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Is it far fetched to think that the top technologists / developers in Russia / EU / China / etc. are working for their respective governments & Defense agencies

Is it far fetched to think that the top technologists / developers in Russia / EU / China / etc. are working for their respective governments & Defense agencies? From a pure game theory perspective, if you accept the premise above, then SV should absolutely work with the Pentagon so that the US doesn't fall behind competitively. Unless there was such a strong coalition of cooperation among the entire community globally to not contribute towards Defense initiatives - but even the most optimistic would say this is fantasy. As one example, I've been warming up to supporting stronger collaboration between the US Tech Industry (because it's bigger than just Silicon Valley) and the NSA purely for the cybersecurity benefits that are going to be needed more and more over time. Cooperating with the best in the industry in the US is the only way to execute well.

generalmycoup 9y ago
Exactly. These 3000 engineers that protested in Google don't seem to live in reality. In the real world, China and Russia are doing government sponsored hacking against Western government/companies all the time, stealing IPs, strategies and bankrupting companies. I wonder how these engineers would respond when Google is hacked and its business is down, and engineers fired. Case in point: "Brian Shields, former Nortel security adviser, alleges Huawei hacked company for 10 years..." "It was on behalf of Huawei and ZTE and other Chinese companies that could have used this information to compete against us in the marketplace. It gave them a strategic advantage. How can you survive when you have a competitor basically right there knowing all your moves, what you're doing, what you see as the future products?" http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-aga...
- vkou 9y ago
  How exactly will working on drone strike software protect some executive's account from being spear-phished? This smells like FUD.
  - generalmycoup 9y ago
    how about security software? networking software? AI to defend companies from hacked by Chinese government? > This smells like FUD. you let your personal bias get to you. I'm guessing you're Chinese.
    - sctb 9y ago
      You're breaking a lot of guidelines, including: > Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle. This destroys intellectual curiosity, so we ban accounts that do it. Could you please stop? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  USGOV does this also... They learned it of us. BUT, why would they NOT work on interesting projects for the gov? Projects are projects.
  - generalmycoup 9y ago
    > They learned it of us. from us, 50 Cent Army/Chinese Government AI who is imitating an American
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Americans are generally pro-military, save for ultra left-leaning types. The fact that only 3000 people signed out of a population of ~100k(which already clearly trends leftwards), tells me that most people did not actually have a problem with that project.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    The majority of people on either side also probably recognize that signing your name to an open letter opposing your employer’s policies and decisions is a career-limiting move.
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      I really doubt that at google.
      - philwelch 9y ago
        Google literally fired someone for that, so...
        oh_sigh 9y ago
        I'm speaking specifically about this situation, not about signing open letters in general. And James wasn't fired for signing a letter, he was fired for writing it in the first place.
        philwelch 9y ago
        But then he signed his name to it. Although, yes, you are technically correct.
  - notacoward 9y ago
