5 ms·

If they did work, would you ever expect to see them declassified and listed here?

ianai 8y ago
Yes, for two reasons: The government isn’t that great at secrets. They disclosed their stealth bombers after a time - and those were also seen before disclosure. There’s being capable of a thing and the fear that instills in people it’s used against. There’s also displaying a large sword deliberately. Governments in general love having moments where they wow their adversaries.
- komali2 8y ago
  I feel this is an unfair characterizion - the US government isn't a singular entity. In fact, as we've seen these last two years, it is an entity fully capable of warring with itself (the current executive branch is in bitter battle with the justice department and intelligence agencies, for the previous 8 years around half of the legislative branch had a mission statement of preventing the executive branch from doing anything). Given the nature of the US government I think it is unreasonable to anthropomorphisize it as something that can "enjoy displaying a large sword," for example.
  - otakucode 8y ago
    I don't think that was, or even was meant to be, specific to the US. That's a universal thing. And it's one which is really very well supported in military history and strategy. Hell, it even goes down to the animal kingdom. Displays of strength are almost always preferred to actual USE of strength. Use of strength brings with it real dangers of injury to those displaying it, the negative consequences of revenge and the like from the victim, etc. This is one of the reasons that many military historians remain confused to this day why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Everyone involved in the decision had to have known that dropping the bombs in unpopulated woodland near the cities would have actually been MORE effective at accomplishing the goals (mostly intimidating the USSR, as it was known from decrypted military communications of the Japanese that they were already defeated and ready to surrender on terms amenable to the Allies).
  - ianai 8y ago
    The US and the USSR had/have (never ended) a Cold War essentially built on sword rattling.
- buvanshak 8y ago
  >The government isn’t that great at secrets. Do you really mean this? Are you saying that the government is incapable of keeping a certain fact secret, if exposing it will compromise national security?
  - DubiousPusher 8y ago
    Yeah, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but there are definitely big things held back from the public. Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra > The operation was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967, and officially halted in 1973. and > Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the United States Congress... 22 years they kept that from the public. Seems like they did a pretty good job keeping that secret.
    - macintux 8y ago
      There’s “big” and then there’s “big.” MKUltra was wide in scope but no earth-shattering new information was revealed, and I suspect most of those involved didn’t really know the big picture (and the ones that did were likely either too ashamed or too patriotic to talk about it). That’s a very different type of “big” than, e.g., “we found an alien spaceship in the desert”.
      - buvanshak 8y ago
        >MKUltra was wide in scope but no earth-shattering new information was revealed... Again, our little argument was asking if such information would ever be revealed to the public if it was found. So including this particular argument is no possible..
    - partycoder 8y ago
      If mind control is a thing then why is torture necessary?
      - 8y ago
- armitron 8y ago
  Parts of the government aren't that great at secrets, sure. But like someone else wrote, the government isn't a single entity, but a collection of entities. Moreover, a substantial (if not the vast majority) of classified work is performed by contractors (SRI, Lockheed etc) which have their own procedures in place. We know through OSINT that the government has kept plenty of secrets and they have done so very very well for decades, before leakage or disclosure. Finally, with such a poor SnR these days due to information overload and psyops, even if the government isn't that great at secrets, you still have the herculean task of sorting through the information haystack looking for the needles.
- jandrese 8y ago
  The smaller the project the easier it is to keep secret. The B2 project had literally thousands of people working for it, and even then they kept the lid on it for several years.
- acct1771 8y ago
  > The government isn’t that great at secrets. I'm going to make a leap of faith, and say you're an adult in the US. The fact that there are some US adults not aware of the massive scale secrecy, of the Manhattan Project, is genuinely embarrassing. For a more recent example, see the NSA circa-Snowden.

Yes, for two reasons: The government isn’t that great at secrets. They disclosed their stealth bombers after a time - and those were also seen before disclosure. There’s being capable of a thing and the fear that instills in people it’s used against. There’s also displaying a large sword deliberately. Governments in general love having moments where they wow their adversaries.

komali2 8y ago
I feel this is an unfair characterizion - the US government isn't a singular entity. In fact, as we've seen these last two years, it is an entity fully capable of warring with itself (the current executive branch is in bitter battle with the justice department and intelligence agencies, for the previous 8 years around half of the legislative branch had a mission statement of preventing the executive branch from doing anything). Given the nature of the US government I think it is unreasonable to anthropomorphisize it as something that can "enjoy displaying a large sword," for example.
- otakucode 8y ago
  I don't think that was, or even was meant to be, specific to the US. That's a universal thing. And it's one which is really very well supported in military history and strategy. Hell, it even goes down to the animal kingdom. Displays of strength are almost always preferred to actual USE of strength. Use of strength brings with it real dangers of injury to those displaying it, the negative consequences of revenge and the like from the victim, etc. This is one of the reasons that many military historians remain confused to this day why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Everyone involved in the decision had to have known that dropping the bombs in unpopulated woodland near the cities would have actually been MORE effective at accomplishing the goals (mostly intimidating the USSR, as it was known from decrypted military communications of the Japanese that they were already defeated and ready to surrender on terms amenable to the Allies).
- ianai 8y ago
  The US and the USSR had/have (never ended) a Cold War essentially built on sword rattling.
buvanshak 8y ago
>The government isn’t that great at secrets. Do you really mean this? Are you saying that the government is incapable of keeping a certain fact secret, if exposing it will compromise national security?
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but there are definitely big things held back from the public. Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra > The operation was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967, and officially halted in 1973. and > Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the United States Congress... 22 years they kept that from the public. Seems like they did a pretty good job keeping that secret.
  - macintux 8y ago
    There’s “big” and then there’s “big.” MKUltra was wide in scope but no earth-shattering new information was revealed, and I suspect most of those involved didn’t really know the big picture (and the ones that did were likely either too ashamed or too patriotic to talk about it). That’s a very different type of “big” than, e.g., “we found an alien spaceship in the desert”.
    - buvanshak 8y ago
      >MKUltra was wide in scope but no earth-shattering new information was revealed... Again, our little argument was asking if such information would ever be revealed to the public if it was found. So including this particular argument is no possible..
  - partycoder 8y ago
    If mind control is a thing then why is torture necessary?
    - 8y ago
armitron 8y ago
Parts of the government aren't that great at secrets, sure. But like someone else wrote, the government isn't a single entity, but a collection of entities. Moreover, a substantial (if not the vast majority) of classified work is performed by contractors (SRI, Lockheed etc) which have their own procedures in place. We know through OSINT that the government has kept plenty of secrets and they have done so very very well for decades, before leakage or disclosure. Finally, with such a poor SnR these days due to information overload and psyops, even if the government isn't that great at secrets, you still have the herculean task of sorting through the information haystack looking for the needles.
jandrese 8y ago
The smaller the project the easier it is to keep secret. The B2 project had literally thousands of people working for it, and even then they kept the lid on it for several years.
acct1771 8y ago
> The government isn’t that great at secrets. I'm going to make a leap of faith, and say you're an adult in the US. The fact that there are some US adults not aware of the massive scale secrecy, of the Manhattan Project, is genuinely embarrassing. For a more recent example, see the NSA circa-Snowden.