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I just wish we had an IC that loved America more than its own power. Yet time and time again we see these orgs are full of corrupt, evil people.

bradley13 3y ago
Pournelle's Iron Law
- freedomben 3y ago
  > Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": > First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. > Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. > The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.[1] Definitely. I think this very well explains how we got to this position. [1]: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
nickff 3y ago
>"I just wish we had an IC that loved America more than its own power." They probably think that they do love their country more than their power, while believing they need the power to protect their country. This may be a sort of 'moral corruption', though not the conventional sort. It doesn't seem 'evil' to me.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Exactly. IC people are humans too, just like the rest of us. It's convenient to assume they are sinister evil bastards (some of them are to be clear, but clearly not all of them), but it's an unhelpful and counterproductive stereotype. I've known a few people involved in intelligence, and they absolutely believe they were serving and loving their country. It reminds me a bit of being an infrastructure person where when you mess up, everybody knows, but when you're doing your job well, nobody knows you exist. They see a constant and non-stop stream of threats that outsiders don't see, and when a threat is stopped nobody knows about it. I would bet it's not too hard to justify the intrusive capabilities and any "mistakes" made with them when you have that visibility into the successes. Humans are wonderful at justifying what they want to believe is true, and intel is no exception. The individual intel person is not the problem here. It's a systemic problem enabled by legislation that needs to be addressed at the legislative level.
  - landemva 3y ago
    While they are humans, the gatekeeping in the system ensures only sinister humans will get those jobs. CIA director admitted to interferring in elections. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-cia-director-us-meddles-in-foreign-elections-for-a-good https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-...
    - matheusmoreira 3y ago
      CIA officials told my country's ex-president to stop doubting the voting machines. That's what ultimately convinced me they must have been compromised.
- ecommerceguy 3y ago
  How do you know that they love this country? Pure conjecture. Evidence, however, indicates the contrary; they break the laws to suppress people for power. That's pretty much the definition of evil.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    It's also pure conjecture to say that they break the laws to suppress people for power. Have you ever seen how the bottom-level of people in a huge bureaucratic organization behave? They're not evil, they're just being human. Unless you're prepared to say that at least 65% to 95% of humans are evil[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
    - fallingknife 3y ago
      It's conjecture, but the fact that a powerful senator like Chuck Schumer fears going against them is enough to convince me that they need to be severely reigned in.
      - freedomben 3y ago
        Absolutely, I fully agree. Regardless of whether they are "evil" or not, they need to be reigned in.
      - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
        He doesn't fear going against them - he's one of them.
    - ecommerceguy 3y ago
      There's plenty of evidence that shows how deeply currupted the 3 letter agencies are in this country. The FBI, a Hoover organization, appears to me to be an organization that exists solely to persecute, blackmail and bait populists and small government types, aka the very people bureaucrats hate. I'm not sure what kind of freedom you advocate for Ben, it certainly doesn't seem to jive with the notion of We the People.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    > The keys of the castle and keep glinted from the belt at his stout waist. [...] Keys to lock out all danger... and, if necessary, Ista in. > It’s only habit, you know. I’m not mad anymore, really. > It wasn’t as though she wanted her mother’s keys, nor her mother’s life that went with them. She scarcely knew what she wanted. She knew what she feared—to be locked up in some dark, narrow place by people who loved her. An enemy might drop his guard, weary of his task, turn his back; love would never falter. Her fingers rubbed restlessly on the stone. -- Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
