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> We can not allow the FBI to work for Evil here Historically speaking I can't see this as even being in the top 100 evil things the FBI has done.

throw0101d 1y ago
> Historically speaking I can't see this as even being in the top 100 evil things the FBI has done. Perhaps, but we can't change the past: we can only fight against what is happening in the present to try to get a better future.
- isr 1y ago
  Ok then. This, while bad, is not even in the top 50 of evil deeds the FBI is CURRENTLY doing ...
  - pegasus 1y ago
    List not fifty, but just ten of those, I'd like to know.
    - isr 1y ago
      If you're in public denial about the FBI not being the righteous force for "peace, justice & the american way (whatever the heck that is)", despite the copious publically available evidence & reporting (by independent journalists) to the contrary, then ... no, you really don't want to know. (all this, over what was mostly a tongue in cheek response anyway ...)
      - pegasus 1y ago
        I think neither "righteous" nor "evil" are appropriate words in this context. It's a real-world institution with the expected biases, missteps of authority, episodes of getting embroiled in political machination, etc. Demonizing it is just as naive as idealizing it. And there's probably much more of the former than the latter today, when a lot of unearned, easy cynicism is either unconsciously performative, or even worse, the outcome of a caricatural conspirative worldview.
  - toofy 1y ago
    i’m not entirely sure what you’re implying here. i could absolutely be wrong since your post was kinda vague, so forgive me if i’m wrong, but are you implying we shouldn’t attempt mitigation of bad things because other bad things are happening elsewhere?
    - isr 1y ago
      If you read the chain of posts I directly responded to, then there's nothing vague about what I said. Here, I'll help you out: That chain was in response to: >> We can not allow the FBI to work for Evil here > Historically speaking I can't see this as even being in the top 100 evil things the FBI has done. Perhaps, but we can't change the past: we can only fight against what is happening in the present to try to get a better future. So in that context, there's nothing "vague" about my somewhat tongue-in-cheek response. Neither, you'll find, is there any attempt by me to say that one SHOULDNT stop the FBI from doing anything bad. The pushback, by other chap & me, is about quantifying this particular misdeed as "evil", showing a remarkable lack of acknowledgement about the many, many, many other things the FBI has done (from its inception as a personal blackmailing operation by Hoover against US politicians - ring any bells?) and is doing, which are far, far worse than this "bad thing".
- pksebben 1y ago
  Probably a bit of a 'baby with the bathwater' situation here. At almost no point has that institution been a net positive - at times snooping on 'political dissidents' (like MLK Jr.), and at others bungling cases so bad they become moments of national shame (Ruby Ridge). You're never going to get a system with a clandestine domestic service running ethically for long, esp. not with qualified immunity. It's simply too attractive to dumb psychopaths with delusions of grandeur and concurrently not of interest to people with a strong sense of community or morals.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > At almost no point has that institution been a net positive The FBI's anticorruption work is good and necessary.
    - cgio 1y ago
      I assume that’s why the original argument is that it’s not been a net positive. I.e. the assumption is that lots of work can be good and necessary, while even more that is evil and excessive can end up with a net negative.
    - Hikikomori 1y ago
      Like that's happening under this administration, see tom Homan.
      - dashundchen 1y ago
        Or the Trump coin crypto rugpull and money laundering scheme. Or the open insider trading. Or the $400 million jet "gifted" from Qatar. This year has been one grift after another.
    - tremon 1y ago
      Anticorruption work is good and necessary. If the FBI's work was any good, they would be investigating the funding of the destruction of the White House, or AIPAC and Qatari influence in DC, not Comey and Obama. Right now, they are working for Evil.
fortyseven 1y ago
And?
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  the phrasing makes it sound like historically the FBI does not work for evil. which is somewhat annoying to someone who believes the FBI has been primarily a tool of evil.
cestith 1y ago
It being #101 or #275 in a ranking doesn’t make it not evil though.
- coldtea 1y ago
  No, but it can make it unworthy of concern, same how an egg gone bad on the kitchen counter is not very important when the house is on fire
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
    If one is naive to the fire in the house, the egg on the counter, as something worthy of concern, might get them to look around and see that their house is not actually suitable for use as shelter. People who are trying to put out the fire (or who are simply concerned about it while watching from a distance) might decide to point to the spoiled egg to spread awareness of the fire to the people inside.
    - ToValueFunfetti 1y ago
      I think you have to change or abandon the metaphor to make your point. These are not true statements of spoiled eggs and house fires, and so much so as to make a reasonable claim about institutions and malfeasance look absurd.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
        > These are not true statements of spoiled eggs and house fires, and so much so as to make a reasonable claim about institutions and malfeasance look absurd. True, but I disagree with the conclusion. When I try to map it back to reality and it doesn't make sense, it is indeed an indictment of the analogy. But the fact I have to abuse the analogy to make that mapping coherent is not my problem; it's not my analogy. However, within the context of the analogy, and if one can imagine that absolutely insane scenario, the logic holds.
  - cestith 1y ago
est 1y ago
But once FBI has the power to erase knowledge, the other 100 evil things will be rounded to zero.
AbrahamParangi 1y ago
Deletion of data is the most permanent thing most people will ever do. The burning of the library of Alexandria and the razing of Baghdad left a long, long shadow on history.
- econ 1y ago
  But after that we got to pretend everything was invented in Western Europe.
  - toofy 1y ago
    you jest but it is wild how often people declare “if it was ‘advanced’ and outside of Europe, it was probably aliens. not the people, it was aliens, obviously.”
  - krige 1y ago
    Most of the time when I see this snark, and look it up, it turns out that the "original" inventor did only the most basic step or vague foundations and never refined it further or explored any potential applications. Most often it happens with China since they spend a lot of propganda to present themselves as the true inventor of everything.
    - econ 1y ago
      The joke was that we can't know after burning the library. People can't even agree what goes on today. To what degree history is fiction I have no idea but it's probably worse.
PaulHoule 1y ago
Will probably make my life personally worse than the others.

