6 ms·

Is anyone else struck by the "banality of evil" aspect to all these internal powerpoint style presentations? These documents are interchangeable with some plumb

by CPLX 11y ago

Is anyone else struck by the "banality of evil" aspect to all these internal powerpoint style presentations? These documents are interchangeable with some plumbing and heating supply chain company marketing presentation, except they are spying on the planet.

HCIdivision17 11y ago
This sort of thing was lampshaded to hell and back in the Portal games. On the surface it's a hilarious first person shooter with a gun that harmlessly puts holes in things in almost exactly the way normal guns don't. Yet it's actually a place where human life and safety is meaningless, where unconciable acts of terror and horror happen everyday (or at least did). And their PowerPoint slides are just awful. It's clear there's a systemic problem in the facility with sustainable testing. Aperature Science may be the most evil corporation ever, and it ends up being funny simply because they're so incompetently banal about it. It's helpful to remember that giant machines chewing through our world and wreaking havoc on our lives are just side effects of lots of like-minded people working together for a common cause. Teamwork can bring you Star Trek or it can bring you Aperature Science. There's a moral to be had there, but I'll be damned if I know what it is...
- lepht 11y ago
  For anyone else wondering about the use of "lampshaded", I believe HCIdivision17 is referring to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
  - HCIdivision17 11y ago
    Absolutely. TVTropes has a real danger of adding its crazy vocabulary to your everyday life, especially on things unrelated to entertainment. (See also Idiot Ball, Fridge Logic, and Forensic Phlebotinum, which may be on topic.) Really, someone should write up some of these political stories in terms of TVTropes so I can know how I feel about how the plot's progressing. So far it seems like we're in a poorly written mockumentary.
    - crucini 11y ago
      Tvtropes tends to drain the specialness from an entertainment product and reveal the generic components. Applying the same lens to politics results in something like "Yes Minister", where we realize government actions aren't caused by "good" or "bad" actors, but the inherent structure. Most current crises have a referent in "Yes Minister", including this one - when the PM denied the bugging of an MP's phone. ("He should not have denied something of which he had no knowledge.") This indicates how few fundamental situations or tensions exist in modern government, and how often they reoccur.
      - HCIdivision17 11y ago
        I think you're right on each count. But I also think that there's a lot of benefit from having a vocabulary - even a goofy one - that allows these things to be broken down and understood. On some level it certainly does remove that je ne sais quoi from the topic, but on the other hand it illuminates it somewhat (so long as the terminology isn't too slanted). Even a mild bias isn't bad, since we naturally adjust for rhetorical tone, and it can add a bit of levity to an otherwise tedious discussion (see Phabricator for a nice case study in that). At any rate, I really like the idea that there really isn't bad people conspiring but just a badly formed/tuned system. (I'm a process engineer, so I suppose that gives me hope where others wouldn't see any.)
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Banality of Evil? Come on. Equating SIGINT programs to protect America's interest with the Nazi party is really shrill. I'm no NSA defender, but I believe nations have the right to SIGINT programs to protect their interests. The real question is what implementations and limitations are acceptable. >These documents are interchangeable with some plumbing and heating supply chain company Efficiency is universal. Powerpoint-like presentations work in the corporate structure. Memos, emails, etc are used for a reason. Look at Al Qaeda's job application form, its bizarrely corporate. Or how Osama Bin Laden's bookshelf is straight out of a HN reading list. Or how drug dealers hire Ivy League finance guys to run operations that, if you didn't know the product, would assume it was some boring commodity widget being sold. There's no James Bond-ish school of super technology or unique processes. Whatever management fads are popular in the business world work their way into government, and that includes intelligence, military, space programs, etc. I'm always a little surprised at how cheap looking every NASA press conference is and how many technical issues they always seem to have (mic issues, streaming issues, etc). If there's really a balality of evil, I'd say that's just a subset of the banality of all bureaucracies. If anything, unique organizations that are successful tend to be extremely rare. Startup culture and other 'progressive organizations' just end up being 'office lite' until they go mainstream/IPO/whatever then they fully embrace becoming a regular office. The only non-trivial organization I can think that is successful and has a unique structure is probably Valve, with its fascinating flat management style. edit: downvotes for suggesting that maybe the NSA shouldn't be compared to the party that gassed 6 million people solely for their ethnicity? Grow up, HN.
- task_queue 11y ago
  Remember when the idea of having your communications sifted through by the government you elected was restricted to the actions of the Stasi or KGB in the minds of Americans?
- CPLX 11y ago
  > Equating SIGINT programs to protect America's interest with the Nazi party is really shrill. Totally agree. Please stop me if I ever do that. Those other kind of SIGINT programs, the ones that attempt to collect every single email and phone call and GPS location and internet search in my life and store it indefinitely, are a little more of a direct comparison though, don't you think? > Efficiency is universal. Efficiency is actually fairly hard to come by I think. It's terribly designed presentations with bad clip art, illegible diagrams, and meaningless and redundant process slides that seem to be universal as far as I can tell.

