A Googler gone missing in Egypt. Google asks for your help. | Hacker News Reader

A Googler gone missing in Egypt. Google asks for your help.

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The last tweet he sent out was really freaky:

http://twitter.com/Ghonim/status/30748650980249600#

"We are all ready to die"

Here is the video of Wael Ghonim (possibly) being arrested by the plain clothed police during a report from SkyNews starting around the 1 minute mark.

What do you think? Looks like him or not?

http://vimeo.com/19255226

Link from the more in depth article by LA Times provided by zachallaun

This video makes me so mad. How does the police find these braindead "plain clothed police" fighters?

I'm going to get downvoted for this, but this is EXACTLY why there should be no gun restrictions on the people.

A couple of bodybuilders wouldn't dare to go up to a revolutionary mass of people in Texas.

Let me get this straight... You're advocating more violent forms of revolution and arguing that gun restrictions should be removed so that the people might be more capable in the event of said violent revolts?

I'm advocating more forms of resistance for the law abiding citizens, who are the only ones to abide to gun laws in the first place.

There's a saying that "an armed society is a polite society". If people know you're going to be armed, they're much more cautious about performing potentially threatening or violent behaviors.

It also makes it easier for simple disputes to escalate very quickly. What happens when your first reaction is to whip out your gun instead of your fists?

There are enough heavily armed populations out there that you can gather real evidence about whether that's a problem or not, rather than just leaving it as a hypothetical. As far as I understand, it turns out not to be a real problem. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I think that it would largely depend on culture. If you were to give everyone in NYC a gun tomorrow, you could not expect there to be no issues. If you transitioned over a period of time, then maybe not (but that's mostly because the culture/mindset of the people has time to adjust).

New Yorkers are culturally probably close enough to other Americans that it wouldn't be as great a factor. If the difference between New Yorkers and, say, Vermonters is big enough to make a difference, so would the difference between Vermonters, Idahoans, Texans, Alaskans, and Arkansans. (All states with between 40% and 60%[1] firearms ownership: http://www.schs.state.nc.us/SCHS/brfss/2001/us/firearm3.html). And yet, the cultural differences from those states don't seem to make much of a difference.

Again, it's a very reasonable and intuitive assumption that allowing more gun ownership would result in more impulsive shootings. But reasonable and intuitive arguments are wrong all the time. That's why it's so important to look at the actual evidence.

[1] 40-60% is pretty much what you get in gun-friendly American states. "Giving everyone in NYC a gun tomorrow" is a straw man.

1. The phrase "everyone is polite in a well-armed society" implies that people are only polite because they are afraid that if they piss off the other guy, he will retaliate with bullets. If you're saying that increased gun ownership does not increase the number of impulsive shootings, then why use this phrase at all as a talking point (I'm using a general 'you' here not philwelch specifically, seeing as he wasn't the one the used the phrase)? [ It kind of irks me that the phrase is a lead in to some discussion of how being pro-gun is good, but "if everyone in NYC was given a gun" is called a straw man. ]

2. Most of the pro-gun advocates that I've encountered (online) have used the "if everyone had a gun" hypothetical in their arguments at one point or another, so how is using that in a counter-argument a straw man?

3. One thing that came to mind is that if 'everyone has a gun' then you could shoot anyone and then try to justify it with self-defense (and probably have great success), "I thought that he had a gun," or, "he was reaching for his pants." It's one angle that I've never seen discussed.

1. I think you misunderstood what cookiecaper meant by this. He immediately clarified with, "If people know you're going to be armed, they're much more cautious about performing potentially threatening or violent behaviors." Which means that he's not counting on armed people to be impulsive at all--simply capable of self-defense.

No sane person would advocate the right to bear arms based upon the idea that people retaliate with bullets against literal impoliteness, and I think it's a bit of a straw man to suggest that's what's going on, especially when cookiecaper explicitly clarified that he meant something completely different.

2. It's a straw man because we're discussing the actual effects of not restricting gun ownership, which in practice result in about 40-60% of the population owning guns, not 100%. If you want to discuss some sort of universal conscription scheme in which every citizen is armed and trained by the state, that's a separate discussion.

"If everyone had a gun" is shorthand, though. In reality you only need maybe 25% of people to be armed before home invasions, for instance, become too dangerous to attempt.

3. This actually does seem to be a problem--not with private gun ownership, but with the police.

  > This actually does seem to be a problem--not
  > with private gun ownership, but with the police.