throw0101d 1y ago

> Historically speaking I can't see this as even being in the top 100 evil things the FBI has done. Perhaps, but we can't change the past: we can only fight against what is happening in the present to try to get a better future.

isr 1y ago
Ok then. This, while bad, is not even in the top 50 of evil deeds the FBI is CURRENTLY doing ...
- pegasus 1y ago
  List not fifty, but just ten of those, I'd like to know.
  - isr 1y ago
    If you're in public denial about the FBI not being the righteous force for "peace, justice & the american way (whatever the heck that is)", despite the copious publically available evidence & reporting (by independent journalists) to the contrary, then ... no, you really don't want to know. (all this, over what was mostly a tongue in cheek response anyway ...)
    - pegasus 1y ago
      I think neither "righteous" nor "evil" are appropriate words in this context. It's a real-world institution with the expected biases, missteps of authority, episodes of getting embroiled in political machination, etc. Demonizing it is just as naive as idealizing it. And there's probably much more of the former than the latter today, when a lot of unearned, easy cynicism is either unconsciously performative, or even worse, the outcome of a caricatural conspirative worldview.
- toofy 1y ago
  i’m not entirely sure what you’re implying here. i could absolutely be wrong since your post was kinda vague, so forgive me if i’m wrong, but are you implying we shouldn’t attempt mitigation of bad things because other bad things are happening elsewhere?
  - isr 1y ago
    If you read the chain of posts I directly responded to, then there's nothing vague about what I said. Here, I'll help you out: That chain was in response to: >> We can not allow the FBI to work for Evil here > Historically speaking I can't see this as even being in the top 100 evil things the FBI has done. Perhaps, but we can't change the past: we can only fight against what is happening in the present to try to get a better future. So in that context, there's nothing "vague" about my somewhat tongue-in-cheek response. Neither, you'll find, is there any attempt by me to say that one SHOULDNT stop the FBI from doing anything bad. The pushback, by other chap & me, is about quantifying this particular misdeed as "evil", showing a remarkable lack of acknowledgement about the many, many, many other things the FBI has done (from its inception as a personal blackmailing operation by Hoover against US politicians - ring any bells?) and is doing, which are far, far worse than this "bad thing".
pksebben 1y ago
Probably a bit of a 'baby with the bathwater' situation here. At almost no point has that institution been a net positive - at times snooping on 'political dissidents' (like MLK Jr.), and at others bungling cases so bad they become moments of national shame (Ruby Ridge). You're never going to get a system with a clandestine domestic service running ethically for long, esp. not with qualified immunity. It's simply too attractive to dumb psychopaths with delusions of grandeur and concurrently not of interest to people with a strong sense of community or morals.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > At almost no point has that institution been a net positive The FBI's anticorruption work is good and necessary.
  - cgio 1y ago
    I assume that’s why the original argument is that it’s not been a net positive. I.e. the assumption is that lots of work can be good and necessary, while even more that is evil and excessive can end up with a net negative.
  - Hikikomori 1y ago
    Like that's happening under this administration, see tom Homan.
    - dashundchen 1y ago
      Or the Trump coin crypto rugpull and money laundering scheme. Or the open insider trading. Or the $400 million jet "gifted" from Qatar. This year has been one grift after another.
  - tremon 1y ago
    Anticorruption work is good and necessary. If the FBI's work was any good, they would be investigating the funding of the destruction of the White House, or AIPAC and Qatari influence in DC, not Comey and Obama. Right now, they are working for Evil.

