You weren't down voted for the CIA System Admin job he had (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden) You were down voted for saying he "Took One for the Team". I didn't down vote you though. You were presenting a conspiracy theory.
Rewind to a decade ago and suggesting that "the government" was committing mass surveillance and spying on everyone would be considered a conspiracy theory. You'd be assigned to a mental ward if you suggested that several governments were working together on this spying.
Not to defend his theory - but I find negatively reacting to any "far-fetched" theories merely because they are theories is rather short sighted given the number of them that turn out to be true, or partially true.
> Not to defend his theory - but I find negatively reacting to any "far-fetched" theories merely because they are theories is rather short sighted given the number of them that turn out to be true, or partially true.
You are falling prey to survivorship bias. You forget the huge, overwhelming majority of conspiracy theories that are wrong, and remember the ones that turn out to be right. Without evidence, it's a waste of time to even consider them.
I never said to consider them - be as neutral and uncaring as you like. But to be negative to them by default is inherently wrong if they have even a scrap of evidence or reason to believe. If they have zero evidence or logical reason to be suspect - be as critical and negative as you like.
Poor evidence is evidence that is still investigated and proven to be credible or not. In the scenario where it cannot be investigated, one forms a belief around it and chooses whether to believe it themselves or not. This is how many conspiracy theories form. Feel free to be negative of people who hold their beliefs even after whatever evidence they had has been disproven, proven to be fake, or proven to be non-credible.
Snowden was a CIA agent. There is at least some history of the alphabet soup agencies competing and trying to shortchange another. That can be reason enough to suspect he's a plant.
The world is not black and white. There is a ground other than "believe" and "don't believe". You don't have to believe Snowden is a CIA plant. However you don't need to hold a negative view against the possibility, however small or improbable.
And what's wrong with that? He didn't present it as if he thought it were fact. Why do people have such a strong reaction to "conspiracy theories"? It's not as though these things never turn out to be truthful, but some people seem to reject all things that resemble conspiracy theories without consideration of any kind. Some even seem to take the existence of a conspiracy theory as evidence of the opposite.
As far as the idea in his post goes, the hypothesis presented is reminiscent of the USSR, where historically multiple internal security and intelligence units competed behind the scenes for power and sometimes undermined each other for the same.
I lean toward he did this at great personal sacrifice.
I agree, but I am not so well informed that I can reasonably exclude all other hypotheses; nor do I think is anyone else so well informed. I don't put a lot of stock in the Snowden-is-a-CIA-operative-kneecapping-the-NSA hypothesis; it's more of a whimsical idea that is amusing to think about. It reminds me of some spy fiction I read years ago by Viktor Suvorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov
>If it was a turf war he wouldn't left for China and stuck in Russia.
I'm not sure how that follows. Snowden's wellbeing would definitely be in jeopardy if he had remained in the US, even if he were a CIA operative.
