5 ms·

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen white guys with european ancestry are the 2 worst spies in the history of the US. did their loyalties lie where you "expected" them to lie?

gwern 13y ago
Yes. Please consider that like 99% of the intelligence community is white. We should expect to see 99 Ames or Hanssens for every Xuesen. I know statistics is hard, but seriously, this should be an obvious point. The relevant agencies are almost completely white especially in the era we're talking about; doesn't this imply that any spies are almost certainly going to be white and that more than 2 or 3 Chinese spies indicate that loyalties may be... divided? Look at the WP list, it's well beyond 2.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- beachstartup 13y ago
  LOL "we're the majority so you should expect to see more of us do X, the fact that isn't true proves that minority is bad." this tired old argument and the convenient self-fulfilling prophecies it spawns can be used to justify anything. especially a persecution of any minority population for any activity whatsoever. prime example: war on drugs. let's not forget that investigations are run by people, with focused efforts on specific targets, for specific reasons. oftentimes investigators will go for the politically expedient target, the 'easy' target, or simply the targets that stick out when compared. when you look at the ranks of falsely accused spies, what do you see? just because more people are caught doing something does NOT mean that they are doing more of it in real life.
  - gwern 13y ago
    > this tired old argument and the convenient self-fulfilling prophecies it spawns can be used to justify anything. especially a persecution of any minority population for any activity whatsoever. No, it can't. It is a precise argument based on fractions of the relevant population. One could refute my argument by simply presenting an estimate of the populations of white potential spies, white spies, Chinese potential spies, and showing the white spy % > Chinese spy %. Instead, I get shit like your comment.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      You probably get shit like this comment because you evade the burden of proof (you started this whole crap, where are your numbers?) while making painfully racist claims.
      - gwern 13y ago
        > you started this whole crap, where are your numbers? That's not my point. My point is that everyone here is enjoying their self-righteous anachronistic indignation & kibbitzing & moral superiority without even reaching the basic level of discussion of asking 'are Chinese immigrants more likely to be spying for China than regular scientists and so additional scrutiny warranted?' It's not that anyone has presented numbers or evidence - they don't even realize that they need to. It's like if everyone was going around accusing me of racism and being an idiot and a Nazi and a Stormfront user (oh wait!); yes, maybe I have not presented a hard census of how many Chinese immigrants were working in sensitive programs and became suspected of being spies, but frankly, this discussion has much bigger problems than that.
        mikeash 13y ago
        You're assuming a greater incidence of spying among Chinese than among others, something you have not supported. You're further assuming that this greater incidence warrants massive scrutiny, something you also have not supported. So first, support your claim that Chinese spy more. Is it really that hard? Second, even if that is true, the second part is not necessarily true. For example, white people are far more likely to be members of the KKK than any other race. Does that mean that white people deserve additional scrutiny because of it? No, because even though the relatively probability is much higher, the absolute probability is still negligible. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Chinese people spy at four times the average rate. If the average rate was 20% and the Chinese rate was 80%, yeah, clearly you should be checking into that pretty hard. On the other hand, if the average rate was 0.001% and the Chinese rate was 0.004%, you're just wasting resources if you think that justifies scrutiny of all Chinese.
- yongjik 13y ago
  > We should expect to see 99 Ames or Hanssens for every Xuesen. So you're saying the US government should make white guys the subject of their prime suspicion? What kind of idiots concentrate on 1% while the other 99% of vulnerability gets free pass? If I were a Chinese intelligence officer I'll first hire a bunch of white guys to do the dirty work. Apparently some people think they can trust you if you have a pale skin.
  - gwern 13y ago
    > So you're saying the US government should make white guys the subject of their prime suspicion? And they do devote the majority of their efforts to examining the overwhelming majority of their (white/black/hispanic) employees. But nevertheless, when they happen to be doing their checks of an immigrant from a hostile power, they should devote more effort than usual because it is more likely than the base rate... > If I were a Chinese intelligence officer I'll first hire a bunch of white guys to do the dirty work. Good luck.

