NSA Said to Use Manhattan Tower as Listening Post | Hacker News Reader

NSA Said to Use Manhattan Tower as Listening Post

nytimes.com

184 pointsdanso181 comments

In many ways the building is a monument to privacy - the kind of twisted privacy where the state can keep whatever it wants secret, but a citizens life is rigorously documented and explorable.

It's the kind of relationship you expect between a newly enrolled soldier and their drill sergeant, not between a citizen and their government.

Most of the privacy violation is done by private industry.

And? That doesn't change the fact that the government makes up the rest of it. Besides, a not insignificant amount of the private sector's invasion of privacy has been at the behest of the government:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/04/yahoo-sec...

The article covers that in the final paragraph.

"For all the powerful machinery available to government surveillance programs, they are subject to some court jurisdiction. That is not the case for commercial surveillance: Every aspect of daily life is tracked by smartphone apps, social media and websites. Whatever spying may go on at 33 Thomas Street would at least still be subject to legal oversight. The building really may be a monument to quaint ideas about privacy."

The pictures in this NYT article are worse than useless... the header image I'm pretty sure is CGI, or heavily Photoshopped to the point where it looks like it's CGI. We then go to a 1970's model of the entrance to the building for some reason, and then finish it up with a picture of a security camera on the outside of a concrete wall (part of the building? I guess?)

If you click through to The Intercept's article, you get two night-time pictures of the building, the same 1970's model of the entrance (for whatever reason), another night time shot that's too close to make out the building and where the actual focus of the shot is the building behind it, a picture of the intercom (wtf), a blueprint of one of the floors, a fucking sketch of the lobby, a picture of the satellite dishes on top of the building, a Visio document of their network diagram, a logo for one of their programs, another night time picture of the entrance to the building, and then finally a picture from nearly 30 years ago of a man sitting at a computer.

There are way too many pictures in this article that is about a building yet there are zero pictures of the actual building itself! First of all, I thought "Manhattan Tower" was the name of the building. Turns out it's just some building in Manhattan. But for an article about a building, there's a conspicuous lack of pictures of the actual building itself.

Here is a less dramatized photo: https://cryptome.org/eyeball/nytel/33-thomas-070802.jpg

It's still pretty dramatic, though. Personally I've always loved walking past that building.

[edit]

Just to clarify, the NYT photo is certainly not CGI. It's just over saturated. That's really what it looks like when you are standing at the base of the building.

TBH they could not have selected a better building architecturally for their uses if they want to be the ministry of truth ;)

This actually looks like one of the buildings in Gilliam's Brazil, wasn't that Ministry of Information!?

A few years ago I spent a while staring at the building because I had a hotel room on a night floor in the Marquis Times Square and it was right there in front of me. It looks like a typical concrete skyscraper but with no windows. At the time I figured it was a telecoms facility, architected in the local style of Manhattan. Some Googling and reading on the 'pedia confirmed that analysis.

There are similar, if not quite so large, buildings in all large cities. There's one in Chicago. There's even one in Silicon Valley, on the North side of Central, near to Bowers.

The building you're referring to is not the building discussed in this article. I've also stayed in the Marriott Marquis in Times Square but this building (33 Thomas Street, the "AT&T Long Lines Building") is down in Lower Manhattan, quite a distance away from Times Square.

Here's a fun webpage about some of the ugly telco buildings in NYC!

https://cryptome.org/eyeball/nytel/nytel-eyeball.htm

The Verizon building (hub 4) seems to be getting mostly repurposed - http://newyorkyimby.com/2016/08/former-verizon-building-at-3...

I saw that the other day. I used to think I couldn't dislike that building any more than I did...

This is actually what the Long Lines building looks like in real life. I'm not sure what you are objecting to. The saturation level of the sky looks enhanced, probably to add contrast to the building's surface which is quite dull and muted. But the building itself is naturally dramatic in a dystopian or Art Brut kind of way.

The first picture is exactly what it looks like.

I clicked on the link just to look at the pictures, noticed there weren't any, so looked elsewhere online.

I'm gonna guess that this is supposed to be part of the theme of article, the unobservable observers.

Wikipedia has plenty of pics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street

Actual source:

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-...

Excellent. I see it fit to change the URL to this one.

On a tangential note, the NYT article has no extra information and sources this openly accessible link. I think it's outrageous the Times has the guts to put this article behind a paywall (if you're over the 10 article limit per month) given that there is so little extra to see.

Don't get me wrong -- I understand paywalls but semi-blatant copy/pasting and then asking for money is not the way to go IMHO.

That said, go read the original if you haven't (not directed at revelation) it's much better and more detailed.

Posted two days ago, with two comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12970683

This building certainly looks like one that would be used by a secret all-seeing totalitarian overlord http://i.imgur.com/KO0tKXS.png

Reminds me of the Tyrell Corporation building in Blade Runner.

http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=c&panoid=SCXuuNI7s_IMT2vxm...

> Reminds me of the Tyrell Corporation building in Blade Runner.

Reminds me of the building Tyrell and Elliot look at in Mr Robot, the "belly of the beast" building. Maybe that's because the two are the same building :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street

> As it was built to house telephone switching equipment, the average floor height is 18 feet (5.5 meters), considerably taller than in an average high-rise. The floors are also unusually strong, designed to carry 200 to 300 pound per square foot (10–15 kPa) live loads.

Good conditions to retrofit a data/processing center

The description of the building and it's brutalist architecture are also remniscient of the machine building described in The Difference Engine (Gibson).

That is the AT&T long lines building. It was built to handled telephone switches. Of course unlawful domestic surveillance happens there.

One of my personal favourites is the fancy bit of architecture hanging over the entry to the Family Court of Australia, Adelaide.

http://www.markforthandassociates.com.au/wp-content/uploads/...

As if that thing doesn't make you feel like The Government is observing your family life. Which, I guess, if you have reason to go there, it is.

Little off-topic, but I don't think I've seen a JPG that loads initially as low-res grayscale before the colour loads in before.

Thank you- I honestly thought I had (temporarily) lost my sanity for a split second when it flipped.

I hadn't seen that before either, and didn't see it in this image until I checked on my mobile where it loaded slower.

Nice observation.

There's a similarly-styled AT&T building in Seattle, near the Space Needle.

The NSA has a spy hub in NYC? You don't say. They've only been there since before the NSA was even a thing. You know what they did out of New York, prior to becoming the NSA? Spied on international telegrams. Except in that case the three major telegram companies would bring them copies of all the international telegrams every single day.