fortyseven 1y ago

And?

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
the phrasing makes it sound like historically the FBI does not work for evil. which is somewhat annoying to someone who believes the FBI has been primarily a tool of evil.

cestith 1y ago

It being #101 or #275 in a ranking doesn’t make it not evil though.

coldtea 1y ago
No, but it can make it unworthy of concern, same how an egg gone bad on the kitchen counter is not very important when the house is on fire
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  If one is naive to the fire in the house, the egg on the counter, as something worthy of concern, might get them to look around and see that their house is not actually suitable for use as shelter. People who are trying to put out the fire (or who are simply concerned about it while watching from a distance) might decide to point to the spoiled egg to spread awareness of the fire to the people inside.
  - ToValueFunfetti 1y ago
    I think you have to change or abandon the metaphor to make your point. These are not true statements of spoiled eggs and house fires, and so much so as to make a reasonable claim about institutions and malfeasance look absurd.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
      > These are not true statements of spoiled eggs and house fires, and so much so as to make a reasonable claim about institutions and malfeasance look absurd. True, but I disagree with the conclusion. When I try to map it back to reality and it doesn't make sense, it is indeed an indictment of the analogy. But the fact I have to abuse the analogy to make that mapping coherent is not my problem; it's not my analogy. However, within the context of the analogy, and if one can imagine that absolutely insane scenario, the logic holds.
- cestith 1y ago

est 1y ago

But once FBI has the power to erase knowledge, the other 100 evil things will be rounded to zero.

AbrahamParangi 1y ago

Deletion of data is the most permanent thing most people will ever do. The burning of the library of Alexandria and the razing of Baghdad left a long, long shadow on history.

econ 1y ago
But after that we got to pretend everything was invented in Western Europe.
- toofy 1y ago
  you jest but it is wild how often people declare “if it was ‘advanced’ and outside of Europe, it was probably aliens. not the people, it was aliens, obviously.”
- krige 1y ago
  Most of the time when I see this snark, and look it up, it turns out that the "original" inventor did only the most basic step or vague foundations and never refined it further or explored any potential applications. Most often it happens with China since they spend a lot of propganda to present themselves as the true inventor of everything.
  - econ 1y ago
    The joke was that we can't know after burning the library. People can't even agree what goes on today. To what degree history is fiction I have no idea but it's probably worse.

PaulHoule 1y ago

Will probably make my life personally worse than the others.