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Democracies have mature intel capabilities because their public services are so large that they can mobilize the resources for things like custom malware, elect

Democracies have mature intel capabilities because their public services are so large that they can mobilize the resources for things like custom malware, electronics, and a kind of parallel tech industry. Basically, if a government depends on a tax base (and not resource money), it's going to have a real domestic intelligence capability. This also explains non-democratic but sophistcated states, as it's a question of tax base. Democracies are a useful example of this. In a resource cursed economy, the government doesn't need public services because they make their money on resources, not taxes. What's changed is their people have cell phones and can organize online, which means small coalition resource states are on their back foot, hence going to the mercenary market for intel solutions. I encourage you to look up the references in the original comment to become familiar with the dynamics at play.

whatshisface 8y ago
>Democracies have mature intel capabilities because their public services are so large that they can mobilize the resources for things like custom malware, electronics, and a kind of parallel tech industry. This still comes across as an unsupported assertion. To use the US as an example, the NSA isn't particularly synergistic with the NHS or any other non-clandestine government agency. They have their own budget and an independent asset sheet. The NSA actually competes for resources with the NHS, as the tax burden can only be so high. In an alternate universe where heart disease killed more people every every year than domestic terrorism (cough), Congress could make the NHS bigger without raising taxes by reducing funding for the domestic surveillance system. With the same economy, a country with no civil service would be able to afford more internal security than one with a large, expensive civil service. Taken to the ultimate extreme you get a government that provides no services but levies a high tax/bribery burden, so that it can use it to fund a domestic security apparatus (which is badly needed because military kleptocracies are not popular!).
- motohagiography 8y ago
  Again, I would encourage you to look up demesquitas "logic of political survival." It provides the foundation for the view, and isn't really something one can intuit without familiarity with the model.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    I've been down that road before, and trust me geopolitical theories are a dead end. Nobody can predict anything, and almost everything written is just an elaborate justification for why whatever is happening today was inevitable. It is disappointing to realize but armchair HN comments are the best you can hope for in this area, as they have the advantage of not being as long to read.
    - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
      I've been down that road before, and trust me geopolitical theories are a dead end. Nobody can predict anything, and almost everything written is just an elaborate justification for why whatever is happening today was inevitable. It is disappointing to realize but armchair HN comments are the best you can hope for in this area, as they have the advantage of not being as long to read. That’s a far more sweeping and far less supported statement than the one you’ve been demanding citations for, don’t you think? Besides, unless you’re a peofessional commenting on your field, then you’re matching armchair with armchair, without even the benefit of being able to point to existing theories supporting your view.
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        Gesturing at a body of academic work will only move the discussion forwards if everyone already likes it from past experiences or trusts it implicitly, which might be true for chemistry but is not so true for polsci!
        toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
        That’s true, and as a debate it’s not very fertile ground. On the other hand if we all go into this with an eye on sharing perspective rather than changing minds, it could be edifying. I’m pretty skeptical of political science theories, but they can be very compelling even as they lack the rigor of a true science. Moreover, the people who lead us definitely ascribe to these theories and this “science” and understanding their mindset has to have some value. Besides, even if the conclusions can only have the strength of guesses and inferences, or just demonstrating historical patterns that can have value.

whatshisface 8y ago

>Democracies have mature intel capabilities because their public services are so large that they can mobilize the resources for things like custom malware, electronics, and a kind of parallel tech industry. This still comes across as an unsupported assertion. To use the US as an example, the NSA isn't particularly synergistic with the NHS or any other non-clandestine government agency. They have their own budget and an independent asset sheet. The NSA actually competes for resources with the NHS, as the tax burden can only be so high. In an alternate universe where heart disease killed more people every every year than domestic terrorism (cough), Congress could make the NHS bigger without raising taxes by reducing funding for the domestic surveillance system. With the same economy, a country with no civil service would be able to afford more internal security than one with a large, expensive civil service. Taken to the ultimate extreme you get a government that provides no services but levies a high tax/bribery burden, so that it can use it to fund a domestic security apparatus (which is badly needed because military kleptocracies are not popular!).

motohagiography 8y ago
Again, I would encourage you to look up demesquitas "logic of political survival." It provides the foundation for the view, and isn't really something one can intuit without familiarity with the model.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  I've been down that road before, and trust me geopolitical theories are a dead end. Nobody can predict anything, and almost everything written is just an elaborate justification for why whatever is happening today was inevitable. It is disappointing to realize but armchair HN comments are the best you can hope for in this area, as they have the advantage of not being as long to read.
  - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
    I've been down that road before, and trust me geopolitical theories are a dead end. Nobody can predict anything, and almost everything written is just an elaborate justification for why whatever is happening today was inevitable. It is disappointing to realize but armchair HN comments are the best you can hope for in this area, as they have the advantage of not being as long to read. That’s a far more sweeping and far less supported statement than the one you’ve been demanding citations for, don’t you think? Besides, unless you’re a peofessional commenting on your field, then you’re matching armchair with armchair, without even the benefit of being able to point to existing theories supporting your view.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      Gesturing at a body of academic work will only move the discussion forwards if everyone already likes it from past experiences or trusts it implicitly, which might be true for chemistry but is not so true for polsci!
      - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
        That’s true, and as a debate it’s not very fertile ground. On the other hand if we all go into this with an eye on sharing perspective rather than changing minds, it could be edifying. I’m pretty skeptical of political science theories, but they can be very compelling even as they lack the rigor of a true science. Moreover, the people who lead us definitely ascribe to these theories and this “science” and understanding their mindset has to have some value. Besides, even if the conclusions can only have the strength of guesses and inferences, or just demonstrating historical patterns that can have value.