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Comment by CM30 | Hacker News Reader

The simple answer is stop being concerned with your own lifestyle and do what's right, consequences be damned. Edward Snowden at least had the guts to throw his entire life away to bring attention to something he thought was morally wrong.

The lack of that sort of courage is why the world is going to hell. Today's attitudes of prioritising personal 'comfort' over what's right is why this sort of crap is being allowed to happen.

The best solution for a company in this situation (especially a large one) is to blow the whistle to the media and watch the fallout. Oh sure, you might not come out alright, but the media and internet reaction would certainly be fierce, and the reputation of any government involved would go to hell extremely quickly.

More the reputation goes, the harder it is to stay 'legitimate' and keep in power. Same thing goes for companies trying to shut down smaller ones and individuals through threats.

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Given the extreme zeal for liberty and freedom espoused by the tech crowd in the early 90's its more than sad, no a complete tragedy that there is just one Snowden today and hundreds of thousands of others who 'toil' away silently actively building this.

Here was your turn to do your bit, something meaningful and what we get instead is a complete co-option into the system. No activism, no protest, very few whistle blowers, especially since you of all other groups would be alert to the possibilities, where is the movement? There has been real sacrifice and sustained, persistent struggle to get here, values have a cost to the individual, if one balks if there is a cost then its just empty words and mass delusion.

And thus there is no shame, no movement, no activism, no code of conduct, no moral pressure to dissociate with these kind of activities or to call out all these people in any technology fora, even today when its out in the open.

And it's just not their failing. Modern populations seem to be completely unequal to any kind of meaningful activism and change. There is such a debilitating focus on individualism, and the completely irrelevance of wider community and other interests that the only real thing left is self interest and self interest has no 'values' or value, beyond expediency and survival.

People who call out such get banned in places like HN.

An open discussion of government corruption and oppression is essentially impossible here.

Its very easy to ask others to sacrifice themselves fir your own good. Different to be willing to do it yourself. While I agree hive mind values should be considered above the individual, Its far easier said than done.

But from what i understand, the nsa chooses to train individuals in part based on psychological aspects. I wish i could find where i read that

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