I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the limitations on free publishing due to various censorships while contrasting it with the vast growth of information collection by powerful entities.
Julian Assange's quote reflects the increasing restrictions on open publication fueled by self-censorship, economic factors, and political pressures, amidst the rapid expansion of the military-industrial complex. He suggests that this powerful entity collects an immense amount of information on individuals, surpassing what the public is aware of, thereby raising concerns about privacy, freedom of expression, and the implications of such surveillance in society.
In practice
In a discussion about freedom of speech at a university event.
The greater the power, the more need there is for transparency, because if the power is abused, the result can be so enormous. On the other hand, those people who do not have power, we mustn't reduce their power even more by making them yet more transparent.
Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.
You can either be informed and your own rulers, or you can be ignorant and have someone else, who is not ignorant, rule over you.
The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.
How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.
We do not know what really good or bad fortune is.
Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.
I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!
What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.
Represent to yourself a dark city all burning and stinking with fire and brimstone. The damned are in the depth of hell within this woful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments in all their senses and members. Consider above all the eternity of their pains, which above all things makes hell intolerable.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.