You misread the parent comment as comparing the crimes, when in fact it was comparing the excuses for continuing to commit them, using a quote from a movie.
1. The comment to which you replied wasn't comparing violent war crimes to privacy violations, so your indignation was unnecessary.
2. Whether you're discussing war crimes, selling cancer-causing tobacco products, or spying on innocent civilians, the "just doing my job" and "I have a family and a mortgage" excuses are inadequate justification.
I agree. Without knowing much about penology, punishment for the sake of punishment seems overused in the US. Her prison sentence is short relative to all those given out because of her acts, but I think prison sentences in the US are too long to begin with.
I have never heard anyone herald the Twitter IPO as a sign of economic recovery. The IPO is in the news constantly because it's a minute-by-minute spectacle of wealth lost and wealth gained – not because people think it's a sign of easing economic times.
> Meanwhile, in the real America – the one where you can't call Uber to take you to a launch party – people are dropping out of the workforce, the recovery is weakening and early cuts in food stamps are already slamming the poor. That real America is the one that's not getting much attention.
I don't think the economic slump that affects such a large segment of the population is not getting much attention. The shoddy economy has basically dominated economic news for the past five years; I see articles about its poor state every time the jobs numbers come out. The public doesn't believe the economy is recovering either: http://www.gallup.com/poll/151127/Economic-Conditions-Weekly...
Do you have evidence that Larry Page or Google knew about this? How is the CEO of Google stepping down an adequate reaction to a something that Google doesn't seem to be behind?
I'm not putting any responsibility on Google's CEO that he didn't ask for when he became CEO - he is ultimately responsible for the company's actions. Leaving that amount of user data open to attack is unforgivable, regardless of who is "behind this" or how much he knew.
Secondly, the alleged attack, however it happened, is not the reason he should step down. Larry Page stepping down is going to be really bad for Google, he is one of the finest entrepreneurs of our time, and a great technologist.
He should do it to send a message.
Will their ever be more evidence about what actually happened? Probably not, but a resignation by one of the most powerful CEOs in the world will get some serious attention in the wider debate on privacy.
But like I said, the share price probably comes first...
> What is happening in the Western world (rise of inequality due to skills being prized higher owing to technological change) is very different to what happened in Russia.
Is this really the source of inequality in the Western world? Technological change leading to different desired skills seems like something that's been around long before our current inequality troubles. In any event, I thought average wage in the US hasn't risen since the 70s, before the information age. I would guess it's more a combination of several factors, perhaps the college no-college gap, changes in the finance world, and political changes.
