Thread by @yaelwrites

I'm reading @Snowden's book and even the preface debunks a lot of accusations of him misstating his credentials (this was incredibly honest), caring only about gov't surveillance and not the proliferation of ad tech (which he refers to as surveillance capitalism), etc. 1/

I'm also going to be trying to figure out his AD&D alignment as I read because I've maintained for years that he's neutral good while others have argued chaotic good, but I wonder if lawful good is a possibility with the law reflecting a moral principle rather than an agency 2/

I must say I wasn't expecting a Gen X (well, technically, Xennial) perspective on the generational shift that defined his coming-of-age, but it's nice to read it spelled out and I hope there's more of this. 3/

Chapter 2 is all about life lessons delivered via Super Mario Brothers (and about taking stuff apart), but I'm most interested in mentions of Zeus, Apollo, Hermes, Athena and Hephaestus--but not Artemis. Hephaestus, his favorite, is probably true neutral... 4/

Anyway, this memoir is bringing up so many memories for me of growing up and being on the Internet back when your every keystroke wasn’t tied to your identity, and it’s a fascinating background lens to learn more about Snowden’s childhood 5/

Chapter 5 has not helped my alignment analysis much—he talks about not liking the rules but being afraid of breaking them, and instead hacking them. Seems neutral... but he also reported a security issue to Los Alamos... lawful? 6/

Okay so Snowden’s decision to join the army seems very lawfully motivated but the retelling is very chaotic. And it seems motivated in equal parts for idealism and for self-serving purposes, so true neutral an option here. 7/

All right, I’m going to go with True Neutral for Part 1, which takes us up to 2005. 8/

Continuing onto Part 2, Snowden is still breaking the rules by calling his girlfriend during his secret CIA training, and is also enjoying challenging the administration just for fun. I believe this puts him in chaotic neutral territory. 9/

Breaking chain of command is v chaotic, and tbh some of the “wanted to serve my country” claims ring a little hollow compared to wanting to, say, the desire to do the most interesting work. 10/

Snowden starts talking about how problematic he found mass, warrantless surveillance ~halfway thru the book, so I’m going to say this was a shift from neutral to good, but he still isn’t doing much about it other than researching it more on his own, so still neutral good imo 11/

Wow end of section 2 really veers into solid good territory, as Snowden realizes (even while on leave/suffering from epilepsy) his own privilege and the effect of surveillance across the globe. He sets up and distributes a bridge relay bypass Iranian internet blockades 12/

This shift from worrying about how the government and corporations having a permanent record would affect him and his loved ones to how the lack of freedom hurts protestors across the world and how he can help is pretty badass and I wish more would follow suit. 13/

(Again am looking at Snowden as a character in his own story as told by himself in this assessment.) 14/

The whistleblowing chapter (21) is screaming chaotic good at me. /15

This chapter is also an incredible explanation of why Snowden did what he did rather than go through internal channels. /16

Wow the tick tock of Snowden leaving Hawaii for Hong Kong and all the preparations he made beforehand was fascinating (and definitely unequivocally chaotic good) 17/

Okay, I’m all done reading and definitely going with chaotic good. Also the last section was riveting. /18