    > Americans are generally pro-military, save for ultra left-leaning types. That depends a lot on what "pro-military" means. Do most Americans wish success and well-being for our military service members? Yes. Do most Americans approve of how large our military has become, affecting both government budgets and culture, or of the foreign policy that puts so many of those service members in harm's way? I doubt it. It's not "ultra-left" to oppose militarism. You know what is ultra-left? Having a decent social safety net that enables veterans to integrate back into society, instead of abandoning them like the ultra-right does.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
darawk 9y ago
Couldn't agree more. This peacenik virtue signaling bullshit is the naive privilege of spoiled children. "I want my freedom, but I don't want my hands to get dirty". Maintaining and propagating the liberal, enlightenment values we all know and love takes military dominance, whether you like it or not. The USG and military have lots of flaws, but I can assure you you will like its replacement a whole lot less.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  One would think that maintaining liberal, Enlightenment values would require electing people who actually support those values.
  - darawk 9y ago
    Sure. But everything in the real world is about tradeoffs. It's not "is everything perfect" its "what are our alternatives?" and our alternatives are Russia and China. Which represent a substantial decline in enlightenment values.
- pm90 9y ago
  > This peacenik virtue signaling bullshit is the naive privilege of spoiled children. "I want my freedom, but I don't want my hands to get dirty". Deliberately belittling people who conscientiously object to having their labor used for the purpose of war making is dangerous. I'm very glad that Young Americans (at the time) protested the Vietnam War making it clear to the US Military that they couldn't willy-nilly start wars whenever they want to. You cannot, and should not, be forcing people to do what they do not want. If you want to convince others of the benefits of having a superior armed forces, belittling them as spoiled children is not the way to do so.
  - darawk 9y ago
    > I'm very glad that Young Americans (at the time) protested the Vietnam War making it clear to the US Military that they couldn't willy-nilly start wars whenever they want to. As am I. I'm not criticizing war protest. I'm criticizing not contributing to military technology. > You cannot, and should not, be forcing people to do what they do not want. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. I'm criticizing them for making their choice. They remain free to make it.
moftz 9y ago
Department of Cybersecurity is the NSA
- s3r3nity 9y ago
  Good point, thanks! Just did a quick search and learned they have a "cybersecurity division." Didn't know that existed. Also edited my comment to reflect that.
chiefalchemist 9y ago
Call me naive but how is this not a self-fulfilling prophesy? If we parade around with our chest out, perpetual looking for a dust up, is that not what we're going to find? When you can engage in multiple simultaneous "conflicts" and that becomes the status quo, how exactly more of the same a wise decision for going forward? Given the USA's history, the better question is: why wouldn't Russia and China do that? Put another way: If you were the Native Americans wouldn't you still be wishing you embraced the gun sooner rather than later?
daviross 9y ago
_then SV should absolutely work with the Pentagon so that the US doesn't fall behind competitively._ Is this necessarily/automatic enough of a Good Thing as to be assumed as such by fiat? This seems largely equivalent to "From a pure game theory perspective, everybody who could should work to advance nuclear missile design".
- s3r3nity 9y ago
  When the expected outcomes are the probabilities of, say, China or Russia knocking out our power grid - yes I think so. Rather than looking at which leads to a better "positive" outcome (as some have done elsewhere in the thread re: DARPA), I would also consider which leads to a better "floor" (Max-Min type of strategy, where you find the best of the worst-case scenarios.)

