Comment by cantrevealname | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cantrevealname | Hacker News Reader

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The HackerNews crowd notwithstanding, it is depressing to report that the average person today is still utterly unaware of the Snowden revelations.

Please tell your barber, sister-in-law, coffee buddy, or next-door neighbor about it. Tell them why it's important.

EDIT: To the comments below that say that the average person knows but doesn't care: I think you've been speaking with significantly better informed people than the average. Really, my experience has been that the average person has never heard the name Snowden, let alone knows about the revelations. (I might even try an informal poll of people I meet up with, and report back.) That they might not care once they hear the story is a sad, but separate issue.

I have discussed the issue with my wife, my mom, and my dad. They all understand the issue, understand the potential implications (especially my parents, who as immigrants from a muslim country are a little anxious about profiling), but none of them have a problem with what is happening.

I think the average person does know about the Snowden revelations. I think the average person just doesn't care.

I second this. I've discussed it in entirety with my parents, my girlfriend, her parents, and her siblings. They get it as well. They also don't care.

In fact, they're pretty much shocked at all the surprise and nerdrage on the internet right now. They responded almost universally the same way -- "We assumed this is how it's always been. This is a new thing?"

I don't know about that. I think they "know" about these things, but they just don't care, or they don't "know" that these things are bad.

What they know about is that some kid/nerd was a spy for the Russian government, where he is now living with Putin. That he is a traitor, and that he is trying to make us less safe from the terrorists.

He put american lives at risk, and who knows what some nerd was able to look at while he was at he NSA. What we need is better spying to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Polls suggest that the general public both knows and cares, for once.

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