It's slightly different w/ the police. While I don't agree with the way they operate most of the time, there are more people gunning for police officers than your average citizen.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

The thing is - at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified, guns actually were an effective deterrent against the state. The idea is that if government ever stopped serving the people, they could forcibly overthrow the government and win their freedom.

But technology's moved on since then, and a gun is no more effective against the U.S. military than swords and slingshots were in 1776. Ask the folks at Waco or Ruby Ridge how their guns worked out for them.

If you really want to hold true to the spirit of the 2nd amendment, the best thing you could do is declassify all nuclear state secrets and make plutonium available on the market. Or, failing that, at least create a consumer market for anti-tank RPGs and man-portable surface to air missiles.

When I suggest this, every person I know has reacted with horror. "But...the terrorists will win and destroy us all!" they sputter. To which I'll just point out the end of your last sentence: "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." That's the point - the Declaration of Independence was suggesting that the terrorists should win, because during the American Revolution, the Americans were the terrorists.

I'm actually quite content with my sheeple existence, but I also enjoy pointing out the inconsistencies in many people's political views. It's ironic that many of the people that are the most pro-gun also support things like the Patriot Act and state control of military secrets. If you really support the right of the people to bear arms, where are my nukes?

I don’t think shooting at the police would at the moment be a strategically wise move. It would make it so much easier for Mubarak to justify ordering the military to start shooting (and the military would likewise be much more inclined to actually follow such orders). Peaceful protest (including civil disobedience) is a luxury but currently possible and effective.

Everyone in Iraq kept a gun home, yet they never had a realistic chance against Saddam. As gun proponents like to imply, it's people not guns who do the shooting.

Depending on how things go in the next few weeks, and how much the police there have invested in high volume paper shredders, I wouldn't envy the position those "plain clothed police" are likely to find themselves in shortly.

Here's the thing.

What would have happened if the population of egypt had been armed. Would they have used them? Definitely the temptation would be there, and it only takes a mistake or to to spark something off.

The military has refused to fire on citizens; that's a pretty massive decision, not quite so easy to make if you're being shot at...

By removing all guns from the equation the military has pretty much ensured the revolution will go down fairly peacefully from here on out.

So, in this case, yep it is definitely a good thing the population wasn't armed.

Being armed is the hammer solution to the problem of being arrested by plain clothes police in such a manner. You takes your risks, but at least you weren't shot :)

Revolution isn't peaceful. It is by definition a "repudiation" of the established authority. The notion that revolution could ever be peaceful and amicable is naive. Corrupt people aren't going to vacate their seats of power without coercion and that requires some tactical advantage over those in power.

Make no mistake, I have no love of war, but history has shown time and again that power doesn't transfer away from the establishment without force. Whether that is actual violence or merely the threat of it is irrelevant. The ones being ousted need to believe they aren't safe.

Of course it is. Peaceful and amicable are two different things; you can utterly despise the people you are revolting against but still act peacefully.

You also seem to singularly equate coercion (which is needed, I agree) with violence. I find that somewhat dubious; there are all manner of non-violent ways to coerce people.

but history has shown time and again

Ah. Actually not it hasn't - historical analysis does not support such a theory. Or to quote Wikipedia:

> "the commonly held belief that most revolutions which have happened in dictatorial regimes were bloody or violent uprisings is not born out of historical analysis."

Wouldn't you call the current state of Egyptian protests peaceful?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution

Link to sourced LA Times article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/02/google-as...

It's much more informative, in my opinion.

[edit] Removed snark.

Thank you! Checking it out now. Lol, I didn't want to be a snob, so I'm glad you mentioned "are". Also this article left me wondering how they assumed he was nabbed by plain clothed police? Hopefully LA Times clarifies that.

Blame my hurried pace. My apologies both for not linking to the RWW article that talked about the (supposed) abduction as well as for the use of are rather than our. I've since fixed both of those problems.

Next time, leave a comment for me on the site, will ya'?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2168609

Google has asked for my help, my idea is to start some collective action in getting information about him.

I'm starting a wiki anyone can edit, help me learn everything about where he last was and where he probably is (assuming he was apprehended and detained): http://knol.google.com/k/eric-leschinski/recover-wael-ghonim...

Your intentions are excellent, but this is already being done on a larger scale: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtUC5Tzt8MFudF9rYXR...

Keep in mind, Ghonim is not the only person missing.

I tried to find him, but my usual method doesn't seem to be working: http://maps.google.com/?q=Wael%20Ghonim

Reply on news.ycombinator.com