But, cool, we have their new address now. At a building that was obviously a telecom hub to anyone technically minded.

I'm more interested in the architecture, honestly - we already knew the NSA had telco cooperation and (I think I'd already heard?) access to their facilities. But that one of those facilities is an honest-to-god skyscraper that someone tried to make nuclear-bomb-proof? That's fantastic.

The Intercept article that this NYT article is based on is much more interesting. Covers a lot more of the architecture stuff.

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-...

This sketch is particularly stunning: https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/20...

Sorry, should have mentioned that I skipped the NYT and went straight to that :-)

They're actually not uncommon.

Seattle: http://i.imgur.com/O9FGxHM.png

SF: http://i.imgur.com/R9qtuY2.jpg

Just look for a big building with no windows and lots of security.

For a few years, any time I got a new camera I'd use the ATT/SBC central office here in Houston as my test subject for comparison shots:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/418219038/

I love how the old logo is still visible as a slightly cleaner section of the concrete.

In the UK all the GPO and later BT had contingency plans for nuclear war

https://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/tag/british-telecom/

They are also name checked in the laundry files.

> ...skyscraper that someone tried to make nuclear-bomb-proof (...) That's fantastic.

Given the state-of-art nuclear weapons in the early 70s, it's fantastic in the unbelievable sense as the thing would stick out like a sore thumb from the sky for just about any missile. And if zero point had been chosen somewhere above the structure, there very likely would really be no building left. Whatever was so important within would have to be to be dug down deep far, far below -- makes the whole thing pointless unless as a diversion from something else. And anyway if it was the real deal, then as of at least a couple years now, probably no longer.

I'm sceptical of its supposed 'nuclear proofing'. There are no apparent channels for blast pass-through or dissipation so the full force would act against the entire exposed face of the building. In that case it would act as a giant lever on its foundations.

It looks more like a hugely scaled-up traditional 'bomb-proof' bunker.

As an example of a structure that did survive a much lesser nuclear blast, the Fukoku building in Hiroshima was 270 metres from groud-zero and remained structurally intact as the blast blew through all the aligned windows:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8adFNycaanI/TQlhoXfPW0I/AAAAAAAABt...

Well, in midtown Manhattan it wouldn't stand out that will. I'm equally skeptical of its durability against a close hit.

Although in any case, I think Cold War ICBM accuracy (CEPs on the order of half a mile to several miles, depending on period) would be more of an issue than target identification.

Yes it is actually the architectural history of all this that makes it interesting to me as well. It's the hidden landscape within/around/between/under our cities that's quite fascinating. It's also a prescient observation that modern institutions of surveillence must necessarily evolve alongside our basic infrastructure.

I feel like evil institutions don't even bother trying to hide their evil any more.

If you look at a photo of the building, it's pretty much exactly what you would expect a dystopian secret police to operate out of. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street

AT&T Long Lines sites look menacing because they were designed to keep humming while we retaliated against the USSR at the end of the world.

There are former Long Lines sites around the country, from urban high-rises to lonely fenced-in microwave horn antennas atop bunkers, miles from the nearest towns and sometimes accessible only by helicopter. A good few are next to highways and train tracks, which is how I came to start reading about them.

They provided rural telephony for civilians, but were also part of the Cold War-era continuity-of-government system connecting SAC bases and missile silos.

There's a fairly dedicated hobbyist community cataloguing the sites [0]. A remote Long Lines site also played a role in the Death Valley Germans story, which got some pretty good discussion on HN a while ago [1].

[0] http://long-lines.net/places-routes/

[1] http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun...

There are similar AT&T buildings scattered throughout the country built to similar specification. Here's one in West Palm Beach - https://goo.gl/maps/VD42JWpnp8P2

Yes, it's a very common design that many switching building incorporated in that era. They're all over Canada as well.

They might be same in windowlessness, but the scale is completely different.

Here's a photo that more better captures its size:

https://www.emporis.com/images/show/446315-Large-fullheightv...

I don't see the big deal here, not from your comment or about the article.

Every agency has to operate from someplace. It makes sense that spy agencies operate from non-descript locations. Unless your argument is that NSA should not exist altogether, or that it should not operate on American soil, I honestly don't understand what the fuss is about.

And I say this as a _staunch_ opponent of domestic surveillance.

My comment was primarily about the aesthetics of the NSA. They don't seem to bother with trying to appear good or friendly.

> It makes sense that spy agencies operate from non-descript locations.

The building is the opposite of nondescript. A 30-story building in Manhattan with no windows stands out a lot more than if they dressed it up with windows.

I also happen to think the NSA should be completely disbanded and replaced with an agency which solely focuses on international espionage.

Its portably more a telco thing some of the uk's big telecoms buildings are butt ugly. Baynard House and the main lab building at martesham in particular.

One American burst out "its a f&^king prison" when he visited martelsham.

Very true. I observed that as well. Another example if FBI building in DC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover_Building#/medi...

It looks ugly and menacing in the pictures, it is even more so walking next to it.

That reminds me of this stellar Steve Bannon (the new chief strategist in the whitehouse) interview with CNN where he talks about "darkness" as being good and powerful, like "Dick Cheney, Darth Vader, Satan". I had to check the URL maybe 3 time to make sure I wasn't reading the onion.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/18/politics/steve-bannon-donald-t...

Edit: I don't think this thread is the place to discuss that.

"Conservative Christians apparently think an admirer of Satan and the 1930s is a good guy."

That's a pretty sweeping generalization, wouldn't you say? Just considering how fractured religion is, if nothing else.

Eh, it seems relevant to the parent comment to me, about organizations not attempting to hide their "evil villain"-like attributes. Reasonable people can disagree.

It's interesting to point that it was at the center of Mr Robot season 2 ! Maybe they knew

I looked up that location based on the street signage there, some business that has apparently gone under, and got to see a street view of where they were. It looked like some interesting CGI but there it was, in the real world.

Life is stranger than fiction sometimes.

How can anyone seeing that building not think that there's some shifty surveillance stuff going on there?

To me, it very much looks like a giant telco Central Office... where shifty surveillance stuff has been happening since at least 1885 [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Corporation] Note that The Intercept's article compared it in that manner.

It is basically a big CO. It only has 29 floors, each 18 ft high for the equipment racks.

Having worked at many similar facilities and plenty in the telecom space, this seems like a lot of speculation. Nondescript buildings owned by telecoms are literally all over the place and the telecom requirements in that area - while a fraction of what they used to be - are still quite large. It would be surprising if a large CO was not present in that area.

