7 ms·

CIA funding helped keep a lot of industries afloat in the 20th century.

by mrhottakes 27d ago

high_na_euv 27d ago
And somehow people freak out some bullshit about free market when there is gov intervention, even if it is reasonable
- voakbasda 27d ago
  Let’s be clear: if the CIA was doing it, then it was not overt and obvious. It was secret manipulation. Is that the kind of government intervention that you want to get?
  - mannanj 27d ago
    [flagged]
    - john_strinlai 27d ago
      if you have anyone specific in mind, you should email hn@ycombinator.com if you dont have anyone specific in mind, this comment does nothing except "FUD" edit: really, getting downvoted into oblivion for this? baseless and general accusations of deepstate actors is really what we want the comment sections of hn to be?
      - enragebait 27d ago
        Absolutely certainly true. You’re naive if think there is an intelligence organization in the world who can log into the internet who doesn’t scrape analyze and opinionate over the intellectual bastion which is HN.
        john_strinlai 27d ago
        baseless and generally-applicable accusations of deepstate activity are worthless as a comment. that does not mean i dont think governments, corps, etc. aren't scraping data or even attempting to shape narrative. but i dont want to read general, non-actionable, vague comments about deepstate actors while browsing hn. comments like that are not interesting, they don't pique curiosity, they don't promote good conversation, and there's nothing to learn from them. they are a net negative on hn.
        hulitu 27d ago
        > there's nothing to learn from them. Some people never learn. When the "police" is at their door, it is too late.
        deleted 27d ago
        [deleted]
        mannanj 27d ago
        I've responded to you in one of the deeper threads below. I'll avoid creating too many open threads. I am disappointed though in your overly critical, quick to judge and dismiss attitude where you are stating your opinions as though they are fact: > "they don't pique curiosity" > "they don't promote good conversation" For you they don't. Who are you to judge and proclaim your own opinion as though it's fact for everyone? We call that gas lighting and bad faith on this side. And on hacker news, the community forum you are engaging in here, you agree to engage with good faith. Maybe you should question whether its possible to have a good conversation, learn something from this experience, if you'd retained an open mind.
        john_strinlai 27d ago
        >And on hacker news, the community forum you are engaging in here, you agree to engage with good faith. you should perhaps freshen yourself up on the other rules of engagement here. specifically this part: Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
    - Forgeties79 27d ago
      > deep state actors Can we please not do this here? Can we please not vaguely gesticulate towards some government bogeyman anytime our comments are downvoted or flagged or just because we see something we don’t agree with? To quote Sesame Street: One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn’t belong.
      - hulitu 27d ago
        > Can we please not do this here? Why ? The quality of HN has decreased due to those paid propaganda spreaders. People shall have a minimum of spine.
        john_strinlai 27d ago
        >People shall have a minimum of spine. there is no "spine" involved in writing a generic, vague, one-liner about "being careful".
        mannanj 27d ago
        Sounds like you are resorting to attacking credibility and Ad Hominem attack when you don't even know me. I've openly criticized the agency at hand, and faced prior risk and harm and ridicule and embarrassingly the most closed minded to these messages of mine are "rational types" in forums like these. Though as I shared, I'm unsure whether to judge them as legitimate accounts or propaganda/astroturf/deepstate actors. I'd have been open to sharing some more info rather than being vague, though I think I'm needing a break from being gaslit and receiving hostility from my very own people for pointing things out even if what I shared was vague. How do you think someone would really go about finding specificity of accounts here being deep state, any experience or advice on that matter? What would you think I could find on this, when this orgs entire premise would be going un-detected and having plausible deniability. Doesn't that mean I can not really provide you what you are asking. I don't have the journalistic experience or OSINT know how to validate these things. Maybe someone else does. Though you and I are entitled to our likes and dislikes and resorting to name calling when we are feeling uncomfortable or annoyed with a topic. I've already shared my experience in these forums and have nothing to prove to you. For these kinds of matters, you can't even approach the topic without being vague or generic. Have you ever even seen a single thread anywhere where someone specifically shared concerns and wasn't ridiculed, attacked, ad hominemed, dismissed, marked as a crazy person or xyz? Please enlighten me. Help me understand how someone could "prove" to you what you are looking for. Then again we accept the evidence that conforms to our beliefs. Are you being open minded? I think If you'd be open to hearing it or finding evidence for it, would you have found evidence for it already? But please treat me with good faith and friendliness, you don't know me so you can't make these claims about me. Unless you looked through my comment history, in which case you'd see I have spine enough. Maybe someone motivated can go through my history, look at specific posts which are very obviously discussing this topic and my experience around it, have the AI go go and vibe code and do the investigation and make some dossiers. And I'm incredibly vulnerable here. I don't even hide my real identity, I have risked a lot.
