Well, here’s points for a more careful approach to the new and the weird.

Looks like LulzSec and Anonymous are in bed together, and with a cause. Apparently, they intend to pick up where WikiLeaks left off with the arrest of founder Julian Assange and the gutting of the website (and its support pipes).

Except…

Well, except they will get their information through hacking, but more importantly, they probably won’t release the documents with the same subtlety WikiLeaks did. No matter how you look at it, WikiLeaks’ way of releasing its leaks may not have been perfect, but it was full of good intentions. Had it been given a chance, the organization would have improved through criticism, and by now, we could have a responsible whistle-blower, something we all stand to gain from.

And yet the “civilized” world over-reacted, pointed to very formal rules on how things were supposed to be done, and it cried that WikiLeaks wasn’t respectful of anything, accused it to be evil and did everything it could to choke the baby to death. This approach, a classic example of the “Shoot first, ask questions later” ideology, is coming back to bite us in our collective ass.

Reminder: When you encounter something new and weird, there may be something newer and weirder right behind it, and just maybe you’d be better of befriending the former than the later.

In this case, shoving the whistle-blowing cause under the carpet and with false pretensions angered a lot of people. And because no gloves were taken to handle what these people cared about, they’re not going to worry about being civil with what they get their hands on.

Here’s what they might be thinking, I figure:

If you hadn’t castrated WikiLeaks, its civility would have made it a better conduit for these materials, but because you were too stupid to seize the opportunity, you’ll just have us now, dedicated to the truth above all else…

Or something to that effect.

Now, that may go from mildly bad to very bad, only time will tell. But there are people high up the ladder who should have known better and who must be pulling their hair off.