Meanwhile, all the other nations on Earth are tuning into the unsecured calls to and from a different Manhattan tower:

http://www.trumptowerny.com

Not to be flip, but if you've ever walked by this building this news has to be amongst the least surprising things I've ever read.

>The article and film say that Titanpointe was one of the facilities used to collect communications — with permission granted by judges — from international entities that have at least some operations in New York, such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and 38 countries.

It's good to know that we're spying on the IMF and the World Bank. To me, it shows that we can easily position ourselves and cannot be held hostage by either of those organizations.

I have lost hope in the future.

Guantanamo is still open, the NSA is as powerful as ever, a partisan puppet has been installed at the CIA, and Trump has all of these tools at his disposable.

The UK just codified all of their past illegal surveillance activities.

I don't think I will have children.

I wish you do adopt children and read 1984 and Brave New World to them. It will take more than a generation to drive us into the ground, and I like to believe it's not too late to forcefully swing the pendulum back.

>It will take more than a generation to drive us into the ground

It did take more than a generation to drive us into the ground.

>A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both

Nothing you can do about it. Trump and Clinton had the same motivations: they both want to own you, enrich themselves and their friends, and they don't care about anything else. With regard to foreign policy, they support the same nations abroad, will keep sending them money, some of which abuse human rights, and deamonize the same enemies.

Obama never gave a shit about civil liberties or human rights. Largest criminal investigation against journalists ever in the entire history of America. Guantanamo still open. Administration uses newspeak to criminalize Snowden. Largest funding sent to militarized human-rights-abusing foreign nation states in history of the country. Increased military presence throughout the world despite the fact Americans are at least over 50 times more likely to be killed by our own domestic police officers than by a terrorist. Jesus christ.

Until the day that reading 1984 gets you arrested. Think that's impossible? That's what happens in Thailand [1] where you also get arrested for the hunger games salute among other things. Think that won't happen in America? I hope you are right.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/thailand...

I fear, swinging the pendulum back will not be happen without violence, this time. Too many hate-trains are on collision course with kindness and logic.

Please don't read 1984 to your children.

The message of that book is 'resistance is futile'. Nothing, not even love (per Mr. Blair) is strong enough to resist the power structure. It is propaganda designed to completely crush the spirit without offering even a single remedy.

That is 100% not the message.

What is the message then? How does the "hero" end up in 1984?

   Under the spreading chestnut tree
   I sold you and you sold me.

Tell me it ain't so, pmcginn.

That one sentence is not the message, the message is

  An extreme totalitarian surveillance state will 
  eventually converge to punishing acts like extra 
  marital sex or keeping a diary with personalized 
  torture until victims are broken beyond any thought 
  of hostility towards their authority figures.

Which is a damn good thing for children to think about. People really are that bad, so hold your freedoms close.

Horses for courses.

I'll read Lord of The Rings to my kids and let thoughts of Frodo give them the courage and the hope, and I suppose you can terrorize your kids by reading them about "rat face cages" and betrayals and fear culminating in a sit down in Chestnut Tree cafe drinking Victory Gin.

oh dearism

http://www.dw.com/en/david-petraeus-the-washington-elite-hav...

What is the message then?

It's right there in The Party's second-favorite slogan:

    Who controls the past controls the future.  Who controls the present controls the past.

The task of finding similarities to current events in the world (and the U.S. in particular, this past year) is left as an exercise for the reader.

The message is fear this. Don't ever let it get this bad because no one is fixing it once it does.

I said this jokingly recently at a talk about what effect Snowden has had and people laughed then actually said it makes sense.

Fundamentally the Snowden relations haven't lead to serious legal or operational change. Why is that? Because knowing all the technical information about PRISM etc is interesting for techies but it hasn't resonated with policymakers. They act on personal interests and those personal interests are dictated by a fear of looking soft on terrorism, crime or child porn etc.

So in theory what should a new Edward Snowden do in the future in make policy change?

Well having worked in Westminster Parliament, I think (if possible) he should release one month's worth of communications (email, SMS, web history) between MPs or House Members/Senators in the USA..

Why? Because that will change the personal risk calculous for policymakers. Without wanting to be crude, if you have ever worked in a parliament, a huge chunk of parliamentarians have something to hide - they are fucking someone else, they do coke like it's going out of fashion, they vote against things when they secretly do it themselves etc.

Parliamentarians always write bills with added protection for themselves which their citizens are not privy too (the Wilson Rule in the UK for example). Now at times that privilege is important (e.g speaking rights without threat of libel etc) but often it serves parliament to pass laws safe in the knowledge that they won't be subject to them.

Think I'm being ridiculous? Maybe I am, but remember what happened with the Senate Intelligence Committee over Snowden revelations (not much) and compare that to what happened when the CIA got caught spying on the Senate and interfering with the route report (people got torn a new asshole). That's because the US parliamentarians suddenly felt the same sense of violating that they were happy to allow citizens to be targeted by.

...anyway this is just a thought experiment but happy for others to point other ridiculous ideas - cos change is getting further away than ever.

This is definitely not a ridiculous idea. Basically, this will make politicians have more "skin in the game".

Otherwise, there is a misalignment of incentives for the elected representatives as you point out.

For an (unrelated) example of this misalignment, N.N Taleb outlines in his works why most financial "news" or "recommendations" are completely useless - the people peddling the "news" are trying to sell a story. If they actually put their own money (like their personal savings account) based off their recommendations, a lot of them would disappear very quickly. At the moment, most of them have no "skin in the game".

What's worse, is with every discovery and every leak, if nothing is done, it just emboldens the perpetrators.

Binney came out and told everyone what's was happening. Nothing happened. Snowden appeared, there was a lot of talk but not much has been done. Did Obama put an end to it? No.

They just implemented a buddy-system (like "no-lone" zones in nuclear silos) to prevent rogue whistleblowers from doing what he did. But besides that that, they of course learned, people in large agree with it and tacitly approved, so might as well double down on surveillance.

I'm also worried about what will happen, but the best way to predict the future is to invent it. We're not a helpless bystanders. Organize with others and do something about it.

> thing

The Democrats and Obama had eight long years to do something so that we wouldn't be in a situation where a fanatic like Trump would have this at his disposal and ... nothing. That's what I'm really upset about.

Neither party is for us anymore.

