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> I learned by chance that putting certain provocative information on a security clearance form can greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is another

> I learned by chance that putting certain provocative information on a security clearance form can greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is another story. Did he ever write about what that trick is?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yosito 4y ago
This is an interesting point. I once had to fill out a security clearance form for a job at NASA detailing every individual I had had contact with outside of the US in the last 10 years. Since I've traveled extensively internationally, and couldn't even begin to mention all the people I've been in contact with, I just wrote an essay explaining my lifestyle. I expected to get denied, but I got security clearance faster than anyone else in the department had ever heard of.
- lallysingh 4y ago
  Probably because you didn't give them names to check!
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  I’ve always wondered, as an immigrant, how they would expect someone like me to answer that question. My entire family are outside the US. A big chunk of the people I interact with are friends who also moved down to the states and are not citizens yet. I probably interact with non-citizens daily more than citizens. It would be practically impossible for me to detail everyone I ever interacted with 10 years ago while I was at a Canadian school getting my degree. The whole thing is so absurd for anyone who has ever been outside of the US even once.
j1elo 4y ago
I very much enjoyed the reading, but at the end... oh boy this person knows how to end a tale with a good cliffhanger!
a3w 4y ago
> After about three months it stopped and a month later I was suddenly informed that the clearance had been granted. The other two people whose investigations were begun at the same time did not receive their clearances until several months later. Mongrels are mixed race dogs, I guess? So just put the concept of "race" under scrutiny, and have your mental health debated. E voilà, your background check takes off fast and intense, and is suddenly about being sane of mind. https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html Greetings from germany, where we have ethnicity or, officially, mostly nothing in this place. (Police will kinda inofficially still racial-profile you, since "north-african looking" seems to be easier than to say "tanned, slim and curly hair")
- strken 4y ago
  These stories date from the 40s and 50s, and the author notes in one of them that the American forms now use ethnicity too. I suspect that at some point in the 40s Germany would have had a very extensive racial classification system.
- watwut 4y ago
  He did not put the concept of race under scrutiny. He used different and much more detailed classification of races.
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  Well, we do have "Nafri" (North AFRIcans), "Ausländer" (foreigners, but only used for "problematic" foreigners somehow), "Migrationshintergrund" (migration background, meaning everyone who is an immigrant, and anyone related to them for two generations, regardless of nationality), "Südländer" (initially people from the south, such as Italians, Greeks, Jugoslavians, but nowadays "people coming from the middle east"), and - now that the latter has become a charged term - "West-Asians", officially sanctioned by the Berlin police HQ as a non-racially-loaded term, but meaning the same. The euphenism treadmill is strong over here as well.
  - AdamN 4y ago
    I'm a White American living in Berlin, what word would the Berlin police put in my file??
xdfgh1112 4y ago
https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html Other poster posted the same link but is getting downvoted so might get overlooked.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  By way of context, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia would not be settled until 1967. (but note also that these "race" questions were all over US forms well into the 1980s. By my time, however, it appears that "mongrel" answers were being routinely coded as "Decline To State") Lagniappe: anyone curious about actual Caucasian phenotypes can find them on Youtube, eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTdXQabTTRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTdXQabTTRg
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    Virginia still required you to answer a race question to get a marriage license until 2019[1]. "Decline to Answer" wasn't an option, though in some counties "Octoroon" (meaning 7/8 white, 1/8 black), "Mulato" and "Aryan" were options[2]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/virginia-couples-no-longer-have-to-disclose-race-on-marriage-license-applications-state-attorney-general-says/2019/09/14/4f40d578-d6fb-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/virginia-... [2] https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/couples-sue-over-virginias-race-labels-for-marriage/65-ccd465c4-b67a-4918-8a06-62d388fdff18 https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/couples-sue-over-vi...
- ant6n 4y ago
  This one actually has a programming related lesson at the end!
- omnibrain 4y ago
  Richard Feynman had a similar anecdote involving "skin tone".
- pjc50 4y ago
  Tremendous essay. As someone else pointed out, this was back when Virginia was still an apartheid state, in the process of getting desegregation imposed on it; racial categorization was an important weapon of the state against some of its citizens, and not one they were going to give up easily in the face of some guy (correctly) declaring it nonsensical. There's so much Seeing Like A State in the punchcard incident as well. Having invented the categories, you must be made to fit them. These days plenty of people will say "well, of course he's right, you can't jam everyone into racial/ethnicity categories, and you shouldn't" then turn around and code gender as an immutable M/F binary in their database.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yosito 4y ago

