Sorry, but why do you think I have something against anonymity? I'm sure you're aware of various investigative stories that have involved anonymous whistleblowers. Are you seriously equating an anonymous gadfly with a company conspiring to secretly ruin a public critic's life?
What's funny to me is that I've just come back from an event at Stanford where Barton Gellman, the Pulitzer-winning journalist who reported on Snowden and the NSA for the Washington Post, was asked if he ever felt threatened subsequent to his reporting on PRISM and the rest of the Snowden leaks. Gellman says no, he's never felt threatened. Certainly, he's worried about surveillance because he's still in communication with Snowden, and it is clearly in the NSA's best interest to know what Snowden is saying, and to someday intercept and stop him...and of course, the NSA and the White House has objected quite angrily (but publicly) to Gellman's work. But apparently, the NSA is at least professional enough to know that a line would be crossed if they messed with Gellman's life.
And now here I am, on HN, having a quasi-serious debate with someone who thinks no biggie if Uber would retaliate against someone like Lacy, even though Lacy's reporting is far less hard-hitting and substantial than what Gellman has done to the NSA.
Are you seriously equating an anonymous gadfly with a company conspiring to secretly ruin a public critic's life?
I'm trying to determine whether the action itself is "abhorrent" or whether it's only "abhorrent" because the person who discussed it is a tech dudebro that everyone loves to hate.
At this point I'm leaning very strongly toward the latter.
I thought you had something against anonymity because "...never have my colleagues nor I did such work under surreptitious means. We made our identities clear...". If that was merely a red herring, my apologies. I thought you brought it up because you believed it was relevant, and perhaps the source of Michael's actions being "abhorrent".
Hmmm, yeah, I guess I'm not communicating very clearly here. In my worldview, actions should be judged along with the circumstances that led to the actions.
For example, a human-wielded knife slashing across a human body to cause a bloody and gruesome wound. I consider that action relatively neutral without knowing more of the context.
If the knife is being wielded by a mugger during an attempted robbery, then I consider it to be an unpleasant action.
If the knife is being wielded by a doctor in an attempted c-section, I consider it to be a less unpleasant action, perhaps, even a justified and positive action.
I mean Jesus Christ, do you really enter into these discussions with an objectivity that can't conceive of how events and actions can have different values depending on the given circumstances?
What's funny to me is that I've just come back from an event at Stanford where Barton Gellman, the Pulitzer-winning journalist who reported on Snowden and the NSA for the Washington Post, was asked if he ever felt threatened subsequent to his reporting on PRISM and the rest of the Snowden leaks. Gellman says no, he's never felt threatened. Certainly, he's worried about surveillance because he's still in communication with Snowden, and it is clearly in the NSA's best interest to know what Snowden is saying, and to someday intercept and stop him...and of course, the NSA and the White House has objected quite angrily (but publicly) to Gellman's work. But apparently, the NSA is at least professional enough to know that a line would be crossed if they messed with Gellman's life.
And now here I am, on HN, having a quasi-serious debate with someone who thinks no biggie if Uber would retaliate against someone like Lacy, even though Lacy's reporting is far less hard-hitting and substantial than what Gellman has done to the NSA.