He made the situation far worse. Under Obama we have increased police militarization, expansion of the surveillance state, unchecked abuse at CIA black sites, consolidation of executive power, new undeclared wars, and more. No one even made a peep when Obama signed the 2012 NDAA that allows for indefinite detention of American citizens without trial. And now there is a precedent, ripe for abuse under fascist Donald Trump, of killing American citizens without trial (Obama signed off on the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old grandson by drone).

To be clear, I find it just as horrific when non-American citizens are jailed indefinitely and killed extra-judicially, but to me those last two examples reveal that Obama doesn't even follow the moral code that he pays lip service to. He's empty, a badly disguised wolf in sheep's clothing, but nearly everyone fell for it.

>He made the situation far worse. Under Obama we have increased police militarization, expansion of the surveillance state, unchecked abuse at CIA black sites, consolidation of executive power, new undeclared wars, and more.

It appears that the majority of Americans are very focused on the election drama and inconsequential distractions while the elite in this country can do anything they want, raping children and getting away with it. You think that's an exaggeration, don't you?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/who-is-jeff...

One of Bill Clinton's best friends with connections to Bitish Royalty was convicted for raping children. Many said he should have been sent away for most of his life. Served 13 months, special cell, nights only, allowed to leave from 7am - 11pm. Officers in charge of investigation resigned. Imagine what people are not getting caught for. This is too insane to be true.

I'm well aware of the Clinton's (and Trump's) connections to Epstein. I am very curious how the newer revelations of their connections to Laura Silsby, and of Podesta's connections to people like Dennis Hastert, will turn out. I don't want to form any strong conclusions yet, because some of the recent "pizzagate" claims are relying on thin evidence, but nothing would shock me anymore.

Here's another elite getting special treatment after raping his three year old daughter:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/02/justice/delaware-du-pont-r...

Here's Blackwater founder Erik Prince (not necessarily someone I trust in the slightest) making some enormous claims about the investigation into Anthony Weiner's laptop:

http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/11/04/erik-prince-nypd-r...

I never thought I'd see the day where I'm citing Breitbart and Erik Prince, but reality is stranger than fiction these days and I'm not sure what the hell to believe anymore.

>I'm not sure what the hell to believe anymore.

Exactly. So just bear in mind, when the war against independent media is won, your children won't have to worry about that. Then they will be told what is appropriate for them to see and hear, and by consequence, what to think.

Yes there's a lot of really shit people out there with a website and news headlines. That by itself is not a good reason to throw away the first amendment and grant the government and largest corporations the right to control what people see and hear. What's even more troubling, is there's no evidence that the majority of "fake news" is even what the mainstream media says it is. If you read this and don't believe me:

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/18/the-stark-contrast-betwe...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12997038

You're preaching to the choir :) I find it totally revolting that the response from the left to Trump's election is to blame "fake news", as if it's possible for an algorithm or even a very intelligent human to determine with certainty what is real and what is fake, and as if the largest media organizations haven't themselves been pushing "fake news" for a long time now.

Yes, it is revolting. They're doubling down on their strategy, and with that we lose more of our civil rights. For fuck's sake will this train wreck be stopped?

Independent news is already marginalized and criminalized. Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald have had that happen to them. Wikileaks is being attacked like a criminal organization. Once all the people like that are dealt with there's nothing left. Rotten to the core.

> Guantanamo is still open, the NSA is as powerful as ever, a partisan puppet has been installed at the CIA, and Trump has all of these tools at his disposable.

So, corrupted insiders installed all those tools. Now an outsider gets elected into White House. You know what are the requirements for the post, right? At least 35 years old, American. All parts of that corrupted clique, from Hillary to Jon Stewart, fought tooth and nail to prevent him from being elected. Hillary was known evil. Trump is basically a big unknown. Why can't you give this man a chance?

EDIT. I guess I'm judging American politics by European standards. America are so deep in superficial fluff that it can't see what really happened. Left has lost everything because of bullshit of its progressive wing. Outsider has won White House. And you people are talking about Trump being racist - a "fact" discovered during the most vicious presidential campaign of last 50? years.

We've known Trump was a racist long before he ran for office. He's not an outsider or a newcomer to American public life.

In fact, his entry into "serious" American political life (that is: not as a dabbling Reform Party candidate, an American party chiefly famous for getting a professional wrestler elected as Minnesota's governor) was the racist "birther" movement.

Yes, the corrupted clique led by Jon Stewart. Very persuasive!

I've watched The Daily Show from other hemisphere, growing up. Really love the dude. But please, he returned from retirement just to lambast a presidential candidate! Reducing his whole carrier of awesomeness to nothing more than being an agent of influence, media hitman for hire! And nowhere in his mind were the "let the people decide, they are not cattle". Yeah, he is charming, smart, did a lot of great things. But during those few months of presidential campaign he lost all moral weight he had in my eyes.

Trump is garbage candidate. Hillary is to blame you have him. In Trump vs Bernie race Trump would had a really hard time.

> And nowhere in his mind were the "let the people decide, they are not cattle". Yeah, he is charming, smart, did a lot of great things. But during those few months of presidential campaign he lost all moral weight he had in my eyes.

Yes, how dare he share his opinion of a presidential candidate!

How what he was doing is different from propaganda? Unless you are implying that propaganda is not something immoral. After all its just sharing his opinion.

I'm not particularly interested in debating whether Jon Stewart's analysis of the dynamics underlying the election are accurate or not (though I happen to think they're fairly insightful). The point is that he shared his honest opinion, without intent to mislead. There's nothing morally wrong with that.

The Daily Show was never anything but conservative hate given legitimacy by being "comedy." It was a form of political attack that could be denied since it is comedic.

I think the term you're looking for is "satire."

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

>Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

> Left has lost everything because of bullshit of its progressive wing.

I wouldn't call Hillary and her ideology "left". It is more neo-liberalism or corporatism perhaps. There not much "left" in there. If she was "leftist" she would have cared and talked more about people who have no jobs, or about basic income and so on.

Anti-globalisation and anti-NAFTA is a also a leftist cause. It is funny that as soon as Trump picked it up, the neo-liberals distanced themselves from as quickly as possible. For example Chomsky has been harping on for decades about it. It is rather informative to read about it:

https://chomsky.info/secrets03/

(excerpt)

---

The day after NAFTA passed, the New York Times had its first article on its expected impact in the New York region. (Its conclusions apply to GATT too.) It was a very upbeat article. They talked about how wonderful NAFTA was going to be [...] there’ll be some losers too: women, Hispanics, other minorities, and semi-skilled workers-in other words, about two-thirds of the work force. But everyone else will do fine. Just as anyone who was paying attention knew, the purpose of NAFTA was to create an even smaller sector of highly privileged people-investors, professionals, managerial classes. (Bear in mind that this is a rich country, so this privileged sector, although smaller, still isn’t tiny.) It will work fine for them, and the general population will suffer.

