Comment by AvenueIngres | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AvenueIngres | Hacker News Reader

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> Hundreds of comments and conspiracy theories.

There was little to no information available and Wikileaks had released pre-commitment hashes just hours before.

Conspiracy theories are not intrinsically evil you know. They are a natural byproduct of lack of information + high stake issue.

And it should be no surprise that conspiracy theories arise when talking about Wikileaks, a non-profit defying the most powerful political/military apparatus on earth. And with that, right in the middle of v. high-stake national election.

People speculate, they try to infer what is going on despite lacking information and uncover hidden power dynamics. I recommend you read Thucydides's War on Peloponnese just so you can realize how conspiracies are daily occurrences in politics and any structure that holds power. Now what you should not do is believe all of them uncritically. This is another thing. I don't think it is the case here.

> how reactionary we are?

I don't think we have the same definition for the word reactionary? What do you mean?

Wow. I admit it. I went all these years without actually knowing the meaning of the word "reactionary".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary

It's one of those words you think you can derive meaning from using context clues, but in this case I was wrong.

That is really not the word I thought I was saying.

The word I should have used is "impulsive".

Thank you for correcting me and teaching me something new.

Ha! No worries friend, it happens to me all the time!

I was surprised by this word too, some two years ago. You never know when a phrase you took for granted actually turns out to be a political label!

"Natural" doesn't necessarily mean "good." Yes, conspiracy theories are a natural byproduct here, but they're still ridiculous. Everyone immediately assumed, on the basis of nothing, that the US or the UK had cut him off, that they wanted to assassinate him, and even crazier stuff. Yet it turns out that his hosts just changed the WiFi password on him, or similar. Maybe they're tired of him crashing on their couch rent-free.

It's a big problem because people mostly don't notice corrections. A lot of people will remember that the US or UK cut off Assange's internet in an attempt to stop the flow of leaks. And of course WikiLeaks deliberately prompted this by making their initial announcement extremely vague and suggestive. The result is that a bunch of people now possess negative information on this issue. They're contributing to the dumbing down of the world.

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