The USA will throw you in jail for speaking at conferences in countries they don't want you speaking in.
Land of the free, eh?
@m0xee what is wrong with it? he was jailed for teaching.
@sneak Teaching what, cryptocurrencies in a country where the majority of population has no access to the Internet? Do you believe this bullshit?
You seem to have no idea how stuff like this works in non-free countries. There is no way a conference like this could be organized by some random people in educational purposes, it was organized by the government and in this case to help them circumvent the international sanctions (it is hinted in the article you've posted the link to). That is wrong.
@m0xee doesnt matter what is being taught or to whom. he was jailed for teaching.
@sneak Well, he was restricted from teaching an (already jailed) person how to escape his jail, still did that and went to jail too. You think this is wrong, point taken.
What do you think are good reasons for going to jail? Killing someone directly most certainly is, but what about selling a gun to a person with a really bad criminal record? Not unknowingly, but running a background check on him and still going forward. Or is it just "doing business"?
@sneak BTW what is wrong with surveillance then? Let's just call it you are "being studied". No one really dies. What can go wrong?
I'm not trying to change the subject (whataboutism) I'm just trying to understand your logic. I agree that teaching as in education should not be illegal, but teaching as in helping someone commit crimes should be punishable. For me it does matter what is being taught to whom.
@sneak You might think US is bad and you are right, but there are other countries that are pure evil compared to US. None of the shit happening in the Ukraine right now might have happened if the US an EU sanctioned Russia earlier.
@m0xee whataboutism.jpg
@sneak How is this whataboutism? When advanced technologies come to non-free countries they are never used to make people free and comfortable, they are always used for more oppression, more surveillance, more wars, etc.
I am from Russia, I know what I am talking about. People/companies that bring them become the enablers in this case. If I was a cryptocurrency researcher I would stay out of conference like this even if it was held in China and this is North Korea for chrissake!
@sneak In Germany do they throw you in jail when you break the law? I generally have no idea but I assume there are prisons and penalties for breaking laws in Germany as well. Not sure why this is controversy.
FWIW: I personally hate the US legal system, the LAPD (really any PD), etc. but that's from personal experience seeing/being targeted because I grew up poor with brown skin.
In this case, the dude was told no, chose to go anyway. Woops.
@PeterSanchez not all laws are just
@sneak Completely agree, but that's a totally different topic.
@PeterSanchez using laws as moral justification is thus invalid
@sneak No moral justification, but laws govern society. Because someone doesn't agree that murder is illegal does not make it OK to kill people. My point was, it's not an "American" thing (land of the free, eh?) - It's a every country on the planet imprisons people for breaking laws thing.
As an American I'm first in line to trash, criticize, etc. America laws, foreign/domestic policy, culture, etc. But the original toot is totally misleading. No, it's totally incorrect.
@PeterSanchez murder is a violation of human rights of others. many many many laws exist which prohibit things that harm no one and have no victim, and are simply tyrannical control. you are using false equivalence. many laws are inherently unjust and may be broken without moral issue. many laws (such as the prohibition on murder, which you cite) are just and murdering people is also immoral.
you're intentionally conflating just laws and unjust laws for the sake of argument.
@sneak No, I'm saying our personal moral compasses do not decide which laws we obey and which we don't. Ask Richard Ramirez of he felt killing was immoral. Whether or not we agree with a law does not determine if we can break it or not.
@PeterSanchez lol everything hitler did was legal. have fun with your bootlicking.
@sneak No everything he did was not legal (thus the many prosecutions after the war) but what's funny is we think the same thing, just disagree on whether the dude was a dipshit or not for breaking the law after not getting permission to speak at the conf in N. Korea. As for bootlicking, hell I'll try anything once.
@sneak What are you talking about? This is not some random country they don't like, it's North Korea we are talking about here. AFAIK even Apple Support will tell you to go fuck yourself if you tell them you are from North Korea, what is wrong with that?
Besides, he was denied the permission to go there and decided to go anyway so he was well aware what he was doing.