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Here, here! Certainly seems that way with some of them. There’s obviously a lot of great people there, but even the good ones may have had to “fake it” or confo

Here, here! Certainly seems that way with some of them. There’s obviously a lot of great people there, but even the good ones may have had to “fake it” or conform to fit in. It seems overall they’d be hiring “club members”, and as Major Kusanagi says: Over specialization leads to death. Probably had little to do with it in practice, but I’m wondering how much that poverty of diverse thinking, and conformity led to the much discussed 9/11 intelligence failures. I’m reminded of this scene about the Mossad's (probably fictional) "Jury of the 10th Man" in World War Z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-McSoaxaAdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-McSoaxaAdQ Which itself is kind of ironic given the also much discussed 10/7 intelligence failures. Perhaps this is a scourge that to some degree plagues all the world’s cleared jobs…

bell-cot 2y ago
> It seems overall they’d be hiring... I'd say it's an "enrichment" process - a higher % of such people apply, a higher % get hired, a higher % stick around...and move up. Some others either adopt that worldview, or learn to conform. And within closed/secret/hierarchical societies, it doesn't take a huge % of problematic priorities & worldviews to systematize a whole lot of undesirable stuff. I've seen credible online accounts of pre-9/11 CIA decisions on how they should design a new mass-surveillance/analysis system. My read of those accounts & the CIA's alternatives is that they specifically chose "maximum-data-quantity creepy gratification" over "maximum real-world national security effectiveness". They had diversity, but not the right priorities. (I've not paid attention to the 10/7 intel failures, but assume that the Mossad has "the usual" secret agency failings. OTOH, my impression is that war has been extremely convenient, politically, for Israel's current & problematic Prime Minister. So he might have been reading "Potential Jackpot" in spots where his Mossad intel briefings said "Potential Danger", and making decisions on that basis.)
- keepamovin 2y ago
  Good point about hiring and promotion enrichment plus the amplification effects of systems, and an interesting one on Bibi’s calculus. I think he could have done more, initially to build a coalition of support, plus strategically positioned himself against Hamas, who were clearly hoping for an Israeli super-reaction that they could milk to further play the fake victim and justify their stance. Could you unpack “creepy gratification”? What does that mean a bit more?
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    > Could you unpack...? Excessive prioritization of satisfying their immediate emotional needs (for more-is-always-better data collection), with relatively minimal healthy or long-term regard for the national security utility of the resulting behavior pattern. To be fair - quantity of data collected is a stupid-but-obvious metric, which the CIA probably uses for many status/budget/promotion decisions.
    - keepamovin 2y ago
      Ah, makes sense! Would they really have such a simplistic KPI tho? We have collected 12 PB daily over the last quota and are fast approaching 15 PB. We are expected to hit the 20 PB amount sometime in the next 3 months Everyone nods in excitement, gasps and woos. Surely they would have a more targeted and relevant KPI to do with how much of that data is useful / actionable?? Anywho, interesting little chat thanks! Haha :)

bell-cot 2y ago

> It seems overall they’d be hiring... I'd say it's an "enrichment" process - a higher % of such people apply, a higher % get hired, a higher % stick around...and move up. Some others either adopt that worldview, or learn to conform. And within closed/secret/hierarchical societies, it doesn't take a huge % of problematic priorities & worldviews to systematize a whole lot of undesirable stuff. I've seen credible online accounts of pre-9/11 CIA decisions on how they should design a new mass-surveillance/analysis system. My read of those accounts & the CIA's alternatives is that they specifically chose "maximum-data-quantity creepy gratification" over "maximum real-world national security effectiveness". They had diversity, but not the right priorities. (I've not paid attention to the 10/7 intel failures, but assume that the Mossad has "the usual" secret agency failings. OTOH, my impression is that war has been extremely convenient, politically, for Israel's current & problematic Prime Minister. So he might have been reading "Potential Jackpot" in spots where his Mossad intel briefings said "Potential Danger", and making decisions on that basis.)

keepamovin 2y ago
Good point about hiring and promotion enrichment plus the amplification effects of systems, and an interesting one on Bibi’s calculus. I think he could have done more, initially to build a coalition of support, plus strategically positioned himself against Hamas, who were clearly hoping for an Israeli super-reaction that they could milk to further play the fake victim and justify their stance. Could you unpack “creepy gratification”? What does that mean a bit more?
- bell-cot 2y ago
  > Could you unpack...? Excessive prioritization of satisfying their immediate emotional needs (for more-is-always-better data collection), with relatively minimal healthy or long-term regard for the national security utility of the resulting behavior pattern. To be fair - quantity of data collected is a stupid-but-obvious metric, which the CIA probably uses for many status/budget/promotion decisions.
  - keepamovin 2y ago
    Ah, makes sense! Would they really have such a simplistic KPI tho? We have collected 12 PB daily over the last quota and are fast approaching 15 PB. We are expected to hit the 20 PB amount sometime in the next 3 months Everyone nods in excitement, gasps and woos. Surely they would have a more targeted and relevant KPI to do with how much of that data is useful / actionable?? Anywho, interesting little chat thanks! Haha :)