gwern 13y ago

Yes. Please consider that like 99% of the intelligence community is white. We should expect to see 99 Ames or Hanssens for every Xuesen. I know statistics is hard, but seriously, this should be an obvious point. The relevant agencies are almost completely white especially in the era we're talking about; doesn't this imply that any spies are almost certainly going to be white and that more than 2 or 3 Chinese spies indicate that loyalties may be... divided? Look at the WP list, it's well beyond 2.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
beachstartup 13y ago
LOL "we're the majority so you should expect to see more of us do X, the fact that isn't true proves that minority is bad." this tired old argument and the convenient self-fulfilling prophecies it spawns can be used to justify anything. especially a persecution of any minority population for any activity whatsoever. prime example: war on drugs. let's not forget that investigations are run by people, with focused efforts on specific targets, for specific reasons. oftentimes investigators will go for the politically expedient target, the 'easy' target, or simply the targets that stick out when compared. when you look at the ranks of falsely accused spies, what do you see? just because more people are caught doing something does NOT mean that they are doing more of it in real life.
- gwern 13y ago
  > this tired old argument and the convenient self-fulfilling prophecies it spawns can be used to justify anything. especially a persecution of any minority population for any activity whatsoever. No, it can't. It is a precise argument based on fractions of the relevant population. One could refute my argument by simply presenting an estimate of the populations of white potential spies, white spies, Chinese potential spies, and showing the white spy % > Chinese spy %. Instead, I get shit like your comment.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    You probably get shit like this comment because you evade the burden of proof (you started this whole crap, where are your numbers?) while making painfully racist claims.
    - gwern 13y ago
      > you started this whole crap, where are your numbers? That's not my point. My point is that everyone here is enjoying their self-righteous anachronistic indignation & kibbitzing & moral superiority without even reaching the basic level of discussion of asking 'are Chinese immigrants more likely to be spying for China than regular scientists and so additional scrutiny warranted?' It's not that anyone has presented numbers or evidence - they don't even realize that they need to. It's like if everyone was going around accusing me of racism and being an idiot and a Nazi and a Stormfront user (oh wait!); yes, maybe I have not presented a hard census of how many Chinese immigrants were working in sensitive programs and became suspected of being spies, but frankly, this discussion has much bigger problems than that.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        You're assuming a greater incidence of spying among Chinese than among others, something you have not supported. You're further assuming that this greater incidence warrants massive scrutiny, something you also have not supported. So first, support your claim that Chinese spy more. Is it really that hard? Second, even if that is true, the second part is not necessarily true. For example, white people are far more likely to be members of the KKK than any other race. Does that mean that white people deserve additional scrutiny because of it? No, because even though the relatively probability is much higher, the absolute probability is still negligible. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Chinese people spy at four times the average rate. If the average rate was 20% and the Chinese rate was 80%, yeah, clearly you should be checking into that pretty hard. On the other hand, if the average rate was 0.001% and the Chinese rate was 0.004%, you're just wasting resources if you think that justifies scrutiny of all Chinese.
yongjik 13y ago
> We should expect to see 99 Ames or Hanssens for every Xuesen. So you're saying the US government should make white guys the subject of their prime suspicion? What kind of idiots concentrate on 1% while the other 99% of vulnerability gets free pass? If I were a Chinese intelligence officer I'll first hire a bunch of white guys to do the dirty work. Apparently some people think they can trust you if you have a pale skin.
- gwern 13y ago
  > So you're saying the US government should make white guys the subject of their prime suspicion? And they do devote the majority of their efforts to examining the overwhelming majority of their (white/black/hispanic) employees. But nevertheless, when they happen to be doing their checks of an immigrant from a hostile power, they should devote more effort than usual because it is more likely than the base rate... > If I were a Chinese intelligence officer I'll first hire a bunch of white guys to do the dirty work. Good luck.