The US has been guilty of electronic espionage and tampering in other countries. The world would call us out for aggressive retaliation here, and rightly so.
What's fair is fair.
so we should do it [hack other countries' elections] and then be pissed when it happens to us ?
I'm incredibly tired of hearing false dichotomies here. It is imperative to maintaining a democracy that it not be hindered. We've done a disservice to democracy by tampering in elections, as have the hackers here.
US has a LOOOOONG history of meddling with other countries with some heavy-handed manner (like sending a carrier group to Brazil in 1964 to ensure a coup, bombing Chile to install Pinochet, attempt to assassinate Castro 60+ times or so, and so on...)
If US even HINTS in considering a minor hack of sorts as an act of war and attacks Russia over it, it could very well spark the entire world to attack US back.
US can be the most powerful country of earth, but I am very sure US vs all other countries US meddled with would mean US destruction (and maybe the other countries wouldn't survive it either...)
People shouldn't even joke about going to war over the "election hack", what should be done is fix your own security and redo the elections if the hack was proven.
My knowledge and familiarity with the US and South America more than likely doesn't supersede yours. I think we can agree that the implications of a war with Russia far outweigh the fear of Chile, Cuba, and Brazil making an unexpected comeback. But back to the initial point, even if Russia wasn't a concern.
1) These countries are disconnected geographically.
2) These events happened before our time.
a) Fidel is dead, Raul wants to do things differently.
b) Pinochet was the foulest human being to ever roam the planet, but Chile has been back to civilian rule since the 1990's, and has gone through its own national grieving process (including long drawn-out prosecutions of Pinochet, who just died before a conviction in 2006.)
c) Brazil has a crime and corruption problem. Its problems fragment the population and I don't think a war would fix them. I can discuss this further if you would like.
There is little probability that payback from these nations would be a real concern. The only thing I can think of is Cuba's strategic location. Please let me know if I'm missing something.
"The World" would not. I don't know what people think they gain by using the term "the world".
Notice how you don't hear too much about "Chinese hackers" anymore? There's all sorts of brinksmanship and politics involved here.
The US have even publicly acknowledged this stuff. In 1982 pirated software (I think IBM mainframe stuff iirc) was modified, stuxnet-style to cause one of the largest non-nuclear explosions of some sort of gas refinery ever. God knows what's been done since then.
Probably didn't happen though. There was definitely a big pipeline explosion at the time, though Reed's fact checking misses the location, and somewhat more importantly, the fact that Russian control systems weren't software-based at the time.
Although it was a fun legend, it probably started as a game of telephone (a/o paranoia).
Now, with the internet, we're at the beginning of another such monumental shift in information access. The cynic in me finds it likely that shit gets worse before we, as a species, find a new balance point. I mean, either we learn to live with all varieties of each other in peace (which is what I think you're saying), or we end up blasting ourselves into extinction. No?
I don't think it's really possible without a major change to cognitive capabilities. The human biological system and the resultant communities aren't built to handle truth.
Which is to say, the brain equates beliefs to truths, which is an extremely difficult-to-overcome fallacy. (And, I suspect, therein lies the solution, if there is one.) Paradoxically, of course, life also wouldn't really be all that practical to live out if our brains didn't make such an overly simplistic jump.
So, yea, not really disagreeing with you on the cognitive capabilities part. But I'm also not convinced there's no such belief structure out there that isn't capable of solving this pickle. Implementing and spreading said system of beliefs - if it exists and without starting a bunch of wars in the process, of course - is the harder part.
In fact this construct is the basis for the illusion of the self - so it's inextricably linked to the human experience. The idea of an unbroken consciousness relies on a forward projection of a "future self" that is consistent with past experience. Practically, this construct is incompatible with objective experience because of our limitations for recall and "objective" evaluation of experience.
But I'm also not convinced there's no such belief structure out there that isn't capable of solving this pickle.
I don't think it's a belief structure that is needed - it's deeper than we can manifest so we need something to augment our limited capability.
[edit] On your first point: we can't ever really know The Truth (about any big meta issues)
I think that's true from an epistemic perspective, but I think we can reduce the uncertainty of variability around truth with enough inputs about causal factors in whatever event/issue is being evaluated.
The system of mindfulness, and Eckart Tolle, in particular talk about looking for the consciousness behind the thoughts, removing attachment from your ego and possessions (not to ignore the utility, just in the sense of identity through consumption) and living in the present moment, free of the depression from the past or anxiety of the future.
If legal or other changes were made to do what you suggest, most of the juicy stuff would be destroyed... more to cover the asses of the people involved than anything else.
Regardless, there is a non-zero chance that the result of unknown secrets being exposed could be anarchy instead of a better-functioning democracy.
Remember this is 2016, not 1916. Revelation and escalation don't lead to a mere slaughter of soldiers, but potentially destruction of civilization as we know it.
I feel I've been pretty consistent about this as opposed to being partisan; I had a minor spat with Assange over his choices about his approach to editorial framing back when WL was first revealing helicopter footage from Iraq. Wl is a new kind of publishing outlet, but no more neutral or disinterested than the more traditional kind.