So you think that a higher status makes you a better cook? Or that a higher status makes the local supermarket to sell you the unprocessed food cheaper?

the cheaper food actually tasted even better

A definite no. But then, I was not raised on industrially processed food; you tend to like the sort of food you were raised on.

Back in the day (1980s), I helped run an emergency food pantry in Southern California. At the time, Sol Price (founder of Price Club, which I believe is one of the constituent chains that merged to become CostCo) donated pallets of dried milk to us to redistribute. In general, these were pallets where there had been damage, so some of the packages were not usable - the vast majority of the packages, however, were fine.

At our pantry, that donation made up a substantial part of what we gave out to people, especially those with children.

I always thought it was both generous and great business sense for them to donate that food. After all, Price Club got a tax write off, there was less waste, and the hungry people got food without it impacting Price Club's sales.

Chernobyl was a fission plant, but nature does have fusion reactors reacting all over the universe all the time,

And quite a lot of them actually exploded. ;-)

The people hiding Jews in Nazi Germany also broke the law. I guess that would also exclude them from being heroes in Bill Gates' opinion?

Not a fan of the NSA part, but anything that reduces the worldwide birth rate is good in my opinion.

So you are in favour of a global thermonuclear war? Because that certainly would reduce the birth rate worldwide.

No, because in Germany, while you're forbidden to publish the picture without consent of the person, you're not forbidden to take it, nor to show it to the police.

for example just about any photograph depicting the demolishing of the Berlin Wall would have been illegal.

Given that the German law contains an explicit exemption for pictures of contemporary history, that statement is not true.

No, there are usually exceptions for that type of photography. Also there are typically exceptions for people of special interest (that is, if you photograph a politician, he cannot forbid you you to publish it, at least not on the ground of that law) and for certain other common cases.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Note that the German term "Recht am eigenen Bild" translates literally to "right to your own image"

That's why astrophysicists concentrate on the sky instead.

For example, I have to pay travel expenses from my own money, and then get them reimbursed afterwards. That is, I may have a legitimate reason to access my bank account in order to e.g. pay my flight. But that doesn't give my employer the right to access my banking password (and possibly look what's going on in my bank account).

Also, if I'm not allowed to access my bank account from the company network, the right thing is not to decrypt it, but to block it.

Uh, it's perfectly possible to be a sociopath and also do good and important things.

The personality part is interesting because it shows that Assange's personality is both what enabled him to accomplish all he did with WikiLeaks, and what sabotaged his efforts to make WikiLeaks into something even bigger and more powerful. His fallings-out with other WikiLeaks people predates much of the external pressure. Based on many sources, he strikes me as a deeply flawed individual who has accomplished great things. It's sad that he has not been able to accomplish more.

My guess is that history will show him as paving the way for Snowden and other future leakers. He'll be remembered more for the way his actions changed the discourse and environment for transparency than for his actual technical accomplishments. His personality will be an afterthought.

soylentnews.org
pipedot.org

No under capitalism no one is exploited.

What colour is the sky on your planet?

Values exchanges for value and nobody does anything forcibly against their will.

Sure. And people can just decide not to eat for prolonged time whenever no acceptable way to generate income is available. </sarcasm>

It's only when you add government activity beyond the protection of private property that you get exportation.

You mean, government activity like protection of lives? Protection of freedom? Or protection of any other human rights?