The prediction for Mexico is exactly the same. The leading financial journal in Mexico, which is very pro-NAFTA, estimated that Mexico would lose about 25% of its manufacturing capacity in the first few years and about 15% of its manufacturing labor force. In addition, cheap US agricultural exports are expected to drive several million people off the land. That’s going to mean a substantial increase in the unemployed workforce in Mexico, which of course will drive down wages.

---

Note Chomsky makes a connection there about a predicted flood of immigrants from the South (which happened, so what was a good analysis). I didn't listen much to Trump to know if he ever made that connection.

Bernie is more of a leftist if you wish as well. He was very suspicious of immigration and was a anti-globalist in a way as well. Open borders policy for him was a "Koch brothers" right wing thing. He got quite upset about immigrants there flooding in and talks about "job creation" in US

He says it clearly here:

https://youtu.be/S5vOKKMipSA?t=342

So as the saying from Twin Peaks goes, the owls are not what they seem

>Why can't you give this man a chance?

I did. Then he immediately brought on a white nationalist as his closest advisor and is apparently going to name a southern good ol' boy who thinks marijuana is straight up the devil as his Attorney General. Chance thoroughly blown.

He hasn't even been sworn-in as president yet, but you've given him a chance.

What is a white nationalist? Is it just a nationalist who happens to be white? Is nationalist on its own supposed to be a negative descriptor? If so then it follows that logically internationalists are the preferred people by default?

Also is it possible to be in favor of limited controlled immigration programs and not be called a racist? What happens if the person isn't white, like me, am I also a racist? Can I be a white nationalist who isn't white?

You really don't know? Did you spend any time at all trying to answer your question? Your post feels disingenuous, but if you are being serious, here you go.

> White nationalism is an ideology that advocates a racial definition of national identity.[1] Proponents of the ideology identify with and are attached to the concept of a white nation.[2] It ranges from a preference for one's specific white ethnic group, to feelings of superiority, including calls for national citizenship to be reserved for white people.[3]

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

> What is a white nationalist?

Curious, isn't it?

I first saw this term in the establishment press -- White Nationalist -- last week. To me, it seems to be an attempt to conflate White Supremacists with Nationalists. It is possibly an amusing pastime to substitute various candidate Xs into "<X> Nationalist" and consider the possibilities.

As for Bannon, that guy looks like he walked out of CIA central casting, with patrons in Goldman Sachs. Such wonderful straw(wo)men to co-opt genuine grievances of people.

Obama's Attorney General did anything to legalize? "White nationalist" as Trump's advisor is worse than taking donations for presidential campaign from foreign powers? What he can do? Reintroduce slavery? For real?

Dislike Obama all you want, but he's let the states experiment with legalization. He's freed some people sentenced to harsh terms for non-violent drug offenses. I expect a huge wave of pardons and commutations of other non-violent offenders as his term ends.

As for Trump, he's put a nazi (or alt-right if you prefer) in the White House. He's nominated another racist for AG: Sessions who was considered too racist to be a judge, in a confirmation hearing in 1986. The judiciary committee was led by none other than Strom Thurmond. Thurmond and company thought he was too racist. Thurmond! Let that sink in.

Speaking of foreign donations, the President-Elect has 'invited' foreign dignitaries to stay at the Trump Hotel (the Old Post Office) in DC. Which they are doing so in an effort to gain favor with the new administration. Profits from their stays, of course, goes straight to Trump. Unfortunately for him, this will be quite illegal, and un-Constitutional according to the emoluments clause, as soon as he takes office. This clause will also apply to his foreign holdings, many of which remain in the dark because Trump has decided to be as non-transparent as possible.

"Profits from their stays, of course, goes straight to Trump. Unfortunately for him, this will be quite illegal, and un-Constitutional according to the emoluments clause, as soon as he takes office."

Of course, once in office, those businesses will be administered by the "blind" trust run by his children... and Trump wants to stay in New York a few days a week to "be around his family"... where of course, they won't possibly talk business, right? (That's if they're not accompanying him around the world, be it Ivanka joining in meetings with Japanese dignitaries, his sons being part of his transition team, or peddling his son-in-law as one of his advisors - someone so ignorant of the operation of government that until after the election, he apparently didn't realize that Trump would have to hire advisors to replace Obama's...).

What could possibly be untoward about any of that...?

> The judiciary committee was led by none other than Strom Thurmond. Thurmond and company thought he was too racist. Thurmond! Let that sink in.

Mentioning Thurmond is simply misleading and detracts from the main point that Sessions was rejected from a federal judgeship because of concerns that he was a racist.

The fact of the matter is that Thurmond voted for Sessions.

> On June 5, 1986, the Committee voted 10–8 against recommending the nomination to the Senate floor, with Republican Senators Charles Mathias of Maryland and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania voting with the Democrats.

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

> but he's let the states experiment with legalization

Not really. Under Obama the federal government raided hundreds (if not thousands) of legal dispensaries and grow operations, and spent hundreds of millions in doing so.

So, it's somehow okay in your worldview to put a self-described racist in one of the most important government positions because he "can't reintroduce slavery"? For real?

> a self-described racist

Man, even after losing the election, the left still hasn't changed its record. "-ist -ist -ist, -phobe -phobe -phobe!" Most of the electorate doesn't buy it anymore.

I don't know how I became a "part of the left" because I used a word to describe a person that matches the definition of the word. Do you assume to know this much about every person's political ideologies based on their choice of words?

Genuinely curious: what word would you use to describe Steve Bannon?

I don't know where you lie on the political spectrum. My comment was an observation of current trends, of which your comment seems to be an example. :)

> Genuinely curious: what word would you use to describe Steve Bannon?

Person. Respectfully, I reject the question, which implies that anyone can or should be labeled by a single word. This is part of the problem with American politics. It degrades discussion into "Is not!"/"Is too!" back-and-forth, which is useless.

Here's my bottom line: this election has shown how extremely biased the media is. Despite a few columns here and there calling for the media to examine itself and change its ways, the media has not changed. One should take everything one hears about Trump and his administration with many grains of salt.

