Comment by 4bpp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 4bpp | Hacker News Reader

The completely agrammatical "Latin" text in the AARO logo - somewhere on the level of English text one might find on a t-shirt sold on a street market in rural China - does not inspire confidence in the programme or its mission, as it suggests that

* some person in a high-up position is driven by a caricature of a notion of legitimacy conveyed by grandiose Latin mottos;

* this person does not have the diligence or attention to detail to be able to construct such a motto correctly, nor the capability for reflection to anticipate that he would fail to do so;

* either there is not enough of a culture of skepticism or criticism for anyone else to point out the mistakes and pull the emergency brakes, or there are not enough eyeballs even on fundamental materials like the programme's logo.

These are not features you want in a working group that you trust to sift through vague and contentious evidence on a topic marred by wishful thinking and military obscurantism. The group's findings therefore don't seem worth putting much stock in, and the main information that is conveyed by this is that there exist more amateurish and untrustworthy initiatives under the US military's aegis than one would expect.

(The motto itself seems to have come from a misremembered or ineptly modded Marcus Aurelius quote popular in motivational posters: https://ehoreka.myshopify.com/products/mundus-mutatur-vita-n...)

> does not inspire confidence in the programme or its mission

Literally judging an entire book by it's cover.

This is the DoD. There is absolutely guidance and rules already in place for creating, developing and approving new insignia. It's highly likely the people involved in the program had the least to do with it, and it's terribly unreasonable to judge the entire group by it.

> Literally judging an entire book by it's cover.

Yes, why not? Covers usually convey a lot of information about a book. Of all the books whose covers look like those an action manga, how many do you figure are a good resource for learning Polish? (Yes, in a way I'm acting deliberately obtuse about the proverb you are referring to, but the point is that there is nothing to that rule apart from it being a popular proverb. It is not hard to find proverbs that assert falsehoods.)

I don't know if the hypothetical scenario in which this logo was generated according to formal DoD-wide rules inspires any more confidence, either. It would just cast more suspicion upon other inputs that go into DoD-branded claims - if standard procedure for insignia produces this, what does e.g. standard procedure for documenting the circumstances under which a video was taken do?

> Yes, in a way I'm acting deliberately obtuse about the proverb

I would call it intentionally ignorant. Please try googling for "best book for learning polish" then flip to the image search. Which one is actually the best? Can you tell from here?

> It is not hard to find proverbs that assert falsehoods.

Yet it is easy to find organizations with terrible logos that still do good work.

Also organizations with amazing logos that do horrible things: see DEA badges like the cocaine intelligence unit. Cool as anything.

> Of all the books whose covers look like those an action manga, how many do you figure are a good resource for learning Polish?

Manga are a good way to learn Japanese, so the Polish translations are probably an okay way to learn Polish. Not because the translation would be literal, because it won't be, just because the reading level is low.

(Well, the trend in action manga lately is to have incredibly complicated magic powers where the characters just stand around explaining them to each other, so maybe skip JJK.)

My understanding is that cool obscure logos are normal for secret military projects: https://www.wired.com/2010/11/secret-insignias-from-the-blac...

This logo isn't very cool, which is more of a surprise to me. But bad Latin is understandable - if your project is secret then you can't ask anyone to proofread it, and who's going to be offended? There aren't any native Latin speakers.

Which is funny, because MA actually wrote his Meditations in Greek. The line in question is:

ὁ κόσμος ἀλλοίωσις, ὁ βίος ὑπόληψις. (Aur. Med. 4.3)

The "AARO" text itself reminds me a lot of Scientology material

Next time someone sees Eliezer on here, tell him someone must have taken inspiration from his methods.

Edit: Godric Gryffindor and the Methods of Google Translate, by the way.

Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum

Romanes eunt domus!

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