Assange is reportedly gravely ill, and hardly anyone’s talking about it
medium.com
medium.com
If not, can the absence of such confirmation readily explain the lack of interest in the claim?
Not really, no. But DMSA-Notices can.
Uh huh. The court isn't interested in such a claim, without so much as a doctor's note, either.
He is, essentially, dead to the world now.
However, his legacy remains - you cannot destroy ideas with chemical torture so easily. The next round of whistleblowing will be especially painful to the American people, as yet more evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity is being prepared for release.
While we were all being distracted by the scary orange puppet, the US and its coalition partners ratcheted up the tempo of its criminal war operations.
Evidence regarding US involvement in Yemen, for example, is going to reveal the true nature of American military power in the 21st Century, and it is not going to be pretty.
If you are an American who feels suitably embarrassed by the actions of your oompaloompa in chief, be prepared for a sobering realisation when the next round of whistleblowing starts happening. And, be prepared for the distraction that the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex has in store for the American people.
When it comes to divisive topics, the guidelines call for comments to become more thoughtful, not denunciatory. Denunciation is a different type of game than the one we're playing here. Your non-denunciatory comments look fine, so this shouldn't be hard.
Good, interested hackers can without doubt find other places to discuss the very relevant machinations of the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex and its negative influence in contemporary hacker culture - but if HN is no longer a safe, relevant place to be discussing the nature of whistleblowing, technology, or indeed world politics in the technical age, then so be it: why allow anything to be posted about Assange, at all, then?
His story is nothing but political in nature.
There seems to be a misunderstanding in this bit:
> you're shooting yourselves in your own feet by banning speech you deem unsuitable for your purposes
Our purpose is to optimize HN for intellectual curiosity. You're right in that sense, but only that sense. HN moderation has no purpose related to Assange or any other hot topic, nor are we moderating based on what we agree or disagree with. I moderate comments I agree with every single day. Perhaps that sounds weird? After a while, one gets used to it.
If you take a step back and look at HN threads on topics with political overlap, you'll find that many HN users have figured out how to express their views thoughtfully, without resorting to fiery rhetoric or denunciation. You'll also find that many of them are expressing views similar to yours. Please be more like them. It's really just for good conversation. No one wants to be in the room that someone is blasting with a megaphone, regardless of the megaphone's views.
"Don't mention the war", I cannot.
I believe that censoring opinion around the subject of the Wests' criminal wars only provides further cover for those who profit from it.
You've accidentally, I'm sure, forgotten to provide the support for this claim. Could you, perhaps, correct that oversight?