
I went to the same school as Julian Assange, but we learned different lessons - ph0rque
http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/other/i-went-to-the-same-school-as-julian-assange-but-we-learned-different-lessons-2936
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Daishiman
Unfortunately I cannot say I agree with Vinay completely. He himself lays out
the premise that most of the political power is held by the old bureaucrats. I
would in fact correct him and say that, at least in Western democracies, it's
held by powerful lobbies and economical entities.

Neither the lobbies nor the corporations are entities that were ever voted or
chosen by the people, and the only thing the last two years of politics in the
West have shown us is that it's pretty astounding just how much they can get
away with flexing their political muscle without suffering any consequences,
even if the power they exert affect the vast, vast majority of the population
negatively.

What that would imply is that the democratic process is corrupt to a point
where supporting progressives is reduced to being merely a gesture; Obama won
the elections because there was a certain expectation of correcting many
perceived problems of the "old establishment". He was unable to fix any of
them, and in fact contributed to furthering the power of these interests.

At this point, the calculated balance Vinay hints at just falls flat on its
face. And while it's true that there are many political powers that are
downright illegal and obscure in everything they do (such as the mafias he
hints at, and at more contemporary level, some massive drug cartels), the
reality is that the institutions that threaten out freedoms act very much
legally and partially in the open. And against such institutions, Assange's
plan works remarkably well, as evidenced by much of the political action that
some of the Wikileaks papers has helped fuel in the past few years. Not only
that, but it can still claim a certain level of moral legitimacy that many
governments are willing to stand up for, and part of the reason they _have_ to
speak openly is because some of the world issues Wikileaks has raised are just
too big to keep quiet. I doubt that other, more conventional methods of
"working with the system" would have gone that far.

~~~
antihero
Indeed, I can see how he may need the state, but he has too much faith in the
idea that the people running the show are trying to do the best thing for
everyone. My inner cynic tells me that the people at the top are acting mostly
in the interest of the other wealthy people they have dinner with, who fund
their campaigns, who's kids go to the same school, etcetera.

Wikileaks is important because there needs to be more transparency in what the
government is actually doing so we can make our own, reasoned decisions, as
opposed to ones based on the biased, filtered, partisan commentary of the
media. It's by no means perfect, but it's better than the mainstream media.

------
a3camero
"We don’t suffer from too much governance, we suffer from too little".

It's funny that someone who was an illegal immigrant would support more
governance when that's exactly the sort of thing that would have kicked him
out of the country and led to him not having much interest in how the US is
governed!

Perhaps he means "his sort of governance" is what's needed because I'm fairly
sure he wouldn't like the consequences of ramping up regulation of everything.
See all the SOPA posts for details.

~~~
brendn
Why does "more governance" necessarily mean deportation? I fail to see the
connection. Can't "more governance" mean better bureaucracy for documenting
immigrants?

~~~
a3camero
If they had been enforcing the law more vigorously he probably wouldn't have
had a chance to be an illegal immigrant. He'd have been deported.

~~~
mc32
Maybe he was willing to allow some self-sacrifice?

So instead of state agents being outed, or secrets being revealed as Assange
would sacrifice for his beliefs, Gupta would allow some self sacrifice for his
beliefs.

For me the main take-away was the need for a more refined OWS mission. One
focused on solutions rather than one focused on venting frustration and
fomenting division.

------
moxie
Wow, if you're going to be a wingnut, at least be an interesting one. This guy
appears to have employed a lifetime of wingnuttery in order to arrive at
neoliberalism. That's a lot of effort in order to be a cheerleader for the
status quo.

You can say this and that about Assange, but at least he's done something more
than making up interesting sounding titles for himself. This article sounds a
lot like "choose your team" to me, and Vinay is very clear about who's team
he's on.

If he "goes after" OWS, he will be ignored, although I would expect him to
write several papers about how influential he was after the fact. If you try
to apply engineering logic to politics, you don't get it.

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leashless
Hi, I'm Vinay, the author of the piece.

Two points.

A) crazybear, yes, see <http://guptaoption.com/2.long_peace.php> for more on
this question about "what should government be doing, and what should it let
go of?"

B) I'm not, remotely, neoliberal. "I do not fear the State, I fear the State
will collapse before we have a meaningful alternative." I'm a Gandhian, which
means that in Western terms I'm probably closest to Anarchosyndicalism.

But at a pragmatic level, I don't trust decentralization without a clear
approach to managing small groups creating global risks, and that's an open
question on all fronts right now. Nobody has a clue how to do it effectively,
and the clock ticks.

------
crazybear
The biggest issue I see with this article is that, like many people, it
attempts to break down the issue of governance into one of more vs less:

 _We don’t suffer from_ too much _governance, we suffer from_ too little _: no
effective climate regulation, no effective nanobio risk regulation._

In particular, the author seems to favor government actions when it protects
people from violent or unintentionally dangerous acts of others.

But this isn't the same as "more governance". Most of what existing western
governments do is not protecting against the mafia, climate change or rogue
nanobots. It's redistribution schemes - from the taxpayer to
Blackwater/Solyndra/RIAA, from the young to the old or from private sector
workers to public sector workers.

In particular, when Vinay mentions the state going bankrupt, it's the
redistribution schemes that comprise the bulk of the problem, not protection
against men with guns and nanobots.

One could easily increase the governance Vinay wants while dramatically
reducing governance overall, or vice versa.

~~~
ericingram
Good point here. I tend to say we need less government, but the size itself is
not the issue, rather particular powers.

It is true though, that the bigger a government gets, the more abusive it
tends to be.

------
rrrazdan
"WikiLeaks is acting as a marketplace for illicit information, literally a
clearing house. This model, with its unconscious capitalist/economics language
bias, is the key reason to doubt the long-term effectiveness of this
strategy."

I didn't get this. Can somebody explain this to me! How and where did Assange
say something that led the OP to infer this?

~~~
olefoo
Shortest version that you would understand without being given a comprehensive
education in the last three decades of political philosophy:

"If you use the language of your enemy, you become your enemy."

------
medius
Also, Megamind and Metroman went to the same school, but learned different
lessons.