For example, I watched Don Lemon on CNN excoriate Bannon, taking the default position that he is a racist, sexist, anti-Semite, and demanding that one of his guests (the other two of which were anti-Bannon) prove that Bannon was not any of those things. That is not journalism--that is libel.

> This is part of the problem with American politics. It degrades discussion into "Is not!"/"Is too!" back-and-forth, which is useless.

That's funny, because I was just thinking the problem was the tendency for people to look at an opinion and immediately apply partisan politics to it. Since you decided to deflect the question instead of answer it, I'll just say this: it's really disappointing to me that there's apparently no room to not agree with any major political party.

I'm watching the absolute mockery that is being made of the front office of our government right now, and I'm extremely disturbed, embarrassed, and pessimistic. The media didn't make Steve Bannon the leader of the alt-right movement, Steve Bannon did[1]. I know for sure that I do not agree with any of the elements of the alt right movement that I've observed (either self-proclaimed or through the media).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right#Commentary

> That's funny, because I was just thinking the problem was the tendency for people to look at an opinion and immediately apply partisan politics to it.

I don't think we disagree here. I think another way to state what you said is that one of the problems is a failure to recognize nuance, a tendency to reduce everything to binary choices.

> Since you decided to deflect the question instead of answer it

I rejected the question because, to me, it implied a binary "is racist/is not racist" choice. After all, when it comes to the media and public opinion, that issue is binary. There's no "a little bit racist," or "can seem racist from some perspectives," or "some people think he's racist but there's room to disagree on the interpretation"--no, when it comes to the media, it's either 100% racist, or not racist at all. And to be safely declared the latter, one must avoid even mentioning certain words and phrases, any one of which means being permanently, irreversibly labeled with one of several different -isms. It's like the media's equivalent of a sex offender list: say the wrong thing, and you're on it for life.

Anyway, if you want to ask a more nuanced question, or clarify what you meant, I don't mind discussing it further.

> I'll just say this: it's really disappointing to me that there's apparently no room to not agree with any major political party.

It's disappointing that it seems that way, yes. I certainly disagree with both, even though I lean toward one platform more than the other.

> I'm watching the absolute mockery that is being made of the front office of our government right now, and I'm extremely disturbed, embarrassed, and pessimistic.

Okay. I've been watching that mockery for the last 8 years--you know, with the IRS being turned into a political weapon; the DoJ being used to incite societal unrest; State sending our avowed enemies, who call for "death to America!", many millions of dollars in cash on a secret overseas flight; the DoE issuing decrees to local school districts, threatening to recall federal funding unless they run their bathrooms a certain way--things like that. Those things disturb and embarrass me as an American.

> The media didn't make Steve Bannon the leader of the alt-right movement, Steve Bannon did.

Sorry, as far as I'm concerned, the "alt-right" is simply a concoction of the media (and Wikipedia is heavily biased toward the left, so I reject it as a source). No one was talking about it before the election season. No one mentioned it during the primaries. It's yet another made-up basket that the leftist media can toss people into whom they want to denigrate. It's basically their pet bogeyman, which they feed with lies and half-truths, fattening it up for the continual slaughter in an endless cycle. In a few months they'll realize that, just as with their constant chanting of "racist/sexist/bigot/deploraphobe", most of the public isn't listening anymore, and then they'll invent a new basket to toss people into.

So, anyway, thanks for the civil discussion. It's more than some people around here are willing or capable of. :/

The problem is it's impossible to have a discussion with you. Any source of information that I have is going to be discredited as biased (based on what proof? I don't know, I guess just that "this election proves it" - whatever the hell that means).

So, how do we have any kind of meaningful discussion if all sources and channels I've used to learn things about the world is apparently biased? What are the sources of truth that you've seem to have discovered while the rest of us have had the wool pulled over our eyes? How'd you find it and how do you verify it?

You're being unfair here.

> The problem is it's impossible to have a discussion with you.

I have explicitly agreed to continue the discussion if you will ask more-specific questions. You respond by saying that it's impossible to have a discussion with me. Which of us is now refusing discussion?

> Any source of information that I have is going to be discredited as biased

You have provided one (1) source: Wikipedia. I rejected it out-of-hand, just like any serious researcher or academic institution does. You then leaped to the conclusion that any source you provide will be discredited. Again, it is you who are refusing to further the discussion, and you are making up excuses to try to justify it. Why bother responding at all if this is how you're going to respond?

Note that I haven't provided any references of my own, nor have I requested that you do so. This isn't an academic journal, it's a casual discussion on the Internet. There isn't any audience now, and neither of us have anything to prove to anyone. If you want to talk some more, have a pleasant, civil discussion, share ideas and hopefully come to a better understanding of each other's views, that's fine. If not, that's fine too. But if you're not, please don't make up excuses based on unfounded accusations to make it sound like I'm at fault.

It's beginning to sound like you are avoiding discussion because I have challenged your views and made you uncomfortable. Whether that's the case or not, of course, only you can say. But if you're really interested in searching for the truth, understanding other perspectives, etc, then you're going about it the wrong way.

> (based on what proof? I don't know, I guess just that "this election proves it" - whatever the hell that means).

Now you're putting words in my mouth. You are imagining that you are having a discussion with someone else, someone you actually know or have discussed with before. I am not that person, and I haven't said those things.

> So, how do we have any kind of meaningful discussion if all sources and channels I've used to learn things about the world is apparently biased?

Every source is biased, because every person is biased. That's how humans are. The questions are then, 1) to what extent a source is biased, and 2) whether you have explored a variety of sources to attempt to compensate for bias. If you only read sources that are biased in a certain way, then your own views are probably going to be similarly biased.

> What are the sources of truth that you've seem to have discovered

I read and listen to a variety of sources, as I hope you do.

> while the rest of us have had the wool pulled over our eyes?

If you really want to talk about this, it would be better to talk about specific topics. Sweeping statements about one group or the other being generally deceived aren't very useful, whether accurate or not; they are nearly always "preaching to the choir" and not useful for overcoming bias.

> How'd you find it and how do you verify it?

This, of course, is the most important question: with the overwhelming amount of information available to us, how do we verify the information we take in? Books have been written about this. Suffice to say here that the first step is to be skeptical of everything you hear, especially on the Internet, and especially regarding politics, and especially surrounding an election, and especially given how the recent election has demonstrated the media's extreme bias (remember, even the media itself has admitted this; see Will Rahn's commentary on CBS News, the recent op-ed by the NYT, etc).

