{"id":623,"date":"2010-12-21T19:50:27","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T23:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=623"},"modified":"2010-12-21T22:56:44","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T02:56:44","slug":"assanges-conspiracy-theory-is-not-hypocritical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=623","title":{"rendered":"Assange’s conspiracy theory is not hypocritical"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken at Popehat yesterday advocated<\/a> skeptical and critical thinking about leaking in general and Wikileaks in particular, and asking ourselves some tough questions, such as “Do I \u2014 should I \u2014 believe that the people reviewing and selectively publishing the leaked information are doing so honestly, or are they driven by an agenda? Is someone trying to manipulate me with this leak, and to what end?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Julian Assange is indeed driven by an agenda, but he’s been quite open about what that agenda is, and the agenda is not as simple as it’s generally been portrayed in the media. At least according to him<\/a>, he’s not trying to manipulate you<\/em> with leaks, but rather to manipulate the behavior of authoritarian regimes themselves:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive \u201csecrecy tax\u201d) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems<\/strong>. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

If total conspiratorial power is zero, then clearly there is no information flow between the conspirators and hence no conspiracy. A substantial increase or decrease in total conspiratorial power almost always means what we expect it to mean; an increase or decrease in the ability of the conspiracy to think, act and adapt\u2026An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think is powerless to preserve itself against the opponents it induces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is no hypocrisy<\/a> whatsoever in Assange’s condemnation of the leak<\/a> of secret police files pertaining to the pending rape charges against him in Sweden, for the same reason that there’s a difference between using a gun in self-defense and using a gun to rob a bank, or using a phone to dial 911 and using a phone to order a mafia hit.<\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ken at Popehat yesterday advocated skeptical and critical thinking about leaking in general and Wikileaks in particular, and asking ourselves some tough questions, such as “Do I \u2014 should I \u2014 believe that the people reviewing and selectively publishing the leaked information are doing so honestly, or are they driven by an agenda? Is someone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=623"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}