6 ms·

Animals in Espionage

36 points by carlos-menezes 2y ago

chiph 2y ago
Thankfully, the story of Acousti-Kitty being run over was a poorly conceived joke.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
[flagged]
- derac 2y ago
  You're on a web forum for tech startups making a tirade against capitalism and western civilization. You think you'll find many sympathizers here? lol
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    Curiosity about the world and honest observation - traits of the best entrepreneurs - have a tendency to tilt people that way.
- dang 2y ago
  Ok, but please don't fulminate on Hacker News. It's incompatible with intellectual curiosity, which is what we're trying to optimize for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Okay, sorry about that. I'll refrain in the future. However, I wonder, at what point should we override single variable optimization (in this case the single variable is intellectual curiosity) if there is truly something heinous to point out? It seems by not doing that, we overnormalize those who will use intellectual curiosity as an excuse to subjugate.
    - dang 2y ago
      That's a good question, because people who feel strongly about politics or current affairs often want to use this site to battle for what they believe is right. When we ask them not to do that here, on the grounds that HN is not that sort of website, they sometimes respond that what they're fighting for is more important. They're right, of course. Most of those questions are far more important than most of what appears on HN. The problem is that if we allowed it to, political battle would quickly consume everything it touches, much like the fire that flamewars are named after—so this is an existential issue for HN. Ultimately the question is: does a site dedicated to intellectual curiosity deserve to exist, even though other things are more important? Is there room for such a place? I think the answer has to be yes. But if so, it needs to be protected for that purpose, because default internet dynamics all point the other way. There are always many heinous things to point out, and such stories are far more emotionally intense than, say, a new type of superconductor having been discovered, or how work on formalizing Fermat's Last Theorem has been going lately. So I don't think we have much of a choice, if we want HN to survive as a sort of garden. Gardens and warfare can't coexist at the same place and time. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22current%20affairs%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I'd add one bit to your last point though: I don't think "those who subjugate" are really doing that by appealing to intellectual curiosity—they have more powerful forces to do that with. I'd like to believe that in a community where intellectual curiosity is cultivated, subjugation is actually a little less likely. I can't prove that, though, and it may just be wishful thinking.
      - mandmandam 2y ago
        Vouaobrasil speaks the truth here, if forcefully, and it's a truth all Americans would be wise to face up to sooner rather than later. And the hour has already grown late. "In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political I must listen to the birds and in order to hear the birds the warplanes must be silent." - Marwan Makhoul > Gardens and warfare can't coexist at the same place and time. Gardens are warfare. There are ten thousand tiny battles daily in each one. And yet, despite the chaos, the garden thrives. Often all the more with less interference.
nycdatasci 2y ago
Amazing. They developed a dragon fly sized UAV that flew at 3 meters/second and could be guided by a laser in the 1970s!
- gregw2 2y ago
  Interesting! Around the same time, mention of such a dragon fly-shaped/sized drone device came out in a kid's fictional book I read at the time: Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy. It actually envisioned the social and military implications of such a device: https://medium.com/message/the-politics-of-personal-drones-perfectly-predicted-in-a-ya-novel-from-1974-3c171601b82b https://medium.com/message/the-politics-of-personal-drones-p... Unclear to me is whether in this case life (the CIA invention) imitated art, or art imitated life (great minds run on the same track); the book came out in 1974...
  - walterbell 2y ago
    > life … art Why not both? Life -> Art -> Life. https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-american-creative-writing-famous-iowa-writers-workshop.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-americ... > According to Eric Bennett, writing at The Chronicle of Higher Education and in his book Workshops of Empire, the Agency instrumentalized not only the literary publishing world, but also the institution that became its primary training ground, the writing program at the University of Iowa. https://fcpp.org/2021/06/28/the-cias-media-assets/ https://fcpp.org/2021/06/28/the-cias-media-assets/ > Four years after he broke the Watergate story, Carl Bernstein quit the Washington Post and spent six months looking at the relationship between the CIA and the press. The result was a 25,000-word cover story in the October 20, 1977 edition of Rolling Stone called “The CIA and the Media.” The article, still online at carlbernstein.com, remains interesting and relevant.
- nmstoker 2y ago
  This struck me as pretty unconvincing - if it's even true then they are no doubt leaving out crucial points around why it was impractical (besides the cross wind point they admit)
amelius 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_marine_mammal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_marine_mammal
nazca 2y ago
For Canadians its impossible to hear about pigeons cameras without thinking of the Tragically Hip song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDbnJPWAng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDbnJPWAng

chiph 2y ago

Thankfully, the story of Acousti-Kitty being run over was a poorly conceived joke.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

