Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Secret Project: The Planetary Datalinks
Why Hacker News recommends it
Quoted in privacy and surveillance debates, and praised as some of the best science fiction writing in games.
What it is
The secret project cutscene for The Planetary Datalinks from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, featuring a quote about free information flow as the safeguard against tyranny.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2013 to 2020.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec kyuudou · 2020-04 · on “The Collective Body: Russian experiments in life after death”
The special projects videos in that game are some of the best science fiction creative work ever made, IMO. Also, something I still think is predictive and sends chills up my neck, "as the Americans painfully learned in Earth's final century" (presumably the 21st): [this video] Text of the whole spoken: "As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you
Cites Afforess · 2013-06 · on “US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program”
> This seems a rather inappropriate aphorism, since most people here would very much like to deny the NSA access to information about their phone usage. This is an argument against censorship rather than one in support of privacy. I have no idea how you interpreted it that way. The quote is in reference to the government. It's from a video game, which came out in 1999. [this video]
Cites GauntletWizard · 2018-06 · on “Recovery of Lost Indigenous Languages by Optical Scanning of Old Wax Cylinders”
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri ( [this video] ) What was contained in those cermonies that you were not to know? What offense would he do to his people by sharing their wisdom with you? What didn't they want you to know? The answer is