Swedish human rights activist Anna Ardin is glad Julian Assange is free.

But the claims she has made about him suggest she would have every reason not to wish him well.

Ardin is fiercely proud of Assange’s work for WikiLeaks, and insists that it should never have landed him behind bars.

“We have the right to know about the wars that are fought in our name,” she says.

Speaking to Ardin over Zoom in Stockholm, it quickly becomes clear that she has no problem keeping what she sees as the two Assanges apart in her head - the visionary activist and the man who she says does not treat women well.

She is at pains to describe him neither as a hero nor a monster, but a complicated man.

  • First of all, you would agree that you can aggregate clusters of people based on how each answer a variety of probing questions, right?

    Nope. I’ve taken that test a few times, got different results each time, same for a number of friends and colleagues. It’s too vague, swings with mood and interpretation, and is wildly swayed by it’s own popularity. It’s about as accurate as a horoscope, and has as much to do with reality as a Hogwarts house (which, even in-universe, wasn’t a reliable predictor of the character of a person).

    Since your thesis is flawed, I didn’t bother to do more than skim that wall of text, but what I saw also read like pseudo-scientific nonsense. You mentioned something about it “not being harmful”; Tell that to the people who - no shit - didn’t get jobs in management or analytics because the sorting hat didn’t like their 4-letter password.

    • lennybird@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Whoa whoa, you jumped to a conclusion before you even comprehended what I wrote. Never, nowhere, did I say your personality remained immutable. That would be silly to suggest to begin with. But rather those clusters are relative to that snapshot in time. If you took the time to slow down and read, that would’ve been readily apparent.

      I took the test half a dozen times over the course of 2 years and got the same answer. As did my wife. Doesn’t mean everyone will.

      You’re going to have to try again if that’s your attempted gotcha, sorry.

      • You’re jumping to a bit of a conclusion also; These differing results didn’t happen of the course of years, or even months. They were separated mostly by weeks, and in some cases days. The test isn’t reliable.

        Also, I’m not trying to come up with a “gotcha”. This isnt a debate. Best case is enough people inform you that these personality tests are malarkey that you do some self reflection. Worst case is that I wasted a bit of my time.

      • You’re jumping to a bit of a conclusion also; These differing results didn’t happen of the course of years, or even months. They were separated mostly by weeks, and in some cases days. The test isn’t reliable.

        Also, I’m not trying to come up with a “gotcha”. This isnt a debate. Best case is enough people inform you that these personality tests are malarkey that you do some self reflection. Worst case is that I wasted a bit of my time.

        • lennybird@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Okay well thank you so much for your sincere concern. I’ll spare your further time and wait for better arguments with all due respect.