case of transgenderism that was not preceded by truly horrific psychological abuse. It does not happen to normal people.
Assange's offer to exchange himself for Manning is a self-aggrandising publicity stunt, and absolutely nothing more. The American military consider Manning a traitor to the point where he will never be allowed outside of a jail cell again, and that assumes that he is still alive at all. He has not been seen for a long time, and all we ever get are quotes and transcripts. They played that game with bin Laden for years too, before the fact that he was dead became too obvious for them to contain.
I know I will be downvoted for this. I will receive expressions of outrage from Millennials about the fact that I am crapping on their heroes. Truthfully though, given the consistent level of contempt for freedom that I have seen Millennials express on Reddit on an almost daily basis for the last five years, I do not understand why they admire Manning, Snowden, and Assange as much as they claim.
If we were going to hypothetically assume that any of these three were legitimate, then they stand for principles whicih are the diametric opposite of everything I've ever seen Reddit express. Reddit directly supports and condones censorship via downvoting, and justifies it with the dishonest claim that such is not censorship. Downvoting is also even worse than direct censorship as well, because if you care about your karma at all, it can constitute a genuine psychological attack; and that is also the entire objective.
Downvoting is intended to be a psychological attack. It is intended to be a bludgeon. It is intended to send the message that the person being downvoted has committed thoughtcrimes, and that they must be punished. Downvoting is in no way justifiable, and I will not tolerate as honest, any attempt made to justify it. It is purely and exclusively authoritarian.
So what gives, Reddit? Why do you claim to support those who advocate freedom of information, and expression? You do not care for those values yourselves. You are authoritarian Communists who never want to hear the opinion of anyone who disagrees with you. The only purpose of any subreddit on this site, is for people to receive confirmation and reinforcement, of their pre-existing opinions. Real debate does not exist anywhere on this site, and it never has.
Maybe there's some unconscious hypocrisy at work, here. Maybe you want the right to squash the opinion of anyone you disagree with yourselves, but you just don't want Hillary Clinton to have the same.
Go ahead. Silently downvote. Show me that you are exactly what I think you are.
2 OB1_kenobi 2016-09-17
I don't know about this. The Karma system is a lot more subtle than direct censorship. What it does is promote conformity.Even though a million karma can't buy you a cup of coffee, there's a psychological value... and that's the key.
Post a comment and get no upvotes? You feel like your insight (and brilliance?) got totally ignored. Post a comment and get 1000 upvotes? You feel validated by the group... like a hero. I'd be willing to bet serious money that a big Karma hit triggers the same neurotransmitter release you see when you win money gambling.
That's a reward system that has real power. People will say a bunch of crap that they don't really believe in if they think it means more upvotes. And they'll hold back from expressing their true feelings if there's a chance it could mean downvotes.
So the Karma system is a great way to get people to self-censor and build a false consensus. Even better, it's something that people take for granted without really noticing or thinking about it.
1 petrus4 2016-09-17
Yep. Along with the false claim of "democracy" built in. This site's downvoting mechanism is one of the most insidious forms of social control that I've ever seen; and so simple, too.
2 OB1_kenobi 2016-09-17
Simple, but tricky.
When I first came to reddit, the general idea was that karma points were a means of promoting civil discourse and "positivity". In reality, it seems to promote group think.
There is a flip side though. Even downvotes are useful. How? Say something that's controversial, but what you really think. If you get 20 or 30 downvotes, you know you got people's attention whether they admit it or not... and whether they like it or not.
Even when reddit does that thing where they hide the comment because it got multiple downvotes, a lot of people will click on it because they're curious to see what's getting all the downvotes. So that can backfire in a way. By hiding your comment, reddit is actually drawing more attention to it.
2 cutol 2016-09-17
Manning's transgender issues are documented pre-arrest. You're just shit-stirring here.
2 DrDougExeter 2016-09-17
Binney was first and revealed a ton of great info, but snowden stole and delivered the actual documents, the actual proof. That's the difference.
