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"Maybe the real state secret is that spies aren't very good at their jobs and don't know much about the world." Adam Curtis hilariously documents the 20th cent

• knughit 11y ago
  Similar track record to 21st century USA FBI
• jonlucc 11y ago
  There is a book that paints the same picture of the CIA called A Legacy of Ashes.
  • azernik 11y ago
    And Le Carre's interesting The Looking Glass War - apparently intended as an antidote to his The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which he felt in retrospect had impressed people a bit too much about the British intelligence service's competence.
• steve19 11y ago
  I don't know about the British intelligence services, but at least in the CIA its very incestious, they recruit people who fit a certain mold, then recruit their children and their grandchildren. That they have a distorted world view is not surprising (not unlike SV, but without the sobering reality of markets and competition). 40 years after the OSS was superseded by the CIA, the CIA was still actively recruiting the grandkids of OSS employees. They like to keep everything in the family.
• Krij 11y ago
  CIA case officer Robert Baer's talk about this is pretty entertaining - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIhpdFu4BpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIhpdFu4BpA These days if you work in the world domination industry you are more likely working for Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg.
  • arethuza 11y ago
    Bob Baer's books are rather good - particularly See No Evil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_No_Evil_%28Baer_book%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_No_Evil_%28Baer_book%29 Quite interesting to compare Baer's experiences at the CIA with high profile members of MI6, particularly Paddy Ashdown - the latter being very careful not to say what he actually did on the espionage side while at MI6 although he does mention his "day job".
• chippy 11y ago
  It's more frightening to realise that there is no conspiracy running the world, pulling to strings, and realise that everyone is not very good at their jobs and dont know much about the world. A conspiracy is comforting, the reality of ignorance and incompetence is much more scary
  • toyg 11y ago
    Conspiracies do to politics what religions do to life: provide a framework explaining the inexplicable, in order to confort and indicate paths for meaningful action.
  • V-2 11y ago
    "When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth." (Steve Jobs)
  • jgalt212 11y ago
    You say that, but just a few days ago the Panama Papers were released. I don't buy into the worldwide conspiracy thing, but there's clearly stuff going on that others don't want you to know about.
    • krapp 11y ago
      Other than a list of names, what did the Panama Papers tell the world that it didn't already know? That the rich use offshore accounts and shell companies to hide their money from the government wasn't exactly a secret to anyone. For that matter, not everything revealed in the Panama Papers is necessarily illegal.
      • jgalt212 11y ago
        Given the world's reaction to this news[1], I'd say it actually is news and not stuff that was known, but maybe only suspected. The best response is for the common man should stop paying taxes as well. If that happens, you'll get across the board tax reform immediately. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/iceland-prime-minister-resigns-over-panama-papers-revelations http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/iceland-prime-m...