- opportune 3y ago
  I agree. I think it’s just laziness or being asked to square a circle. During the post-9/11 period there was immense political will and pressure to stop terrorism, and it’s really fucking hard to stop that while abiding by the constitution, so they chose to break the constitution to stop terrorism. Is it theoretically possible to stop terrorism/catch and guys to the same extent without breaking the constitution? I think so, but it would probably require a lot more boots on the ground, and a lot of creativity and smart thinking from individuals to be able to get as good outcomes as you’d get from just looking at data when you aren’t supposed to.
  - tacocataco 3y ago
    Wasn't Osama bin Laden a CIA operative that worked against the soviets? Maybe the correct move would be to not train and arm extreamists?
    - loki49152 3y ago
      No. According to the Mujahadeen who did work with CIA, ObL was considered an "extremist" even among them because he expected to go to war against the US immediately after they were done with the Soviets. According to them, he didn't want anything to do with CIA.
- atlantic 3y ago
  Both the Soviet apparatchiks running the gulags sincerely believed they were acting for the greater good. The same goes for the torturers at Guantanamo. Idealism doesn't preclude evil.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Idealism doesn't preclude evil. Unchallenged idealism is the root of many evils. If you are convinced of your own righteousness, its very easy to “ends justify the means” almost anything. Its the danger of even a well-motivated person ending up with a cultivation or otherwise in an ideological echo chamber.
gottorf 3y ago
This is why America was conceived to be a country where the central government can only exercise enumerated powers; because the framers knew that every organization eventually becomes run (at one point or all subsequent points) by corrupt, evil people. Any system of governance that depends on an unbroken chain of good people is bound to fail, and fail much sooner rather than later. The only sustainable safeguard against it is to make sure that said system of governance is limited in what it can do.
- vkou 3y ago
  > This is why America was conceived to be a country where the central government can only exercise enumerated powers; > because the framers knew that every organization eventually becomes run (at one point or all subsequent points) by corrupt, evil people. That doesn't logically follow, given that the state governments can exercise more than just enumerated powers. And at the moment, quite a few of them are really, really fucking evil, with a few more being highly corrupt. It makes a lot more sense when you view that separation of power as a compromise made to deal with the problem <one 'evil, corrupt'[1] federal organization in conflict with another 'evil, corrupt'[1] state organization>[2] as opposed to some weird conflict between <'evil, corrupt' federal government versus the people (but the 'evil, corrupt' state governments get a free pass or something..?)>. The question of 'who gets residual powers' isn't some 250 IQ bit of brilliant statesmanship and foresight, it's a just a decision that quite honestly, has gone either way in plenty of different countries, and none of them are in any quantifiable way worse off for it. [1] Your words, not mine. I think it's a pretty childish moniker devoid of all nuance, but when in Rome... [2] Which is actually the lens through which the founders viewed things. [3] [3] And they have been proven so, so wrong by history. As it turns out, in a high-speed communication society, party unity tends to override these kind of extra-organizational struggles. It's why the party of states rights complaints incessantly about federal tyranny, but only when it doesn't control the presidency.
  - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
    The federal government's powers are enumerated while everything else is left to the states. You may not like that the OP presented the federal government as corrupt but that doesn't negate the point. There is no accountability at the federal level. The federal government has turned into a mess of alphabet agencies whose sole purpose is to grow. They are not elected but write the laws. Congress has abducted their responsibility. There is recourse at the state level.
lost_tourist 3y ago
I think that's why there is so many checks and balances betweent the different branches of government. The FF knew that politicians (humans?) are bound to be corrupt and try to centralize ever more power (and money) to themselves.