by CPLX 11y ago

HCIdivision17 11y ago

This sort of thing was lampshaded to hell and back in the Portal games. On the surface it's a hilarious first person shooter with a gun that harmlessly puts holes in things in almost exactly the way normal guns don't. Yet it's actually a place where human life and safety is meaningless, where unconciable acts of terror and horror happen everyday (or at least did). And their PowerPoint slides are just awful. It's clear there's a systemic problem in the facility with sustainable testing. Aperature Science may be the most evil corporation ever, and it ends up being funny simply because they're so incompetently banal about it. It's helpful to remember that giant machines chewing through our world and wreaking havoc on our lives are just side effects of lots of like-minded people working together for a common cause. Teamwork can bring you Star Trek or it can bring you Aperature Science. There's a moral to be had there, but I'll be damned if I know what it is...

lepht 11y ago
For anyone else wondering about the use of "lampshaded", I believe HCIdivision17 is referring to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  Absolutely. TVTropes has a real danger of adding its crazy vocabulary to your everyday life, especially on things unrelated to entertainment. (See also Idiot Ball, Fridge Logic, and Forensic Phlebotinum, which may be on topic.) Really, someone should write up some of these political stories in terms of TVTropes so I can know how I feel about how the plot's progressing. So far it seems like we're in a poorly written mockumentary.
  - crucini 11y ago
    Tvtropes tends to drain the specialness from an entertainment product and reveal the generic components. Applying the same lens to politics results in something like "Yes Minister", where we realize government actions aren't caused by "good" or "bad" actors, but the inherent structure. Most current crises have a referent in "Yes Minister", including this one - when the PM denied the bugging of an MP's phone. ("He should not have denied something of which he had no knowledge.") This indicates how few fundamental situations or tensions exist in modern government, and how often they reoccur.
    - HCIdivision17 11y ago
      I think you're right on each count. But I also think that there's a lot of benefit from having a vocabulary - even a goofy one - that allows these things to be broken down and understood. On some level it certainly does remove that je ne sais quoi from the topic, but on the other hand it illuminates it somewhat (so long as the terminology isn't too slanted). Even a mild bias isn't bad, since we naturally adjust for rhetorical tone, and it can add a bit of levity to an otherwise tedious discussion (see Phabricator for a nice case study in that). At any rate, I really like the idea that there really isn't bad people conspiring but just a badly formed/tuned system. (I'm a process engineer, so I suppose that gives me hope where others wouldn't see any.)

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

Banality of Evil? Come on. Equating SIGINT programs to protect America's interest with the Nazi party is really shrill. I'm no NSA defender, but I believe nations have the right to SIGINT programs to protect their interests. The real question is what implementations and limitations are acceptable. >These documents are interchangeable with some plumbing and heating supply chain company Efficiency is universal. Powerpoint-like presentations work in the corporate structure. Memos, emails, etc are used for a reason. Look at Al Qaeda's job application form, its bizarrely corporate. Or how Osama Bin Laden's bookshelf is straight out of a HN reading list. Or how drug dealers hire Ivy League finance guys to run operations that, if you didn't know the product, would assume it was some boring commodity widget being sold. There's no James Bond-ish school of super technology or unique processes. Whatever management fads are popular in the business world work their way into government, and that includes intelligence, military, space programs, etc. I'm always a little surprised at how cheap looking every NASA press conference is and how many technical issues they always seem to have (mic issues, streaming issues, etc). If there's really a balality of evil, I'd say that's just a subset of the banality of all bureaucracies. If anything, unique organizations that are successful tend to be extremely rare. Startup culture and other 'progressive organizations' just end up being 'office lite' until they go mainstream/IPO/whatever then they fully embrace becoming a regular office. The only non-trivial organization I can think that is successful and has a unique structure is probably Valve, with its fascinating flat management style. edit: downvotes for suggesting that maybe the NSA shouldn't be compared to the party that gassed 6 million people solely for their ethnicity? Grow up, HN.

task_queue 11y ago
Remember when the idea of having your communications sifted through by the government you elected was restricted to the actions of the Stasi or KGB in the minds of Americans?
CPLX 11y ago
> Equating SIGINT programs to protect America's interest with the Nazi party is really shrill. Totally agree. Please stop me if I ever do that. Those other kind of SIGINT programs, the ones that attempt to collect every single email and phone call and GPS location and internet search in my life and store it indefinitely, are a little more of a direct comparison though, don't you think? > Efficiency is universal. Efficiency is actually fairly hard to come by I think. It's terribly designed presentations with bad clip art, illegible diagrams, and meaningless and redundant process slides that seem to be universal as far as I can tell.