The thing is that you're saying the internet got worse as a result of snowden releasing the documents. Gov tightened their grip of control on the internet after his documents came out.
Well we know they did but I don't think we can place the blame for that on snowden. They were moving in that direction anyway. They had already built the mega center and the applications like Binney had talked about. If snowden hadn't have leaked the documents they would still be doing the same thing, we just wouldn't know about it. Just like they are doing all kinds of crazy things 3+ years later that we don't know about.
I just don't see what they would have had to gain by releasing the documents as some kind of psyop. Doesn't make any sense to me.
2 Turtletotem 2016-09-17
He should be pardoned and given a fucking medal.
1 [deleted] 2016-09-17
[deleted]
-1 ThereIsNoPresent 2016-09-17
So you saw the post, read the post, and typed this out in less than ten minutes? edit: http://m.imgur.com/qmingpo
1 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-17
forum spy 101: doubtmaking.
To get you to believe If someone has copypasta, they must be a spook
problem is its' pseudoskepticism, so without determining spook or non spook or looking into it further, I'm just nullifying your comment adn your doubt
1 ThereIsNoPresent 2016-09-17
You just accused me of being a spy because i didn't reply to someone. Then you do the same to me.
For you: np.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/536fql/should_edward_snowden_get_pardoned/d7qtzj0
0 ThereIsNoPresent 2016-09-17
You think i'm a spy? Because i didn't reply to them? What would i have said back to a fake account? what would be the point? You think they read and typed that fast?
Did you look into my account further?
What does your name mean? That number is weird.
What do you think about my last post? You ignored me a month ago when i asked for your thoughts about Reagan. I could repost if you were too busy or don't remember.
1 [deleted] 2016-09-17
[deleted]
1 ThereIsNoPresent 2016-09-17
http://m.imgur.com/qmingpo
1 [deleted] 2016-09-17
[deleted]
1 ThereIsNoPresent 2016-09-17
No, it proves i know bullshit when i see it. Being odd is definitely a good thing around here
1 fortuco 2016-09-17
Yes
1 Crayonaise 2016-09-17
3: Place another line for the bullet points to be enabled.
1 xxTh35ky15Fa11ingxx 2016-09-17
He should get a noble prize.
1 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-17
You don't have to pardon an employee of the intelligence community for doing their job
1 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-17
The people here saying "yes snowden should be pardoned" are not people I recognize, so I snooped their paperroll and found they are low post karma people with newish accounts.
I want to compare and contrast this 'uniformity of opinion' with the much more hotly debated opinion from the last few years where several were complaining that Snowden might be a limited hangout. I argued against, but found new information and now I believe he is a limited hangout. Sorry!
But what I think is interesting is you have these people coming here and saying 'yay give him a metal' now that the general consensus held in the last couple of months has shifted to 'yes he's a limited hangout'. people will be swayed by Oliver Stone also, but don't trust him--he's totally control grid. We've proven that also, since like the 90s
Isn't that curious he's now being utilized to control this narrative?
This is more Cass Sunstane control grid trying to cognitively infiltrate once again with their forum spy astroturf brigade. The problem is
We have a dossier now bitches and we're coming for you. If you astroturfed, even once, you're in big fucking trouble @ regimechange time. It would be best if you started to leave our country starting now. You don't have any idea how fast things can change and how bad this will be for you and your families
1 theultimatewarriors 2016-09-17
I tried to hide the Snowden title in plain site. It wasn't a question on my part and was actually framed from titles on media sites asking the question. My title was the assumption that it happens and what that assumption could mean in some future sense. I argued for Snowden many times but have argued against him many times and have even argued on the other side of being against him in the sense that what he did was controlled whether it was good or bad, control made it bad.
