Also: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=1917913

Shouldn't you go demand more "proof" from him too, or is it just easier to pile on the heavily downvoted guy?

It shouldn't be too hard to see this is all bullshit, and that's what I originally got downvoted for trying to point out (in a less-than-HNesquely-eloquent manner).

The idea was just to point out the ridiculousness of the bullshit political maneuvering, not to imply that the only reason why he would not rape someone is because it would hinder his movement.

I did acknowledge the potential quality issue, which is what you spent your message talking about. You didn't really address anything I said. I bet I guessed your nationality right, though, didn't I?

> You are not the first person here to suspect that Assange may be falsely accused.

As I said, I was the first one to hint at that quite likely possibility.

> a woman who accused a man of groping her at ApacheCon. If there is a more loaded topic for discussion than that, I can't think of it. Yet this community managed to have a very civil discussion about it, due to those rules you are disparaging.

That's nice, but what did you think the civil discussion might have devolved into? Hypersensitive overreacting about "assault"?

This Assange -story, on the other hand, is not only about alleged rape, but also about the place where conspiracy-theories and reality meet.

Would it also be terrible to be falsely accused of rape, in an internationally public manner?

The problem here is that mine was the first comment to allude to the whole debacle being disgusting bullshit.

There weren't almost any comments in the thread, possibly because if you really wanted to discuss this, you'd have to discuss the whole thing being bullshit, and facing the bullshit-laden reality we live in is unpleasant.

HN doesn't want to discuss unpleasant realities.

That may actually be a good thing for maintaining the high quality of discussions on other, more pleasant subjects - who knows. But on the other hand, spreading awareness of bullshit being bullshit would do us all good in our role of ordinary citizens of various governments.

He'll probably tour all Western countries, and rape a couple of women in each to make things a little more exciting.

Edit: Wow, what was fast! You really believe this is not bullshit?

Edit2: Or are we just not allowed to discuss reality on HN? Rainbows & Unicorns are much nicer.

It's safe to assume Google has been getting something in return all along, but now something's changed, and they decided to make a big fuss about the whole thing.

Then they say things like:

a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends.

Locking up? --> "Open" vs "Closed" again.

So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out.

I bet that most people would think of "getting something out" as removing it. They make it sound like you should be able to remove "your data" from Facebook..

you are always free to download your contacts using the export feature in Google Contacts

.. As if Google letting you export things from various Google services amounted to the same thing, which it doesn't. No matter how much you export your data, Google will still be keeping a copy of everything, so talking about "getting it out" is disingenuous.

Because, after all, you should have control over your data.

Why did Google give "my data" to Facebook without asking me, or even notifying me about it then? After several years of handing people's contact information over to FB behind the scenes, why is it suddenly important that I have control over my data? Disingenuous.

But this is all just a PR-stunt and an attack against Facebook combined. Open vs Closed again, and Google parading around as a champion of Openness and your rights, when in the end, both parties are just corporations and only interested in making money off of you and "your" data.

I'm not terribly interested in a chance to "get out" my data from services that will keep my data anyway.

They also did give Facebook my GMail contacts, which I thought was scuzzy, but hey that's alright as long as I can export stuff out from various Google services!

A service that won't let me "get my contact information out"? Nice way to frame this in terms of "openness" too, apparently riding "open" for all it's worth with Android is not enough.

Can I just "get out" all of my personal information from Google? No? Isn't Google "open" enough to let me do it?

We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there.

Did you also think it was super duper important with a cherry and smarmy bullshit on top to let me know before you gave Facebook my GMail contacts behind the scenes when I was registering there earlier this year?

No, and I was disgusted when Facebook started suggesting them for "friends" right away.

You say it like our personal information is the only data in town.

Of course, any app needs data, but it can be anything.

More effective than "security theater".

Edit: OK, maybe you confused me twice, first by seemingly cringing at me, and then by talking about "mixed" whiskey. I guess you may have meant that the post I was replying to made you cringe.

Try this: http://www.forpeatsake.com/Ardbeg/Ardbeg+Airigh+Nam+Beist/1