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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

It's the moral imperative of every country to optimize for its citizens' economic prospects.

The CIA (and every other intelligence org.) is literally a weapon designed to operate in the grey area to fit the mandate of the policy makers and elected leadership. Many of the things they do are questionable or worse. In the case of the DoD, they do these things at the behest of democratically elected leadership.

Of course US and China will operate in their own best interests. Of course they will both play chess, both name call, both sanction and impede. When it's not a hot war, it is still a never-ending battle for each country's total economic, soft, and hard power market share.

This is every country.

It's geopolitics.

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This is just "might makes right" but modern. I don't know that this is the consistent, wide-held belief that you seem to think it is. Plenty of people would rather our governments not engage in clandestine disruption and undermining of foreign governments.

Competition is inevitable, especially between geopolitical rivals, but we don't have to engage in Minitrue-style "the enemy has always been our enemy" rhetoric.

We live under economic conditions created by a government that does intervene. And a greater world order established by a hegemon that does intervene.

It would be interesting to see what life would be like today had that not happened. It might be better, it might be worse. Probably a little of both for different groups of people.

As the world returns to multi-polarity, there are signs of increases in violence.

The last time the world had multi-polarity, we had far more wars. Including the worst wars the world has ever seen.

> The last time the world had multi-polarity, we had far more wars. Including the worst wars the world has ever seen.

Citations? Simply saying that World War 1 happened during a time of multi-polarity is just begging the question. Multi-polarity of varying degrees has always been the case throughout human history, and often times single-polarity is achieved only through extreme violence.

American Hegemony or Pax Americana (post WWII until present) is the most peaceful period of human history, despite the myriad atrocities which have occurred during that period, from myriad different parties, including the USA itself

A big reason for that, as far as I can tell, is that if one side has the USA on its side, they're basically unattackable for many places since the USA is so over powered militarily and can project force anywhere

It stands to reason as the USA recedes from the world's stage it will get more violent as more nations stand at parity with their adversaries again. And we're certainly seeing wars cropping up lately as the US continues to undermine its traditional allies, bully adversaries, declare trade wars, and withdraw from agreements.

I do not disagree with that assessment, but maybe one can hope that at some point we evolve past this "us versus them" mentality that we inherited from the savannah? If so, it's worth pushing for it.

This is not news, I had "the multi polar world" in history class in high school in the early 2000s, it's just that the US suddenly realized it and has been blind to the change for a while.

I think this is too simplistic of an outlook. The post-Napoleonic balance of powers was not uni-polar, it was a carefully constructed and negotiated settlement by diplomats and politicians who knew the cost of war, and it lasted a remarkable 99 years. There were skirmishes in the interim, but the balance of power ensured that the bloodletting never escalated to the point of continent-spanning "world" war...until it did.

Pax Americana, by contrast, was essentially a standoff between ideological opposites that were equipped with enough nuclear weapons to assure mutual destruction. The choices were clear - coexist or die, and there were many opportunities where we narrowly escaped the second option.

You could point to many possible causes of WW1, but I think that a lot of the causes can be traced back to a hot-headed emperor who desired a larger and more prestigious empire but lacked the statecraft to do so without pissing off nearly all of his neighbors. Looking around at our world today at the number of unserious leaders who govern like a bull in a china shop, I would be lying if I didn't see any similar causes for concern.

Do you think countries behave differently than what the parent has said? This has been going on forever, since the first clan of humans fought another, any reasoning other than "might makes right" is a post-hoc rationalization not based in history.

Can we at least distinguish between descriptive and normative?

The theory that humans are evil to one another and that this behavior has been going on since the dawn of time has shaky grounds. David Graeber looks for alternative explanations in his book [1] The Dawn of Everything.

https://davidgraeber.org/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-...

That first sentence feels like one of those fake-deep things that sounds important, but can effectively be used to justify about anything?

Which is to say, in a world that's -- you know -- a society; not screwing over the other guy is often, if not usually, a good way to "optimize your own citizens economic prospects," too.

The very first sentence crashes and burns, because there are multiple moral systems and compasses. Using "imperative" in the context of morals is extra spicy, because it reference a very specific, very strict moral code - The Categorical Imperative.

The CI is, in my experience, not a moral system about personal or group advantage, but about rules the can govern everybody.

> The CIA (and every other intelligence org.) is literally a weapon designed to operate in the grey area to fit the mandate of the policy makers and elected leadership

There is some truth, but this is how you get a crappy-ass intelligence agency.

Good intelligence agencies are focused on gathering intelligence, not performing random tasks that benefit from secrecy.