  - huxley 27d ago
    As a general rule, probably not ... But if I had my druthers, I'd rather the CIA was "manipulating" us more often by subsidizing jazz artists rather than funnelling cash and prisoners to torture sites in El Salvador. You dig?
    - tharmas 27d ago
      Two Thumbs up! It's time more people fully understood the meaning of "I don't care what color the Cat is, as long as it catches the Mouse".
      - willy_k 27d ago
        Which is an opinionated rephrasing of the question whether ends justify the means. It’s not clear cut.
- kersplody 27d ago
  And for people that know their history, the DoD basically built Silicon Valley as we know, funding research and buying essentially 100% of the output of valley fabs for several years for Radars, then ICBMs, and then flight computers (F14 was arguably the first modern microcomputer) from about 1962-1972. Only when silicon companies scaled beyond this demand did the consumer computer revolution begin to take flight.
- shwaj 27d ago
  Your tone implies that the same people who freak out about reasonable gov intervention, are also (hypocritically) okay with the shenanigans being discussed. Who are these straw men you refer to?
  - high_na_euv 26d ago
    Nothing in my comment indicates the same ppl.
  - deleted 26d ago
    [deleted]
dataviz1000 27d ago
CIA funding helped keep Abstract Expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock afloat, serving as propaganda for freedom of expression and individualism in contrast to Soviet collectivism.
- alexjplant 27d ago
  Fellow readers whose interests are piqued by this comment: this is apparently true. This book [1] talks about it in greater depth. From Wikipedia: > [The author] describes the growth of the Abstract Expressionist art movement, and its frequent showcasing in New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), as largely a CIA-sponsored operation [...] Since many abstract expressionist painters and sculptors were anarchistic, and strongly anti-CIA, a "long leash" policy was adopted that "kept CIA operatives at a remove of two or three degrees from the artists and art exhibitions—sometimes even more—so that they could not be linked to any furtive governmental bankrolling." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Paid_the_Piper%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Paid_the_Piper%3F
  - sourdecor 27d ago
    That was because Russia was creating actual art and laughing at the media America produced.
    - PearlRiver 27d ago
      The USSR was selling art to fund the KGB. Stone glass houses.
      - jazzyjackson 27d ago
        Well that’s exactly the opposite situation isn’t it, funding their intelligence with art people were willing to pay for Vs art that needed to be paid for by intelligence
        47635274172635 27d ago
joezydeco 27d ago
Those sub-miniature microphones and speakers in your phones? More CIA investment, eventually commercialized by companies like Knowles.
- 47635274172635 27d ago
  MEMS microphones are fascinating, and incredibly small: https://41j.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/chipworks_iphonememsmic.jpg https://41j.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/chipworks_ip...
bflesch 27d ago
It's not like CIA has some mastermind strategy, it is also a preferred career for old money nepo kids who gain quasi-global legal immunity from these government roles. CIA job is much better than being a honorary consul for some shithole just to evade parking tickets. If those nepo kids like to mingle in the NYC artsy scene, then that's where the funds flow.
- leonidasrup 27d ago
  Some of this old money CIA nepo kids do much more then mingle in the NYC artsy scene. For example, George H. W. Bush, born into the old-money Bush family in Massachusetts. The 41st president of the United States. He was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1971 and Chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973 by Richard Nixon, and Chief of the Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and Director of Central Intelligence in 1976 by Gerald Ford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
  - bflesch 27d ago
    There are many more..
- expedition32 26d ago
  I read a book about CIA operations against China in the 1940s and 50s. Hundreds of people died, a bunch of American agents were imprisoned for literally decades and when Mao told the international press that imperialists were trying to destabilise China even the UK ambassador had to admit it was true.
KellyCriterion 27d ago
...and from US military perspective, a lot of these "investment" paid in the end to their favour, Id say?
ludicrousdispla 27d ago
they were an early sponsor of the research that yielded relational databases, so I guess we can thank them for Oracle as well
- justincormack 27d ago
  Yes they were a major early customer for Oracle, there is a little in [1] but not much, some hints that the first customer was running Oracle in a submarine. [1] https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/12/102746581-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20...
potus_kushner 27d ago
that's why they're called "the company" in insider circles. they still do, openly and probably also covertly. their investment arm is called in-q-tel https://www.iqt.org/portfolio https://www.iqt.org/portfolio , funding things like gitlab and docker. they probably run half of silicon valley. the dead giveaway is a funding story about 2 guys in a garage or dorm.
- coliveira 27d ago
  The garage or dorm story is the biggest myth they keep repeating, it's basically nonsense.
teekert 27d ago
American industries that is. (I’m currently reading the new Economic Hitman.)

