Dunedin, Tooth, Wikileaks, Opportunity Costs

[tcpip]

Regular readers would know that I have a certain fondess for a small city in The South Island of New Zealand. Early this week I went to Dunedin to look at an investment property (i.e., place to retire in). I received notification today that the current owners (the Dunedin Chinese Methodist Church) are happy to accept my offer for the delightfully deco former Maori Freemasons Lodge, built 1933. Images (ravensbourne00.jpg .. ravenbourne09.jpg, follow the obvious sequence) available.

Second visit for root canal therapy this morning. The prognosis is not good. Despite having a fine set of fangs in most instances, it seems that my poor cracked tooth (bottom right molar) is beyond the abilities of medical science (at least within reasonable cost) and will have to be removed.

There is much to be said about Wikileaks and the recent arrest of its founder, Julien Assange. A large protest is looming in his home town of Melbourne. I have had brief email conversation with him in the past around the founding of the Isocracy Network; and (arranged prior to this recent major media event) will be speaking about Wikileaks at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on January. Also conducting the service this Sunday on Lyle Allen's address on local democracy.

Finally, macabre explanation of opportunity costs (hat-tip to Brendan E) "I think dead children should be used as a unit of currency. I know this sounds controversial, but hear me out."

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Sure, I almost always put my presentations up in the web... What is the conflict you're seeing between stated and acted on goals?

[lifedistilled.livejournal.com]

It's my impression that Assange has stated in the past that WikiLeaks had a specific goal of undermining the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as attempting to expose what he considers United States imperialism. My assumption (and I haven't heard Assange say one way or another, so this is just that, an assumption) is that he disapproves of the wars due to the humanitarian issues they've caused, i.e. the death toll of innocent civilians and creation of refugees.

If, however, his goal is the prevention of loss of innocent civilian life, why did he not go to the trouble of blacking out or otherwise editing the names of civilians who were working with US forces in the region, and who have now had their names exposed for anyone who cares to look?

It feels like it was a rush-job, a "get it to press immediately" situation that should have been handled with a great deal more care and thoroughness if the purpose is truly 'open press' and humanitarian concerns.

Assange's motivations and biases seem to be at odds with the WikiLeaks ideal of a whistleblowing, unbiased, no-secrets press.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It's my impression that Assange has stated in the past that WikiLeaks had a specific goal of undermining the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,

I don't think that was a specific objective, but certainly a result. They did have a "post anonymously" without editorialship, but faced with justified criticism they amended that policy.

The issue of editing names is one which has been, I believe, addressed in part. The 92,000 Afghan War documents were released to The Guardian, the NYT and Der Spiegel. About 15,000 of those documents have not been released, and the organisation is reviewing them on the grounds that you raise; in fact they have even asked the Pentagon and Amnesty International to assist them in this process, but neither has responded positively.

[lifedistilled.livejournal.com]

The trouble with asking the Pentagon is that by doing so, the Pentagon would be validating the methods by which the documents were obtained. They simply can't do that, I don't think.