This is an interesting point. I once had to fill out a security clearance form for a job at NASA detailing every individual I had had contact with outside of the US in the last 10 years. Since I've traveled extensively internationally, and couldn't even begin to mention all the people I've been in contact with, I just wrote an essay explaining my lifestyle. I expected to get denied, but I got security clearance faster than anyone else in the department had ever heard of.

lallysingh 4y ago
Probably because you didn't give them names to check!
mynameisvlad 4y ago
I’ve always wondered, as an immigrant, how they would expect someone like me to answer that question. My entire family are outside the US. A big chunk of the people I interact with are friends who also moved down to the states and are not citizens yet. I probably interact with non-citizens daily more than citizens. It would be practically impossible for me to detail everyone I ever interacted with 10 years ago while I was at a Canadian school getting my degree. The whole thing is so absurd for anyone who has ever been outside of the US even once.

j1elo 4y ago

I very much enjoyed the reading, but at the end... oh boy this person knows how to end a tale with a good cliffhanger!

a3w 4y ago

> After about three months it stopped and a month later I was suddenly informed that the clearance had been granted. The other two people whose investigations were begun at the same time did not receive their clearances until several months later. Mongrels are mixed race dogs, I guess? So just put the concept of "race" under scrutiny, and have your mental health debated. E voilà, your background check takes off fast and intense, and is suddenly about being sane of mind. https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html Greetings from germany, where we have ethnicity or, officially, mostly nothing in this place. (Police will kinda inofficially still racial-profile you, since "north-african looking" seems to be easier than to say "tanned, slim and curly hair")

strken 4y ago
These stories date from the 40s and 50s, and the author notes in one of them that the American forms now use ethnicity too. I suspect that at some point in the 40s Germany would have had a very extensive racial classification system.
watwut 4y ago
He did not put the concept of race under scrutiny. He used different and much more detailed classification of races.
DocTomoe 4y ago
Well, we do have "Nafri" (North AFRIcans), "Ausländer" (foreigners, but only used for "problematic" foreigners somehow), "Migrationshintergrund" (migration background, meaning everyone who is an immigrant, and anyone related to them for two generations, regardless of nationality), "Südländer" (initially people from the south, such as Italians, Greeks, Jugoslavians, but nowadays "people coming from the middle east"), and - now that the latter has become a charged term - "West-Asians", officially sanctioned by the Berlin police HQ as a non-racially-loaded term, but meaning the same. The euphenism treadmill is strong over here as well.
- AdamN 4y ago
  I'm a White American living in Berlin, what word would the Berlin police put in my file??

xdfgh1112 4y ago

https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html Other poster posted the same link but is getting downvoted so might get overlooked.

082349872349872 4y ago
By way of context, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia would not be settled until 1967. (but note also that these "race" questions were all over US forms well into the 1980s. By my time, however, it appears that "mongrel" answers were being routinely coded as "Decline To State") Lagniappe: anyone curious about actual Caucasian phenotypes can find them on Youtube, eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTdXQabTTRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTdXQabTTRg
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  Virginia still required you to answer a race question to get a marriage license until 2019[1]. "Decline to Answer" wasn't an option, though in some counties "Octoroon" (meaning 7/8 white, 1/8 black), "Mulato" and "Aryan" were options[2]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/virginia-couples-no-longer-have-to-disclose-race-on-marriage-license-applications-state-attorney-general-says/2019/09/14/4f40d578-d6fb-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/virginia-... [2] https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/couples-sue-over-virginias-race-labels-for-marriage/65-ccd465c4-b67a-4918-8a06-62d388fdff18 https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/couples-sue-over-vi...
ant6n 4y ago
This one actually has a programming related lesson at the end!
omnibrain 4y ago
Richard Feynman had a similar anecdote involving "skin tone".
pjc50 4y ago
Tremendous essay. As someone else pointed out, this was back when Virginia was still an apartheid state, in the process of getting desegregation imposed on it; racial categorization was an important weapon of the state against some of its citizens, and not one they were going to give up easily in the face of some guy (correctly) declaring it nonsensical. There's so much Seeing Like A State in the punchcard incident as well. Having invented the categories, you must be made to fit them. These days plenty of people will say "well, of course he's right, you can't jam everyone into racial/ethnicity categories, and you shouldn't" then turn around and code gender as an immutable M/F binary in their database.