Ok, anyway, if you want to keep talking, cool. If not, cheers.

You just move the goal post 10 yards in a different direction every time you respond. That's not a discussion.

When I see responses like this:

>You have provided one (1) source: Wikipedia. I rejected it out-of-hand, just like any serious researcher or academic institution does.

It's pretty clear you don't understand the basics of how wikipedia works. There's no point in discussing with you.

>Person. Respectfully, I reject the question, which implies that anyone can or should be labeled by a single word.

Oh my god, you know what the question meant. Describe his views related to race.

> Most of the electorate doesn't buy it anymore.

Trump lost the popular vote.

> Trump lost the popular vote.

Ok but what does that prove or show? Didn't Hillary know she was supposed to get the electoral college votes? I hear many mention that, but doesn't that just make Hillary's team look more incompetent.

This is actually a very interesting point. While the current raw data seems to show that this is the case, there are several mitigating factors, some of which could even completely reverse it:

1. In at least some states, absentee ballots are not counted unless their number is greater than the difference between the counted results. Some have claimed that absentee ballots historically favor the Republican party. If this is so, it could be that, were all the absentee ballots counted, Clinton would not win the popular vote.

2. It's been claimed that about 3 million non-citizens voted in the election (lawsuits pending--we shall see). Obviously, the vast majority of non-citizens would vote for Clinton. Therefore, if this is true, Clinton did not win the popular vote at all.

3. It's interesting to note that if Los Angeles County alone were not counted in the results, Trump would win the popular vote. And Los Angeles is a sanctuary city.

Of course, it's a matter of opinion whether a few, densely packed urban environments, many of which are sanctuary cities for non-citizens, should be able to effectively overturn the vote of the rest of the country.

So the "Clinton won the popular vote" point is not as straightforward as it may seem.

It has also been claimed that every single person who voted for Trump was actually an extraterrestrial wearing a convincing human suit. "It's been claimed" isn't exactly convincing.

(For anyone who wants a source on that claim, it's me, I'm claiming it here.)

And I read about it on Hacker News. That's two sources.

Quick, someone call CNN.

When you're done value-signaling to each other, google it and see for yourself.

OK: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/nov/18/...

Did I do it wrong?

IMO, yes and no. While they make efforts to sound fair and reasonable, the "fact-checkers" and "truth-o-meters" are quite biased. Before the election, they were basically stumping for Clinton, making it sound like Trump was the fount of untruth while she was a mere trickle of truthiness. How wonderful to be the self-declared arbiters of truth!

As I said, it has been claimed that 3 million non-citizens voted, and a lawsuit is pending, so we shall see.

If it is true, then obviously that is a significant problem, and obviously Clinton would not have won the popular vote. And obviously that would vindicate the Republicans' efforts to institute voter-ID laws, and it would condemn the Democrats' repeated attempts to prevent such laws, and basically implicate them in election fraud. (Not to mention the Scott Foval videos.)

And that is one of the issues surrounding the repeated claim that Clinton won the popular vote, and the implied problem.

Is there any reason to think it is true, besides the claim? Like I said, it has been claimed that all Trump voters are ETs, but I wouldn't expect you to give that any credence.

> Like I said, it has been claimed that all Trump voters are ETs, but I wouldn't expect you to give that any credence.

No, and who would? ETs have not been proven to exist, and if they did, why would they care about our election? This is a silly non-sequitur; please stop derailing the discussion with it.

Back in reality, non-citizen human beings in the USA obviously do exist, and groups have them have been very vocal about the election (going as far as marching in the streets with foreign flags), and articles in real newspapers (not "fake news sites") have been published recently documenting votes by non-citizens in elections, and videos have been published showing Democrat operatives by name and face admitting to committing election fraud.

This shows party, motive, opportunity, and method. What it does not show is to what extent it has occurred. The only source for the "3 million" claim is one person who has not shown his data or methodology, so of course it is not conclusive, and we should be skeptical. However, given the general evidence of fraud and manipulation surrounding this election, it should not be dismissed out-of-hand either. We should follow the lawsuit he is filing and see what happens.

Now, do you actually disagree with anything I just said? If so, please explain why without making silly remarks about ETs.

Personally, I was having a bit of fun. I thought about deleting it because it was too light-hearted and non-substantive, not because I thought I was being snarky. I understood his response in the same vein. (And where did all this "signaling" language come from? I must not be reading the right forums.)

I assume they meant to say virtue signaling: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling

In short, it implies that we're not sincere when we make fun of far-out conspiracy theories, but rather that we're only doing it to enhance our social standing.

I think you're quite sincere. :) But, yes, the virtual dogpiling is quite detestable. It's an ugly form of self-congratulatory virtual bullying, like any playground scene where a bunch of kids gang up on another, push him down, and start kicking him, then walk off, high-fiving each other, secure in their social status as demonstrated by their "correct" behavior. In principle, it's no different than this: https://youtu.be/C7zEibNcejA

And the double-standard is evident here, as in any other situation, such "unsubstantive" comments would bring down the chastisement of the mods and the community downvotes. But since the victim is not left-leaning, it's okay.

Yeah, it's no different from what happened in that video, other than, you know, the complete lack of any violence or harm done to you.

There's no double standard here. Unsubstantive, funny comments have always been allowed as long as they're not disruptive and are actually funny.

If you don't like being made fun of for bringing up completely unsubstantiated claims as if they were in any way relevant, then don't bring them up. Problem solved.

> Yeah, it's no different from what happened in that video, other than, you know, the complete lack of any violence or harm done to you.

Did you notice the key words, "in principle," or did you selectively omit them? Do you understand the principle of ganging up on people whom you disagree with and cheering each other on as you do it? Do you really not grok this?

> There's no double standard here. Unsubstantive, funny comments have always been allowed as long as they're not disruptive and are actually funny.

"Actually funny," huh? "Not disruptive"? I guess I've been visiting a different "Hacker News" site, because the one I've been going to quickly downvotes and chastises even the mildest of humor buried deep in a subthread. I stand by the double-standard claim.

> If you don't like being made fun of for bringing up completely unsubstantiated claims as if they were in any way relevant, then don't bring them up. Problem solved.

Funny that you should accuse me of irrelevant claims when you have derailed the discussion multiple times with non-sequiturs of your own invention about extra-terrestrials.

You are not discussing in good faith. Let's end this discussion here. Good evening.

I'll try once more, since you seem to have missed my point entirely.