The US wants to have its cake and eat it too. It will pose around as a democratic and peaceful force, and use these illegal and shady tactics whenever they seem fit. And if you say this, their enablers in the traditional media will label you a conspiracy theorist.

> It's the moral imperative of every country to optimize for its citizens' economic prospects.

Surely there are constraints on this, because otherwise, it would be the moral imperative of every country to enslave non-citizens for the benefit of (some subset of) citizens.

Slave labour is very inefficient. It was found to be more beneficial to lure non-citizens with temporary working visas.

>It's the moral imperative of every country to optimize for its citizens' economic prospects.

Moral???

Correct, this is double-speak at its maximum.

Any other motivation forfeiting citizens' interests are perceived as treason, therefore immoral, so yes.

So for example addressing climate change might be perceived as treason if it gets in the way of optimizing economic interests?

It can, especially when some other countries commission a new coal power plant every week.

I hate this talking point so much. If you are talking about China, that's just growth. They are also rolling out more solar than the rest of the world combined. While the US is now actively discouraging investing in renewables.

Chinese coal power outgrows renewables still. A Western country with already cleaner energy destroying whatever remains of their manufacturing only to be moved to China and powered by mostly coal is not only treason of its own citizens but also bad for the climate. Feels so good to be "net zero" while importing materialized coal with not much to trade back (other than coal of course).

So when slave trade advances citizens' economic prospects it's moral imperative for the country to facilitate it, right?

> the CIA .. operate in the grey area...

*operate in areas too dark for Anish Kapoor

> When it's not a hot war, it is still a never-ending battle

no, battle is not a moral imperative.

bascially a version of its ok to steal from grocery store to feed your kids

More like it's okay for one store to steal from another if they can offer you better prices.

> It's the moral imperative of every country to optimize for its citizens' economic prospects.

"Moral imperative"? No country was ever created out of a moral imperative. None. Also, no country was ever created to optimize for its citizens' economic prospects. Every country was created by the elites for the benefits of the elites.

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The intent is there.

It's an incredibly complex distributed system with millions of actors and interactions, entrenched powers, regulatory capture, Citizens United, etc. It has to be defended and garbage collected.

> The intent is there.

The declaration of independence was written by one of the wealthiest slave owners in the country. "Moral imperative" was certainly not behind the american revolution. The economic interests of the elites were. There are no saints in politics. Just interests - mostly of the elites.

This is an extremely reductive take. Thomas Jefferson was a hero and a scholar! Think about the times he lived in, everyone lived under some sort of aristocratic monarchy, that was the norm. Certainly there were some economic interests at play in tge Revolution, but is it economically smart to declare independence from the most powerful empire of the day? Indeed, many of the "elites" at the time sided with the British! There had to be something more than just "class interests" at play to convince these wealthy elites to renounce their fealty to their government, giving up all legal claims to their property and indeed their very lives, should the revolutionaries have lost.

Both the most vulgar and selfish interest, and the most principled passions, seems to play a role in history at different times. The most important contributing factor, though, is selfish interest of large groups of people, because the sun of it's many little influences do not cancel out, unlike the actions of principled actors. In exceptional times, good intends are allowed to take the front seat just as long as necessary, by the many behind the scene who will silently weight toward the prompt reestablishment of "business as usual".

Why historical did empires collapse or split? Was there always a noble reason that a portion of some empire declared themselves independent and fought a war for it? Maybe they just wanted to be rulers in their own land because they were young and ambitious and willing to put up with some risk.

> Thomas Jefferson was a hero and a scholar!

He was definitely that.

> but is it economically smart to declare independence from the most powerful empire of the day?

Yes, if that empire was unfairly taxing you, taking your wealth and impeding your growth/development. But you already knew this.

> Indeed, many of the "elites" at the time sided with the British!

Yes. Some of the elites felt that sticking with britain made the most sense to them. Others did not.

> There had to be something more than just "class interests" at play to convince these wealthy elites to renounce their fealty to their government, giving up all legal claims to their property and indeed their very lives, should the revolutionaries have lost.

Nothing more than "more wealth and power".

You mean, the fiction is there. They did use a lot of nice words, but the reality is a bunch of slave owners creating a society controlled by oligarchs.

I don't want to fight against decades of State propaganda and indoctrination, but do you realise that by "men" they were not referring to black slaves or Mexicans in Texas or California or native Americans(the best Indian in the dead Indian).

well, from my perspective in an occupied Territory, it has to defied and sent home.

stated intent goes nowhere to the harm done.

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