bradley13 3y ago

Pournelle's Iron Law

freedomben 3y ago
> Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": > First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. > Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. > The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.[1] Definitely. I think this very well explains how we got to this position. [1]: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

nickff 3y ago

>"I just wish we had an IC that loved America more than its own power." They probably think that they do love their country more than their power, while believing they need the power to protect their country. This may be a sort of 'moral corruption', though not the conventional sort. It doesn't seem 'evil' to me.

freedomben 3y ago
Exactly. IC people are humans too, just like the rest of us. It's convenient to assume they are sinister evil bastards (some of them are to be clear, but clearly not all of them), but it's an unhelpful and counterproductive stereotype. I've known a few people involved in intelligence, and they absolutely believe they were serving and loving their country. It reminds me a bit of being an infrastructure person where when you mess up, everybody knows, but when you're doing your job well, nobody knows you exist. They see a constant and non-stop stream of threats that outsiders don't see, and when a threat is stopped nobody knows about it. I would bet it's not too hard to justify the intrusive capabilities and any "mistakes" made with them when you have that visibility into the successes. Humans are wonderful at justifying what they want to believe is true, and intel is no exception. The individual intel person is not the problem here. It's a systemic problem enabled by legislation that needs to be addressed at the legislative level.
- landemva 3y ago
  While they are humans, the gatekeeping in the system ensures only sinister humans will get those jobs. CIA director admitted to interferring in elections. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-cia-director-us-meddles-in-foreign-elections-for-a-good https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-...
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    CIA officials told my country's ex-president to stop doubting the voting machines. That's what ultimately convinced me they must have been compromised.
ecommerceguy 3y ago
How do you know that they love this country? Pure conjecture. Evidence, however, indicates the contrary; they break the laws to suppress people for power. That's pretty much the definition of evil.
- freedomben 3y ago
  It's also pure conjecture to say that they break the laws to suppress people for power. Have you ever seen how the bottom-level of people in a huge bureaucratic organization behave? They're not evil, they're just being human. Unless you're prepared to say that at least 65% to 95% of humans are evil[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    It's conjecture, but the fact that a powerful senator like Chuck Schumer fears going against them is enough to convince me that they need to be severely reigned in.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Absolutely, I fully agree. Regardless of whether they are "evil" or not, they need to be reigned in.
    - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
      He doesn't fear going against them - he's one of them.
  - ecommerceguy 3y ago
    There's plenty of evidence that shows how deeply currupted the 3 letter agencies are in this country. The FBI, a Hoover organization, appears to me to be an organization that exists solely to persecute, blackmail and bait populists and small government types, aka the very people bureaucrats hate. I'm not sure what kind of freedom you advocate for Ben, it certainly doesn't seem to jive with the notion of We the People.
paulddraper 3y ago
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > The keys of the castle and keep glinted from the belt at his stout waist. [...] Keys to lock out all danger... and, if necessary, Ista in. > It’s only habit, you know. I’m not mad anymore, really. > It wasn’t as though she wanted her mother’s keys, nor her mother’s life that went with them. She scarcely knew what she wanted. She knew what she feared—to be locked up in some dark, narrow place by people who loved her. An enemy might drop his guard, weary of his task, turn his back; love would never falter. Her fingers rubbed restlessly on the stone. -- Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
opportune 3y ago
I agree. I think it’s just laziness or being asked to square a circle. During the post-9/11 period there was immense political will and pressure to stop terrorism, and it’s really fucking hard to stop that while abiding by the constitution, so they chose to break the constitution to stop terrorism. Is it theoretically possible to stop terrorism/catch and guys to the same extent without breaking the constitution? I think so, but it would probably require a lot more boots on the ground, and a lot of creativity and smart thinking from individuals to be able to get as good outcomes as you’d get from just looking at data when you aren’t supposed to.
- tacocataco 3y ago
  Wasn't Osama bin Laden a CIA operative that worked against the soviets? Maybe the correct move would be to not train and arm extreamists?
  - loki49152 3y ago
    No. According to the Mujahadeen who did work with CIA, ObL was considered an "extremist" even among them because he expected to go to war against the US immediately after they were done with the Soviets. According to them, he didn't want anything to do with CIA.
atlantic 3y ago
Both the Soviet apparatchiks running the gulags sincerely believed they were acting for the greater good. The same goes for the torturers at Guantanamo. Idealism doesn't preclude evil.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Idealism doesn't preclude evil. Unchallenged idealism is the root of many evils. If you are convinced of your own righteousness, its very easy to “ends justify the means” almost anything. Its the danger of even a well-motivated person ending up with a cultivation or otherwise in an ideological echo chamber.

gottorf 3y ago

This is why America was conceived to be a country where the central government can only exercise enumerated powers; because the framers knew that every organization eventually becomes run (at one point or all subsequent points) by corrupt, evil people. Any system of governance that depends on an unbroken chain of good people is bound to fail, and fail much sooner rather than later. The only sustainable safeguard against it is to make sure that said system of governance is limited in what it can do.

vkou 3y ago
> This is why America was conceived to be a country where the central government can only exercise enumerated powers; > because the framers knew that every organization eventually becomes run (at one point or all subsequent points) by corrupt, evil people. That doesn't logically follow, given that the state governments can exercise more than just enumerated powers. And at the moment, quite a few of them are really, really fucking evil, with a few more being highly corrupt. It makes a lot more sense when you view that separation of power as a compromise made to deal with the problem <one 'evil, corrupt'[1] federal organization in conflict with another 'evil, corrupt'[1] state organization>[2] as opposed to some weird conflict between <'evil, corrupt' federal government versus the people (but the 'evil, corrupt' state governments get a free pass or something..?)>. The question of 'who gets residual powers' isn't some 250 IQ bit of brilliant statesmanship and foresight, it's a just a decision that quite honestly, has gone either way in plenty of different countries, and none of them are in any quantifiable way worse off for it. [1] Your words, not mine. I think it's a pretty childish moniker devoid of all nuance, but when in Rome... [2] Which is actually the lens through which the founders viewed things. [3] [3] And they have been proven so, so wrong by history. As it turns out, in a high-speed communication society, party unity tends to override these kind of extra-organizational struggles. It's why the party of states rights complaints incessantly about federal tyranny, but only when it doesn't control the presidency.
- 4RealFreedom 3y ago
  The federal government's powers are enumerated while everything else is left to the states. You may not like that the OP presented the federal government as corrupt but that doesn't negate the point. There is no accountability at the federal level. The federal government has turned into a mess of alphabet agencies whose sole purpose is to grow. They are not elected but write the laws. Congress has abducted their responsibility. There is recourse at the state level.

lost_tourist 3y ago

I think that's why there is so many checks and balances betweent the different branches of government. The FF knew that politicians (humans?) are bound to be corrupt and try to centralize ever more power (and money) to themselves.