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Comment by leoh | Hacker News Reader

Although the CIA and State Department have unquestionably done a lot of bad stuff, I can't help but feel this may be a good thing. Online discourse has gotten extremely toxic and divisive. Moreover, it's quite likely that much of what we're seeing is the work of foreign adversaries. Encouraging bridges between Google/Meta and the US Intelligence Community, if it indeed helps reduce the sort of online discourse that is tearing the US apart (which I suspect it will), is something that I would feel extremely relieved to see.

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Why do you assume their objective is to decrease toxicity and divisiveness?

Wouldn't the CIA want to increase love of country? I think decreasing toxicity and divisiveness within the country might help with that.

They might want to increase our division against enemy countries, but decrease division within the US and against friendly countries.

Again, you assume their goal is the continuation of the republic as it exists and to make that more likely. This is probably not the case, first of all these agencies are compartmentalized, different projects can and often do have competing goals, and second, their ultimate goal is the continuation of state power, as is the goal of every state, and if that goal conflicts with what Americans view as being in their interest, then any expected loyalty to their countrymen cannot be relied upon.

But why would they not want “the continuation of the republic?” You don’t offer any plausible motive for why they wouldn’t. The power of the state — eg the ability to get folks to row in the same direction towards a common goal — is contingent upon the social contract, which at the present moment most seem to experience as perilously broken.

I don't need to offer you a motive. I can't read peoples minds. I'm just pointing out that your assumption that they view our social goals as valuable is unfounded. Emperors have killed their own people before. The power of a state rests upon social contract until the state has real power, and then it rests on the maintenance of that power. You cannot foresee what the maintenance of that power entails, and neither can I, which is why I can do no more than speculate on motive. Again, I'm not saying they don't value the same things we value, I believe that but that's not a claim I'm making here. I'm just pointing out that that doesn't have to be the case. You're ascribing a motive you cannot possibly know to the actions of other individuals, I won't do that. Remember, the state is comprised of people, with goals and ends and desires and beliefs, it's not a perfect alamgamation of the desires of those governed.

Let me ask you, why might a state view a foreign population, not a foreign state but a foreign population, as an enemy or a threat? What is it specific to that population that poses a threat to said state? Is it something that precludes the domestic population from being a similar threat? Why must the state view us as anything more than another colony?

>why might a state view a foreign population, not a foreign state but a foreign population, as an enemy or a threat? What is it specific to that population that poses a threat to said state? Is it something that precludes the domestic population from being a similar threat? Why must the state view us as anything more than another colony?

The state might view a foreign population as an enemy because they support their government which is an enemy. If we support a foreign government, the state might also view us as an enemy. My original point was that the CIA wants us to support the US government.

Part of the danger is that the CIA does not represent the people. The leadership is unelected, and they basically have influence over policy within government, and increasingly the ability to shape the speech of citizens through private corporations. Who decides what the "bad stuff" is?

There was a time on Twitter when sharing actual links to US documents on Covid would result in a ban for misinformation, or scientific opinions of actual doctors would result in suspension, if it was not in line with media talking points. The whitehouse itself would on occasion tell Twitter what it didn't like. Do you mean like that?

I feel like things are painful now partly because we live in the time of the first generation of humans to be born with this type of telecommunication, apps all day everyday, nobody knowing how to act. I feel like, maybe just let it play out? You could force it one way or another but like so many things intuitively it feels like people prefer to be happy and generations will rotate through ways of processing info until an equilibrium is reached. And natural equilibrium feels like it would be more stable than trying to control how people behave.

>"it's quite likely that much of what we're seeing is the work of foreign and domestic* adversaries"

I think it's naive to assume the same weapons and tools used abroad won't be used at home. We've already found American police forces using IMSI catchers to surveil protestors in their own country.

Would you feel even safer if they were monitoring phone calls, or any conversation that happened near a phone, for the communication of sentiments that might benefit our foreign adversaries?

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