CIA funding helped keep a lot of industries afloat in the 20th century.

high_na_euv 27d ago

And somehow people freak out some bullshit about free market when there is gov intervention, even if it is reasonable

voakbasda 27d ago
Let’s be clear: if the CIA was doing it, then it was not overt and obvious. It was secret manipulation. Is that the kind of government intervention that you want to get?
- mannanj 27d ago
  [flagged]
  - john_strinlai 27d ago
    if you have anyone specific in mind, you should email hn@ycombinator.com if you dont have anyone specific in mind, this comment does nothing except "FUD" edit: really, getting downvoted into oblivion for this? baseless and general accusations of deepstate actors is really what we want the comment sections of hn to be?
    - enragebait 27d ago
      Absolutely certainly true. You’re naive if think there is an intelligence organization in the world who can log into the internet who doesn’t scrape analyze and opinionate over the intellectual bastion which is HN.
      - john_strinlai 27d ago
        baseless and generally-applicable accusations of deepstate activity are worthless as a comment. that does not mean i dont think governments, corps, etc. aren't scraping data or even attempting to shape narrative. but i dont want to read general, non-actionable, vague comments about deepstate actors while browsing hn. comments like that are not interesting, they don't pique curiosity, they don't promote good conversation, and there's nothing to learn from them. they are a net negative on hn.
        hulitu 27d ago
        > there's nothing to learn from them. Some people never learn. When the "police" is at their door, it is too late.
        deleted 27d ago
        [deleted]
        mannanj 27d ago
        I've responded to you in one of the deeper threads below. I'll avoid creating too many open threads. I am disappointed though in your overly critical, quick to judge and dismiss attitude where you are stating your opinions as though they are fact: > "they don't pique curiosity" > "they don't promote good conversation" For you they don't. Who are you to judge and proclaim your own opinion as though it's fact for everyone? We call that gas lighting and bad faith on this side. And on hacker news, the community forum you are engaging in here, you agree to engage with good faith. Maybe you should question whether its possible to have a good conversation, learn something from this experience, if you'd retained an open mind.
        john_strinlai 27d ago
        >And on hacker news, the community forum you are engaging in here, you agree to engage with good faith. you should perhaps freshen yourself up on the other rules of engagement here. specifically this part: Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
  - Forgeties79 27d ago
    > deep state actors Can we please not do this here? Can we please not vaguely gesticulate towards some government bogeyman anytime our comments are downvoted or flagged or just because we see something we don’t agree with? To quote Sesame Street: One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn’t belong.
    - hulitu 27d ago
      > Can we please not do this here? Why ? The quality of HN has decreased due to those paid propaganda spreaders. People shall have a minimum of spine.
      - john_strinlai 27d ago
        >People shall have a minimum of spine. there is no "spine" involved in writing a generic, vague, one-liner about "being careful".
        mannanj 27d ago
        Sounds like you are resorting to attacking credibility and Ad Hominem attack when you don't even know me. I've openly criticized the agency at hand, and faced prior risk and harm and ridicule and embarrassingly the most closed minded to these messages of mine are "rational types" in forums like these. Though as I shared, I'm unsure whether to judge them as legitimate accounts or propaganda/astroturf/deepstate actors. I'd have been open to sharing some more info rather than being vague, though I think I'm needing a break from being gaslit and receiving hostility from my very own people for pointing things out even if what I shared was vague. How do you think someone would really go about finding specificity of accounts here being deep state, any experience or advice on that matter? What would you think I could find on this, when this orgs entire premise would be going un-detected and having plausible deniability. Doesn't that mean I can not really provide you what you are asking. I don't have the journalistic experience or OSINT know how to validate these things. Maybe someone else does. Though you and I are entitled to our likes and dislikes and resorting to name calling when we are feeling uncomfortable or annoyed with a topic. I've already shared my experience in these forums and have nothing to prove to you. For these kinds of matters, you can't even approach the topic without being vague or generic. Have you ever even seen a single thread anywhere where someone specifically shared concerns and wasn't ridiculed, attacked, ad hominemed, dismissed, marked as a crazy person or xyz? Please enlighten me. Help me understand how someone could "prove" to you what you are looking for. Then again we accept the evidence that conforms to our beliefs. Are you being open minded? I think If you'd be open to hearing it or finding evidence for it, would you have found evidence for it already? But please treat me with good faith and friendliness, you don't know me so you can't make these claims about me. Unless you looked through my comment history, in which case you'd see I have spine enough. Maybe someone motivated can go through my history, look at specific posts which are very obviously discussing this topic and my experience around it, have the AI go go and vibe code and do the investigation and make some dossiers. And I'm incredibly vulnerable here. I don't even hide my real identity, I have risked a lot.
- huxley 27d ago
  As a general rule, probably not ... But if I had my druthers, I'd rather the CIA was "manipulating" us more often by subsidizing jazz artists rather than funnelling cash and prisoners to torture sites in El Salvador. You dig?
  - tharmas 27d ago
    Two Thumbs up! It's time more people fully understood the meaning of "I don't care what color the Cat is, as long as it catches the Mouse".
    - willy_k 27d ago
      Which is an opinionated rephrasing of the question whether ends justify the means. It’s not clear cut.
kersplody 27d ago
And for people that know their history, the DoD basically built Silicon Valley as we know, funding research and buying essentially 100% of the output of valley fabs for several years for Radars, then ICBMs, and then flight computers (F14 was arguably the first modern microcomputer) from about 1962-1972. Only when silicon companies scaled beyond this demand did the consumer computer revolution begin to take flight.
shwaj 27d ago
Your tone implies that the same people who freak out about reasonable gov intervention, are also (hypocritically) okay with the shenanigans being discussed. Who are these straw men you refer to?
- high_na_euv 26d ago
  Nothing in my comment indicates the same ppl.
- deleted 26d ago
  [deleted]

