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Comment by flumpcakes | Hacker News Reader

Surely all experts are employed in some form in their field? Should we have their entire CV read out before their expertise is given on a subject matter?

Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action which aligns to benefit their employers, then the audience should probably just engage their critical thinking a bit more.

The majority of UK experts will probably have opinions that align with UK ethics/morality/society and urge options that benefit the UK state and it's allies. I would assume that would be an absolute given too.

When I watch Chinese citizens give their expertise on matters, I know that it will probably align with the Chinese state and benefit them (as opposed to strictly the UK state). Have people lost all of their critical thinking skills?

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> Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action

That's exactly the issue

The listed supposed conflicts of interest mostly aren't any clearer than the baseline assumption "ex generals will generally favour more defence spending" which anyone with more than two brain cells should already be working on.

How is an General Everard being a patron of an armed forces charity, a software company enhancing onboarding experiences, a skills training company or even an "informal network of strategic thinkers" who write blogs likely to influence his defence spending views more than being a general?

It's not like it's standard journalistic practice to provide the entire resume of any other type of commentator.

Definition of conflict of interest: a conflict between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust.

Army generals are in a position of trust, we assume they're acting in the public interest. Whether that's for more spending, more war, or less.

Here's an ex general's view on war and military spending:

> Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Eisenhower

The point is, there's clearly a problem if the public are getting opinions on this stuff from people who now have undisclosed private interests.

Shouldn't the public know that the former army general telling them that military spending needs to increase, now has the following roles?

> Paid positions included working part-time as a strategic advisor for Schroders bank, plus advisory roles at Helsing – a German AI defence start-up – and an insurance firm. ...spends 30 days per year “as a thought partner for Tony Blair in his role as Executive Chairman” at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. ...is chairman of Equilibrium Gulf Limited, which advises the crown prince of Bahrain on the autocratic country’s notoriously brutal interior ministry.”

> Shouldn't the public know that the former army general telling them that military spending needs to increase, now has the following roles?

I mean, the public can look up his current roles and the grounds for clearing him to take them on a government website if they really want to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carter-nick-chief... Or read what some of his former US counterparts said about him on Wikipedia if they're searching for stronger reasons to disagree with him...

But like most adults, I understand that former generals are not magical bastions of neutrality towards the defence sector, but people who generally have a very strong interest in the government spending on the institutions they devoted most of their lives to (Even Eisenhower spent more of the government budget on his military than any of these guys would ever ask for...). So the likelihood someone has a bias towards spending money on soldiers is very well captured by describing them as a someone who had a long and distinguished career as a soldier, without the need to mention every other tangentially related job they might have had.

So no, I don't think any of these part time roles are remotely more relevant to Gen Carter's comments the UK should spend of its budget on defence increases than the fact he's worked in defence all his life, and the comments echo similar comments he made in more peaceful times in 2018 when he didn't hold any of these positions but was Chief of Staff for UK defence. Not even some part-time consultancy for a German drone startup that doesn't have any commercial relationship with the MoD, never mind his advisory work for banks, insurers or advice on questionable interior security operations in Bahrain. You might as well ask why you saw fit not to mention Eisenhower's role at Columbia University when quoting him.

Now if he was specifically saying "the MoD should focus on autonomous systems and procure hardware from German startups" his advisory position with Helsing might actually be more relevant to his desire to see more funding for the defence sector than his most prominent roles in the defence sector, and ACOBA might even question the appropriateness of his interventions. But that's not what he said, and so we can associate his throwaway quotes with the stuff he's actually known for.

If somebody is discussing about defense in the media the viewers/readers should know that the person works for the defense industry in a commercial role.

Presenting them merely as experts because they are "former X" creates a false impression of impartiality.

For talking heads/opinion you have, I would say, two choices:

    - Retired people with historic experience.  The longer since they were actively involved in the sector, the less useful they will be of course.  There is also going to be something of a demographics bias here.
    - Currently employed people, and given their primary skillset is "Defense industry expertise" I'm going to posit that they always have a commercial role in the defense industry.  Maybe there's some subset with a non-commercial role or a purely political role... but both of those have their own implications too

The problem isn't that they work in the defense industry, but that the information is not disclosed.

If somebody who has a commercial role in not one, but _two_ different defense companies, arguing for increase in defense spending is merely presented as a "retired officer" there is a huge information that is being omitted.

It's like having somebody arguing about banking regulations and presenting them as "award winning economist" or "former ministry of finances" and omitting the fact that he works in the banking sector now.

You're asking that question in 2026?

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