generalmycoup 9y ago

Exactly. These 3000 engineers that protested in Google don't seem to live in reality. In the real world, China and Russia are doing government sponsored hacking against Western government/companies all the time, stealing IPs, strategies and bankrupting companies. I wonder how these engineers would respond when Google is hacked and its business is down, and engineers fired. Case in point: "Brian Shields, former Nortel security adviser, alleges Huawei hacked company for 10 years..." "It was on behalf of Huawei and ZTE and other Chinese companies that could have used this information to compete against us in the marketplace. It gave them a strategic advantage. How can you survive when you have a competitor basically right there knowing all your moves, what you're doing, what you see as the future products?" http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-aga...

vkou 9y ago
How exactly will working on drone strike software protect some executive's account from being spear-phished? This smells like FUD.
- generalmycoup 9y ago
  how about security software? networking software? AI to defend companies from hacked by Chinese government? > This smells like FUD. you let your personal bias get to you. I'm guessing you're Chinese.
  - sctb 9y ago
    You're breaking a lot of guidelines, including: > Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle. This destroys intellectual curiosity, so we ban accounts that do it. Could you please stop? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
USGOV does this also... They learned it of us. BUT, why would they NOT work on interesting projects for the gov? Projects are projects.
- generalmycoup 9y ago
  > They learned it of us. from us, 50 Cent Army/Chinese Government AI who is imitating an American
oh_sigh 9y ago
Americans are generally pro-military, save for ultra left-leaning types. The fact that only 3000 people signed out of a population of ~100k(which already clearly trends leftwards), tells me that most people did not actually have a problem with that project.
- philwelch 9y ago
  The majority of people on either side also probably recognize that signing your name to an open letter opposing your employer’s policies and decisions is a career-limiting move.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    I really doubt that at google.
    - philwelch 9y ago
      Google literally fired someone for that, so...
      - oh_sigh 9y ago
        I'm speaking specifically about this situation, not about signing open letters in general. And James wasn't fired for signing a letter, he was fired for writing it in the first place.
        philwelch 9y ago
        But then he signed his name to it. Although, yes, you are technically correct.
- notacoward 9y ago
  > Americans are generally pro-military, save for ultra left-leaning types. That depends a lot on what "pro-military" means. Do most Americans wish success and well-being for our military service members? Yes. Do most Americans approve of how large our military has become, affecting both government budgets and culture, or of the foreign policy that puts so many of those service members in harm's way? I doubt it. It's not "ultra-left" to oppose militarism. You know what is ultra-left? Having a decent social safety net that enables veterans to integrate back into society, instead of abandoning them like the ultra-right does.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

darawk 9y ago

Couldn't agree more. This peacenik virtue signaling bullshit is the naive privilege of spoiled children. "I want my freedom, but I don't want my hands to get dirty". Maintaining and propagating the liberal, enlightenment values we all know and love takes military dominance, whether you like it or not. The USG and military have lots of flaws, but I can assure you you will like its replacement a whole lot less.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago
One would think that maintaining liberal, Enlightenment values would require electing people who actually support those values.
- darawk 9y ago
  Sure. But everything in the real world is about tradeoffs. It's not "is everything perfect" its "what are our alternatives?" and our alternatives are Russia and China. Which represent a substantial decline in enlightenment values.
pm90 9y ago
> This peacenik virtue signaling bullshit is the naive privilege of spoiled children. "I want my freedom, but I don't want my hands to get dirty". Deliberately belittling people who conscientiously object to having their labor used for the purpose of war making is dangerous. I'm very glad that Young Americans (at the time) protested the Vietnam War making it clear to the US Military that they couldn't willy-nilly start wars whenever they want to. You cannot, and should not, be forcing people to do what they do not want. If you want to convince others of the benefits of having a superior armed forces, belittling them as spoiled children is not the way to do so.
- darawk 9y ago
  > I'm very glad that Young Americans (at the time) protested the Vietnam War making it clear to the US Military that they couldn't willy-nilly start wars whenever they want to. As am I. I'm not criticizing war protest. I'm criticizing not contributing to military technology. > You cannot, and should not, be forcing people to do what they do not want. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. I'm criticizing them for making their choice. They remain free to make it.

moftz 9y ago

Department of Cybersecurity is the NSA

s3r3nity 9y ago
Good point, thanks! Just did a quick search and learned they have a "cybersecurity division." Didn't know that existed. Also edited my comment to reflect that.

chiefalchemist 9y ago

Call me naive but how is this not a self-fulfilling prophesy? If we parade around with our chest out, perpetual looking for a dust up, is that not what we're going to find? When you can engage in multiple simultaneous "conflicts" and that becomes the status quo, how exactly more of the same a wise decision for going forward? Given the USA's history, the better question is: why wouldn't Russia and China do that? Put another way: If you were the Native Americans wouldn't you still be wishing you embraced the gun sooner rather than later?

daviross 9y ago

_then SV should absolutely work with the Pentagon so that the US doesn't fall behind competitively._ Is this necessarily/automatic enough of a Good Thing as to be assumed as such by fiat? This seems largely equivalent to "From a pure game theory perspective, everybody who could should work to advance nuclear missile design".

s3r3nity 9y ago
When the expected outcomes are the probabilities of, say, China or Russia knocking out our power grid - yes I think so. Rather than looking at which leads to a better "positive" outcome (as some have done elsewhere in the thread re: DARPA), I would also consider which leads to a better "floor" (Max-Min type of strategy, where you find the best of the worst-case scenarios.)