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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

Amusing how the CIA is "audacious", while foreign agencies are pure evil.

Within the context, this is about the spying and signals intelligence. We don't usually talk about an foreign agency being pure evil when they tap fiber lines, we do when they murder or massacre.

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In the digital age, information is everything. And information usually precedes action, so in my eyes your argument is wilfully ignorant to the larger reality of a complex globalized world.

I think the US and other Global North countries have a massive shadow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j800SVeiS5I

If unfamiliar, this is a guide to Jung's concept of the shadow: https://highexistence.com/carl-jung-shadow-guide-unconscious...

All of that is mere sophistry to justify their crimes. It is an addictive toxic meme like "neccessity" as it at best escalates from any actual neccessity to excusing mistakes to whatever is convenient to whatever they /think/ will help even if actively detrimental like torturing for information. This sort of delusion has a long history - often found as societies rail against "decadence" when it is really what they consider virtue which will be their inevitable downfall.

The secret is that information doesn't matter to the evil fools, it is all a pretext for self justification whether consciously or otherwise. In order for the delusional evil to die and stay dead the secret must be widely exposed.

Fuck.

I wrote this before and then edited, without realizing that now my main argument has become for the opposite of what I intended it to be for. Now I can't edit it. Original post:

"Wow very selective mind you've got there. Please tell me this is a joke?

In the digital age, information is everything. And information usually precedes action, so in my eyes your argument is wilfully ignorant to the larger reality of a complex globalized world.

I think the US and other Global North countries have a massive shadow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j800SVeiS5I

Guide to Jung and the shadow: https://highexistence.com/carl-jung-shadow-guide-unconscious...

You have a very rosy view that I do not share.

Donald Trump: “I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country — you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” Trump

Eric Bolling (Fox and Friends): “Well, you killed them, Donald,”

Donald Trump: “Well, he is damaging America.”

Are you saying US agencies don't torture and murder people?

You start at "within the context".

It depends on what the information is used for. If it's to stop nuclear proliferation, it's audacious. If it's to monitor and then disappear political dissidents, it's pure evil.

So let's go with option 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

Yes, those are pure evil. The particular case of monitoring nuclear weapons development programs or the Billy Carter case mentioned in the article, however, is more on the audacious side.

Perhaps audaciously evil is good then?

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