I'm not sure if you got the "three million non-citizen voters" thing from Infowars or directly from Gregg Phillips.

If the former, then you're posting something from a conspiracy site whose other headlines include "ALIENS DO EXIST, SAYS TOP SECRET FBI MEMO" and "THE COMING STAGED ALIEN INVASION."

If the latter, then you're taking at face value something from some random person on twitter.

Either way, it has zero credibility. You're right that I'm not discussing in good faith, because I'm trying to point out how ridiculous your original claim was by doing the same thing back to you. The only difference between yours and mine is that I actually understand that mine is fake.

Does repeating the stale "value-signaling" HN/sociology meme make you feel better about yourself?

Trump is basically a big unknown.

Actually, wrong!

Trump, by his words and actions, is a known known. Starting from his Birther campaign against Obama, to his utterances during the presidential campaign, to his confirmed cabinet appointments, we know who the man is.

Let's hope we survive the next 4-8 years. If we're lucky, he'll serve just one term.

I hear this so often, and the response is always the same: By his own words, he's WORSE. He isn't the outsider black horse you think he is, at best he's a scummy businessman and reality TV mook who saw an opportunity to get desperate people like you to project your desires onto a nebulous non-platform full of rhetoric and dog whistles.

> Why can't you give this man a chance?

Breitbart.com editor for cabinet, his biggest supporter and rabble-rouser during the election. Nice tit for tat there, coming from the 'less corrupt' candidate. Racist piece of human garbage.

"Jeff Sessions, considered too racist to be a judge in 80's, is Trump's AG."

If he were going to be given a chance, I think he's communicated his intent in actions as well as the previous hedged words at this point.

> Racist piece of human garbage.

This is why Clinton lost the election. Most people don't buy this hyperbole anymore. Even 1/3rd of Clinton voters don't believe the media anymore.

> "Jeff Sessions, considered too racist to be a judge in 80's, is Trump's AG."

My understanding is that Sessions worked to ensure that a KKK leader, who kidnapped and murdered a black teenager, received the death penalty instead of a life sentence. Isn't this counter-evidence to the assertion that he's a racist?

But I guess it's hard to reason when you've made up your mind that your opponents are "human garbage."

> Even 1/3rd of Clinton voters don't believe the media anymore.

What's "the media," exactly? Would it include the most watched cable network? Because no, I don't believe Fox News blindly, but let's not pretend there's a monolithic single mainstream there. Even it is certainly more accurate than the shit you'll find online most places.

I'm referring to a poll which asked Clinton voters whether they "trust the media." Take it for whatever it's worth to you. :)

It's evidence that prosecutors are motivated primarily by the scorekeeping of their professions: convictions and successfully-sold sentences. Successfully convicting a KKK leader is also politically expedient for a prosecutor who plans on higher elected office. And, finally, the country is full of virulent racists who nonetheless feel like the KKK is a bunch of toothless goobers. See, for instance, the "Concerned Citizens Council" movement.

Since these are all pretty straightforward observations, the attempts to "rehabilitate" Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III by pointing out his conviction of a KKK leader are pretty telling. As in, that's the best argument you have? (I'm sure there are in fact better arguments; you should find them and use them instead. Fair warning: "Sessions once shared a hotel room with another black lawyer", an argument that has actually been advanced on Twitter, is not one of the better alternatives).

> It's evidence that prosecutors are motivated primarily by the scorekeeping of their professions: convictions and successfully-sold sentences.

There's surely some truth to that, but it doesn't justify dismissing it as counter-evidence. You could just as easily rationalize any other vague, unsubstantiated reason to do so, such as claiming that there was some entirely personal grudge that Sessions was holding against him. People act on a variety of motivations. Selectively dismissing evidence based upon one hypothesized motivation is intellectually dishonest.

> Since these are all pretty straightforward observations, the attempts to "rehabilitate" Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III by pointing out his conviction of a KKK leader are pretty telling. As in, that's the best argument you have? (I'm sure there are in fact better arguments; you should find them and use them instead. Fair warning: "Sessions once shared a hotel room with another black lawyer", an argument that has actually been advanced on Twitter, is not one of the better alternatives).

This is not a logical argument. You are taking evidence counter to your assertion and twisting it into a counter-attack in which, by even uttering it, a person proves himself wrong. This has been dubbed a Kafkatrap. It begs the question and is a bare attempt at emotional manipulation.

"X argument is trash, and just in case you try Y, it's also trash" is not a trap, it's an attempt at efficiency.

That was not the trap. The trap was 1) dismissing with prejudice the evidence that was counter to his claim, 2) asserting it as evidence for his claim, while also 3) implying that mentioning that counter-evidence is itself evidence of malfeasance on my part ("pretty telling"). That is the Kafkatrap.

> 1) dismissing with prejudice the evidence that was counter to his claim

He had already evaluated that evidence and found it weak and unconvincing.

> 2) asserting it as evidence for his claim

This did not happen.

> 3) implying that mentioning that counter-evidence is itself evidence of malfeasance on my part ("pretty telling").

He's using a simple argument. A) When people are trying to be convincing, they usually use some of the better evidence they have. B) He asserts that X and Y are weak and unconvincing evidence, based on previous evaluation.

This leads to a very simple conclusion: Someone pulling out X and Y as their main line of argument probably has no good evidence. This is not kafkaesque. He gave you a genuine opportunity to provide good evidence.

The only 'telling' is of lacking good evidence, not malfeasance.

In other words, he's not trying to take your evidence and turn it backwards. He's saying that the use of weak evidence as the core of your argument implies that you don't have good evidence. Weak evidence is better than nothing, but he has evidence of his own on the other side, so weak evidence is not enough in this case.

The mental gymnastics these people go through in order to retain some sort of high ground in the face of overwhelming evidence is pretty nuts.

wikileaks was compromised. there is some evodence they have been served a NSL.

[citation needed]

Since when did they care about National Security Letters?

If you have really lost hope, you are worthless to America.

In this country we fight. Our rhetoric is one of hard-fought victory. Not capitulation.

Listen: If anyone is going to do something about the surveillance state it is Trump! It certainly was not going to be the Clintons!

“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country — you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” ~Donald Trump

I can't imagine anything Trump decides to "do about" the surveillance state being considered an improvement by the average HNer

I think it's likely that people who believe "we must secure the existence of white people and a future for white children", which you quoted warmly elsewhere on the thread, also believe Trump will fix the surveillance state. I'm not sure many other people believe that, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com