[flagged]

derac 2y ago
You're on a web forum for tech startups making a tirade against capitalism and western civilization. You think you'll find many sympathizers here? lol
- mandmandam 2y ago
  Curiosity about the world and honest observation - traits of the best entrepreneurs - have a tendency to tilt people that way.
dang 2y ago
Ok, but please don't fulminate on Hacker News. It's incompatible with intellectual curiosity, which is what we're trying to optimize for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  Okay, sorry about that. I'll refrain in the future. However, I wonder, at what point should we override single variable optimization (in this case the single variable is intellectual curiosity) if there is truly something heinous to point out? It seems by not doing that, we overnormalize those who will use intellectual curiosity as an excuse to subjugate.
  - dang 2y ago
    That's a good question, because people who feel strongly about politics or current affairs often want to use this site to battle for what they believe is right. When we ask them not to do that here, on the grounds that HN is not that sort of website, they sometimes respond that what they're fighting for is more important. They're right, of course. Most of those questions are far more important than most of what appears on HN. The problem is that if we allowed it to, political battle would quickly consume everything it touches, much like the fire that flamewars are named after—so this is an existential issue for HN. Ultimately the question is: does a site dedicated to intellectual curiosity deserve to exist, even though other things are more important? Is there room for such a place? I think the answer has to be yes. But if so, it needs to be protected for that purpose, because default internet dynamics all point the other way. There are always many heinous things to point out, and such stories are far more emotionally intense than, say, a new type of superconductor having been discovered, or how work on formalizing Fermat's Last Theorem has been going lately. So I don't think we have much of a choice, if we want HN to survive as a sort of garden. Gardens and warfare can't coexist at the same place and time. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22current%20affairs%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I'd add one bit to your last point though: I don't think "those who subjugate" are really doing that by appealing to intellectual curiosity—they have more powerful forces to do that with. I'd like to believe that in a community where intellectual curiosity is cultivated, subjugation is actually a little less likely. I can't prove that, though, and it may just be wishful thinking.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      Vouaobrasil speaks the truth here, if forcefully, and it's a truth all Americans would be wise to face up to sooner rather than later. And the hour has already grown late. "In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political I must listen to the birds and in order to hear the birds the warplanes must be silent." - Marwan Makhoul > Gardens and warfare can't coexist at the same place and time. Gardens are warfare. There are ten thousand tiny battles daily in each one. And yet, despite the chaos, the garden thrives. Often all the more with less interference.

nycdatasci 2y ago

Amazing. They developed a dragon fly sized UAV that flew at 3 meters/second and could be guided by a laser in the 1970s!

gregw2 2y ago
Interesting! Around the same time, mention of such a dragon fly-shaped/sized drone device came out in a kid's fictional book I read at the time: Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy. It actually envisioned the social and military implications of such a device: https://medium.com/message/the-politics-of-personal-drones-perfectly-predicted-in-a-ya-novel-from-1974-3c171601b82b https://medium.com/message/the-politics-of-personal-drones-p... Unclear to me is whether in this case life (the CIA invention) imitated art, or art imitated life (great minds run on the same track); the book came out in 1974...
- walterbell 2y ago
  > life … art Why not both? Life -> Art -> Life. https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-american-creative-writing-famous-iowa-writers-workshop.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-americ... > According to Eric Bennett, writing at The Chronicle of Higher Education and in his book Workshops of Empire, the Agency instrumentalized not only the literary publishing world, but also the institution that became its primary training ground, the writing program at the University of Iowa. https://fcpp.org/2021/06/28/the-cias-media-assets/ https://fcpp.org/2021/06/28/the-cias-media-assets/ > Four years after he broke the Watergate story, Carl Bernstein quit the Washington Post and spent six months looking at the relationship between the CIA and the press. The result was a 25,000-word cover story in the October 20, 1977 edition of Rolling Stone called “The CIA and the Media.” The article, still online at carlbernstein.com, remains interesting and relevant.
nmstoker 2y ago
This struck me as pretty unconvincing - if it's even true then they are no doubt leaving out crucial points around why it was impractical (besides the cross wind point they admit)

amelius 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_marine_mammal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_marine_mammal

nazca 2y ago

For Canadians its impossible to hear about pigeons cameras without thinking of the Tragically Hip song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDbnJPWAng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDbnJPWAng