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It's a nash equilibrium, the primary value of spycraft is opposition to hostile spycraft. It's like wishing militaries didn't exist.
by IdSayThatllDoIt 1y ago
It's a nash equilibrium, the primary value of spycraft is opposition to hostile spycraft.
It's like wishing militaries didn't exist.
- jMyles 1y ago> It's like wishing militaries didn't exist. I'm convinced that the evolution of the internet will bring this as well.
- ambicapter 1y agoI think the internet is making this problem worse, actually.
- jMyles 1y agoIn the short-term, the wheat and chaff are very mixed for sure. But I don't think nation-states are likely to survive for more than 500 or so more years. And the capacity for collaboration, innovation, and even perhaps transcendence into something like a distinct and more peaceful species seems to only grow.
- thrance 1y agoThe CIA does more than counterespionage. For example, Chile would be a much better place if the CIA didn't overthrow its democracy and install a fascist dictator, Pinochet, in its stead.
- marknutter 1y ago[flagged]
- immibis 1y agoWhat does a reprehensible leftist regime look like?
- immibis 1y agoInteresting that nobody can say one, only downvote.
- wetpaws 1y ago[dead]
- javcasas 1y agoMaybe, or maybe not. All we know is what happened after the CIA did its thing. We cannot know what could have happened if they didn't.
- thrance 1y agoGood one. I guess Allende being a socialist justifies killing him, disregarding the popular vote, dismantling a democracy, stripping Chileans of their rights and putting up a fascist dictator. Jesus Christ.
- doublepg23 1y agoOkay? Can we let other countries sort out their own political issues without our meddling?
- marknutter 1y agoSounds good to me
- redeeman 1y agowould you agree that this also goes for things in eastern europe and perhaps in the middle east? :)
- cauefcr 1y agoThe answer should be an obvious yes here, reading HN on anything political is an exercise in frustration, fascist apologies and whataboutism+mccartism.
- Yokolos 1y agoWhat do you mean Eastern Europe? The only one meddling is Russia, which is why Eastern Europe wants to join NATO. To protect themselves from an aggressive neighbor who started the end of the Cold War with invading a former satellite state. If Russia wasn't so eager to revive its imperial ambitions, there would be no interest in joining NATO. Russia invades Georgia Poland and the Baltics join NATO Russia: Surprise Pikachu
- doublepg23 1y agoYes.
- jajko 1y agoHow do you know, having some superpowers? Since when has US mandate to overthrow democratically elected government because its not leaning towards direction CIA wants? Saddam was also heavily supported by CIA and whole US government for example. And few other merry folks. At least admit a fuckup and don't try to macho-out of this sin of your fathers. Decent folks would be at least ashamed of their mistakes and apologize (I know that's for decent nations to pick up, but its nice to lay clean moral actions and then watch reality divert because of blahs).
- bell-cot 1y agoBut at a lower cost to the American taxpayer, and a much lower cost to America's honor. Sounds like a win to me.
- marknutter 1y agoAgreed
- olelele 1y agoThe US needed access to Chilean copper mines. The Allende government wanted to nationalize the profits of Chile’s natural resources. Allende was democratically elected. Costa-Gavras made an excellent film about the coup & aftermath.
- randomname93857 1y agoYeah, with help of KGB. What could possibly go wrong? It could become as democratic as Cuba. In best case. Or take path of other countries with exported communist revolutions, like North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. You just don't know about pervasive and perverted level of informants and delation that was installed by these "democratic" countries
- sjdrc 1y agoWell you went off the rails. The comment is talking about Chile, which was a democracy before the CIA overthrew the government and installed a dictator. What does that have to do with other countries or the KGB?
- freejazz 1y agoThe head side of the coin comes with the tail side of the coin.
- refurb 1y agoSaying the "CIA overthrew its democracy and installed a fascist dictator" is a vast oversimplification of what actually happened and ignores the role of other international actors, not to mention the domestic actors themselves. Like most "CIA coups", the role the CIA played in Chile is more of a "hey let's help this guy who is already planning a coup" and if you dig into the details, it raises the question if the CIA had done nothing whether the outcome would have changed at all.
- kerkeslager 1y ago> Like most "CIA coups", the role the CIA played in Chile is more of a "hey let's help this guy who is already planning a coup" and if you dig into the details, it raises the question if the CIA had done nothing whether the outcome would have changed at all. Helping a fascist coup is bad, even if the fascist coup didn't need your help.
- refurb 1y agoIs it worse if the alternative is another authoritarian? It's not a choice between democracy and a fascist (Allende was going regardless), it was a choice between a US friendly authoritarian or a USSR friendly authoritarian. This is a nice summary of the situation in Chile at the time, the actors involved (domestic and international) and the role of the CIA. https://www.kyleorton.com/p/myth-1973-american-coup-in-chile https://www.kyleorton.com/p/myth-1973-american-coup-in-chile To get a sense of the CIA’s role, they didn’t even think Pinochet had it in him - they had others pegged as the coup leader. They were surprised to find out it was Pinochet.
- LAC-Tech 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- logicchains 1y ago>Chile would be a much better place if the CIA didn't overthrow its democracy and install a fascist dictator Empirically that's not a very well-supported statement, if you compare the economy and living conditions of Chile to its neighbours. Empirically speaking, electing communist governments almost always leads to reduced living standards. It's like if the US hadn't intervened in to help a fascist dictator in South Korea, the whole of South Korea would be as poor as North Korea is now.
- imjonse 1y ago> Empirically speaking, electing communist governments almost always leads to reduced living standards. Almost always leads to a CIA-backed coup or civil war which indirectly indeed reduces living standards. In the other scenarios it often resulted in generally improved living standards via industrialization, increase of literacy and social programs. In yet others gross mismanagement and large scale famines, or fluctuating results depending on the time scale. There is no commonly accepted uniform outcome, and "almost always worse living standards" is clearly not one.
- CalChris 1y agoI like the idea of explaining Mad Magazine's Spy v Spy as a Nash equilibrium. Nash is about strategies, particularly that neither side could do any better with any other strategy. Spying's justification then comes from fact that withdrawal would be a worse strategy.
- lazide 1y agoWell, and being worse than your opponents likely has material negative effects.