dataviz1000 27d ago

CIA funding helped keep Abstract Expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock afloat, serving as propaganda for freedom of expression and individualism in contrast to Soviet collectivism.

alexjplant 27d ago
Fellow readers whose interests are piqued by this comment: this is apparently true. This book [1] talks about it in greater depth. From Wikipedia: > [The author] describes the growth of the Abstract Expressionist art movement, and its frequent showcasing in New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), as largely a CIA-sponsored operation [...] Since many abstract expressionist painters and sculptors were anarchistic, and strongly anti-CIA, a "long leash" policy was adopted that "kept CIA operatives at a remove of two or three degrees from the artists and art exhibitions—sometimes even more—so that they could not be linked to any furtive governmental bankrolling." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Paid_the_Piper%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Paid_the_Piper%3F
- sourdecor 27d ago
  That was because Russia was creating actual art and laughing at the media America produced.
  - PearlRiver 27d ago
    The USSR was selling art to fund the KGB. Stone glass houses.
    - jazzyjackson 27d ago
      Well that’s exactly the opposite situation isn’t it, funding their intelligence with art people were willing to pay for Vs art that needed to be paid for by intelligence
      - 47635274172635 27d ago

joezydeco 27d ago

Those sub-miniature microphones and speakers in your phones? More CIA investment, eventually commercialized by companies like Knowles.

47635274172635 27d ago
MEMS microphones are fascinating, and incredibly small: https://41j.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/chipworks_iphonememsmic.jpg https://41j.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/chipworks_ip...

bflesch 27d ago

It's not like CIA has some mastermind strategy, it is also a preferred career for old money nepo kids who gain quasi-global legal immunity from these government roles. CIA job is much better than being a honorary consul for some shithole just to evade parking tickets. If those nepo kids like to mingle in the NYC artsy scene, then that's where the funds flow.

leonidasrup 27d ago
Some of this old money CIA nepo kids do much more then mingle in the NYC artsy scene. For example, George H. W. Bush, born into the old-money Bush family in Massachusetts. The 41st president of the United States. He was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1971 and Chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973 by Richard Nixon, and Chief of the Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and Director of Central Intelligence in 1976 by Gerald Ford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
- bflesch 27d ago
  There are many more..
expedition32 26d ago
I read a book about CIA operations against China in the 1940s and 50s. Hundreds of people died, a bunch of American agents were imprisoned for literally decades and when Mao told the international press that imperialists were trying to destabilise China even the UK ambassador had to admit it was true.

KellyCriterion 27d ago

...and from US military perspective, a lot of these "investment" paid in the end to their favour, Id say?

ludicrousdispla 27d ago

they were an early sponsor of the research that yielded relational databases, so I guess we can thank them for Oracle as well

justincormack 27d ago
Yes they were a major early customer for Oracle, there is a little in [1] but not much, some hints that the first customer was running Oracle in a submarine. [1] https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/12/102746581-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20...

potus_kushner 27d ago

that's why they're called "the company" in insider circles. they still do, openly and probably also covertly. their investment arm is called in-q-tel https://www.iqt.org/portfolio https://www.iqt.org/portfolio , funding things like gitlab and docker. they probably run half of silicon valley. the dead giveaway is a funding story about 2 guys in a garage or dorm.

coliveira 27d ago
The garage or dorm story is the biggest myth they keep repeating, it's basically nonsense.

teekert 27d ago

American industries that is. (I’m currently reading the new Economic Hitman.)