And, since there seems to be interest in these notes, here are my paraphrased notes from the second half on the interview (once again, only including the parts I found especially thought-provoking):

- Systematic crime/injustice requires a paper trail. The threat of making documents public disrupts that paper trail, which causes mass ineficiency in an organization. ES: "So it's exactly your point, so that in order to kill six million Jews, you actually have to write it down." JA: "It's a big logistical process"

- "Fundamental justification [For Wikileaks] is that, there is really two. First of all, the human civilization, its good part, is based upon our full intellectual record, and our intellectual record should be as large as possible if humanity is to be as advanced as possible. The second is that in practice releasing information is positive to those engaged in acts that the public support and negative to those engaged in acts that the public does not support." [Ok, I don't really buy this. Small groups are just as capable as large groups of harbouring secret plans that the public is opposed to. Secrecy is a double edged sword for both those in power and those outside of it.]

- If you support these ideas, you should "give money to WikiLeaks [Laughter]". But seriously.

- "Courage is not the absence of fear. Only fools have no fear. Rather courage is the intellectual mastery of fear by understanding the true risks and opportunities of the situation"

- "because we all only live once, we all suffer the continuous risk of not having lived our life well. Every year. Every year that is not used is 100% wasted, it's not a risk of that, it is a dead bet"

- Assange's response to accusations that wikileaks causes harm, is interesting. See: "Up until Collateral Murder"

- Interesting aside about the purpose of the Pentagon's posturing, see: "WikiLeaks became the status quo"

- A great story straight from Firefly, episode "Our Dear Mrs. Reynolds" See dialogue after: "The woman from Catalonia"

- Leading through values instead of through command and control allows an organization like WikiLeaks to be better protected against two types of organizational attacks: infiltration and getting members plucked off (scared away?). This creates a P2P network of people instead of a classic client/server hierarchy.

- Wikileaks does premature redactions not because there is a "risk of producing harm as a result of disclosure", but because "there is a probable risk that if we don't engage in that sort of behaviour, our opponents will opportunistically attempt to distract from the revelations that we have published." Once again goes back to "controlling the story" conversations they had earlier. Interestingly, Assange failed to control the story w.r.t. rape allegations, and that is now what he and wikileaks is known for. Resulting discussion on the slippery slope of redaction is interesting. Assange would ideally like the source of the material to provide the redactions.

- "If it is true information we don't care where it comes from. Let people fight with the truth, and when the bodies are cleared there will be bullets of truth everywhere, that's fine"

- Lisa asks "How do you know if you've won?" JA: "... [insightful comments snipped]...I think we can make some significant advances and it is perhaps, it is the making of these advances and being involved in that struggle that is good for people. So the process is in part the end game. It's not just to get somewhere in the end, rather this process of people feeling that it is worthwhile to be involved in that sort of struggle, is in fact worthwhile for people."

There's a lot to think about here. Regardless of Assange's actual character, he has some amazing ideas. I think I may have a new answer to "If you could have dinner with one person in the world..."