In the end, when talking politics or social control, the problem isn't even the subject, it's about who's controlling the questions. Control the questions and good or bad doesn't matter if you can manage both sides. Control the questions and Snowden doesn't matter if the question becomes encryption and data protection, encryption could help you fulfill your plan if you have control in place and Snowden being a hero or not is just another card to use later. Control the questions and Democrat or Republican becomes the answer and both have been shown to be controllable. Control the questions and context doesn't matter, all that matters is "are you in the group who believes in guns or not, are you in the group who is for abortions or not"... Questions that divide us all into controllable groups and make us hate. It really does comeback to caring about our interactions with each other and avoiding hate or letting someone speak for us. Keep it in context keep it local, keep peers running their own communities (it's clear Internet moderation is a controllable scheme in the long run, Reddit proved that).
I don't know if Snowden is or isn't something, I've never met the guy. I know that what happened from that was very suspicious, and divided us and forever changed the Internet. I think the big difference is that if you were to control something, it's clear that AI is the future in picking that up. Beating AI takes eliminating patterns and hiding things with subtleties. Maybe those who are against it can take some tricks from the controllers and learn how to hide things in plain site. Or use subterfuge and hide things, we learned how to do that in person with body language, but online doesn't provide that. Might be some areas to look towards the art communities for. I'm not sure yet.
1 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-17
OP (because it's not worth discussing this to forum spies):
Something that bothered me about Snowden was that he said "my job is done" in an airport press conference on July 2013[1][2], which reporters took to mean 'about informing the public about mass surveillance'. The timing always unsettled me because shortly before, in June, one month before this conference, there were articles talking about Panopticon and "what surveillance means for justice and rights" type stories[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
So that's the big reveal. Not just the disclosures but the "the idea that the disclosures accomplished nothing except to remind us that we know about them and can do nothing about them"---the is the core of the panopticon theory and how it creates a psychological shut down and puts people under 'total control'.
Because it was all not just about letting the public know about mass surveillance, but letting them know that the deep state knows they know because it let them know... and the effect of letting the public know that this whole 'reveal' was engineered by the intelligence complex creates a panopticon whose goal is to cause deep anxiety that puts everyone under cultural stockholms syndrome, betrayed and forsaken by their supposed masters--the powers that shouldn't be--abused and mocked, psychologically terrorized in perpetuity.
Snowden's job then wasn't to be an activist working for the people, but an activist working for the state to shut down everyone with abject fear of a gangster computer god worldwide secret containment policy, whose goal is 1) panopticon, 2) total information awareness and 3) pattern of life analysis of everyone on the planet. Don't believe it, try reading the news
edit: links
1 theultimatewarriors 2016-09-17
This response is awesome. It made me really think.
There were multiple roles in the Snowden thing. It wasn't just Snowden, and for a while even the guy reporting it got headlines for a while. Glenn Greenwald left for Brazil for a while, and Snowden left for Russia. They both had significant others from those countries and were part of the headlines at one point (I still don't know how Snowden's girlfriend could have possibly made it from Hawaii to Russia with Snowden and not gotten caught, he at least had a head start and she didn't according to the "official story")
Think Brazil and Russia were part of the panopticon? It makes sense if that's the case. I mean all the things that happened with Ukraine and Russia kind of had a similar timeline.
Plots within plots within plots. You can't keep track of all the plots, but you can keep tracking the questions they ask and know how they want to influence the public one way or the other, and then control both sides.
1 littleboylost78 2016-09-17
Yup.
2 HangoutUnlimited 2016-09-17
We even get a oliver stone blockbuster out of it to set the narrative in "stone".
1 theultimatewarriors 2016-09-17
This response is awesome. It made me really think.
There were multiple roles in the Snowden thing. It wasn't just Snowden, and for a while even the guy reporting it got headlines for a while. Glenn Greenwald left for Brazil for a while, and Snowden left for Russia. They both had significant others from those countries and were part of the headlines at one point (I still don't know how Snowden's girlfriend could have possibly made it from Hawaii to Russia with Snowden and not gotten caught, he at least had a head start and she didn't according to the "official story")
Think Brazil and Russia were part of the panopticon? It makes sense if that's the case. I mean all the things that happened with Ukraine and Russia kind of had a similar timeline.
Plots within plots within plots. You can't keep track of all the plots, but you can keep tracking the questions they ask and know how they want to influence the public one way or the other, and then control both sides.