Easy advice to give as a bystander lacking context (2013!), hard to follow as a "martyr" living in that context. It wasn't even clear whether he'd be a martyr (he could have easily turned the politics around, wouldn't be the first time in the American history).

I was definitely around in 2013. And it was quite clear at the time there will be government persecution for the leaks, I mean that's why he ran in the first place.

If you stand on the path of martyrdom for your people you should be prepared to follow it to conclusion rather than fleeing to the sworn enemy.

Well the sworn frenemy has a crude but fitting idiom for that I suspect you might be familiar with, and Snowden might be too now: пиздеть - не мешки ворочать.

I have huge respect for people that have passed the test of going against their environment and comrades to do what they think is right (even if/when I disagree with it or it harms my interests). You can argue that he was insincere or a double agent (this is definitely wrong), you can argue he's a traitor by endangering people who had nothing to do with it (weak argument IMO), but arguing from an armchair that he must have walked full length is just silly I think. Let's have an extreme and inverted thought experiment to test your views. Imagine someone blows the whistle about FSB's Ryazan sugar [1] today, must he not run and let his head be smashed with a sledgehammer in a prime time TV show?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombing...

I have a clear, experience based understanding of my personal limits that makes me feel entitled to comment.

Cowardice is the greatest of the sins for it begets many of the others. Or if you insist on colloquial Russian: не можешь срать - не мучай жопу.

He gave up his life in the US to tell the people what the gov is doing. It's not like he then went and said hey Putin need some help destroying America? He just fled because otherwise the US would throw him in a hole for the rest of his life. What good would that do? It's not about martyrdom it's about getting the information out there. The information is out. Him being in a hole wouldn't do anything good for anyone.

Gave up his life? Why, he may have been living his best. A fully funded expat life in Moscow with some Jason Bourne cachet instead of scrapping by as a Sharepoint admin in the age of AI.

Gave up his life in the US yes. You should read the whole sentence before responding. Ideally even the whole comment.

I could swear "in the US" part wasn't there when I replied. Oh well.

If I had edited the comment you would see an "edited" tag on it. I'll do it on this one.

Edited to add this. Nevermind, there's no tag now. That's strange, I could swear that's a thing. Maybe I edited too early? Trying again now it's 18 minutes later. Still nothing, guess I've just imagined it?

I don't think it ever was a feature on HN. Although I've seen that on Lobsters and some other forums.

these are potentially the same people that killed epstein?

now, i don't believe that but you never know.

Noone in position of power was threatened by the contents of Snowden's leaks.

This is plain false. NSA was threatened and many more.