Hacker News Reader

Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Are you serious when making this comment ? "does anyone seriously have a problem with this? In my mind it falls squarely within the NSA's mission, i.e. this is we pay them to do!"

So, I guess you are fine the US Military keeping and maintaining ready-to-fire, nuclear weapons, at pointed targets all around the world, just because "they are paid to do so" ? With this kind of logic we will never get rid of the nuclear deterrence theory, and we'll keep that shadow over our heads until someone actually pulls the trigger one day. But it's ok, because "they are paid to do so" ?

View on HN

In the US "what we pay them to do" is vernacular for "it's their assigned job" or "it's what we asked them to do". I admit it's a bit of a weird phrase but its not actually referring to money. To your point: if the claim is that we're asking our military or our intelligence agencies to do things that aren't effective, then let's have that debate. Nuclear force reduction and end illegal surveillance? Sure. Nuclear disarmament and shutting down our SIGINT mission? Not so much.

> Nuclear disarmament and shutting down our SIGINT mission?

I assume you missed the excellent post about "Everything in Dr Strangelove was true" a couple of days ago ? Maybe that will make you think twice about how safe it is to actually have nuclear weapons.

But that's a different topic.

Back on your original post, my main issue with what you wrote is that you seemed to justify something intolerable just because "people are paid for that".

Could you perhaps be specific about the "intolerable" thing we're talking about? Because all I see you writing about is nuclear weapons.

I was referring to general population spying. (and not limited to American citizens)

You were referring spying in general?

I don't think he was speaking in Sanskrit. Let's rephrase: he thinks spying targeting the general population is intolerable.

"general population". I don't mind spying on relevant, narrow targets if it's really necessary.

"I was just following orders" is a discredited defense in war crime trials.

This is why the people responsible (i.e. commanding officers, if the war crime was under orders) are tried, and the people committing them have to deal with processing it.

Several thousand Japanese soldiers, the vast majority of which were not command staff, were tried for war crimes. About 1000 were sentenced to hang, and many more were sentenced to life in prison or long prison terms.

Most people are good. You're born good. You are friendly and welcoming and like to make friends. But ultimately we grow up and fall victim to the tragedy of human condition. We form tribes, we alienate others, we hold grudges, we harbor prejudice. You can't just go around with a happy-go-lucky attitude when it comes to life. There are bad people out there. I think dropping bombs on people is wrong. I do not, however, have a problem with keeping a ton of pre-aimed nuclear weapons armed and ready. I'm all about our nations defense. People can't fuck with us, they'll lose. It's a deterrent.

Except that deterrence does not really work. There are weapons out there who are in the hands of people you do not control, and who knows, one day they may turn out crazy and launch a nuclear strike on the US. And because of their condition, they won't care less about total annihilation (they'll be safely in a bunker anyway) of their country and citizens as long as they can harm your country.

So, deterrence only works if your opponent has something TO LOSE. That's the whole concept, and the limits of the concept. That's why people get nervous about North Korea (and their elite who lets their own people starve to death), no matter how many nukes you have in your backyard to deter them from doing anything. There are some cases where it won't work.

PS: during the Cuba crisis, some nuclear russian submarines were THAT close to launching a strike on the US (2 of the 3 people in place were in favor of doing it until the 3rd one managed to calm them down), and they were sensible people who knew very well what it would mean for their mother country as well in terms of retaliation. Again. Deterrence is really a weak theory.

"Most people are good. You're born good"

I don't believe so. Do you have kids?

kids care first and foremost about themselves, like adults do, but worse.

I had seen 10 years old killing a dog with wooden spears just for fun(or curiosity or whatever crazy reason), cutting the tail of reptiles or just smashing them with stones. Or beating , insulting, humiliating other kids for the same reasons.

Not that far from Romans wondering how much time it will take for a Lion to kill a slave.

I did not argue on that point, but I tend to agree with you there. Kids are usually way worse than adults in regard to how they treat people around them. Maybe it's because they don't realize the harm that they do, or they don't understand responsibility in the same way an adult does. Education is what makes them behave and understand how they can hurt other people.

You only notice the bad. Go look for some good in people: you'll find it. But you're not wired to look for good, by default. You do have to work at it.. doesn't mean that people aren't good. Just that you haven't noticed yet.

(Hint: this viewpoint will probably change for you when you have your own kids one day, if you do ..)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com