41–50 of 68 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my industry, FDE only means full disk encryption. I've seen that acronym a few times in this thread though. Can someone break that down for me?
Forward Deployed Engineer
I saw this in my RSS feed. Without seeing the text, I actually thought this post was going to be a question of which company was more evil. Downvotes welcomed, but I stand by my point.
i'm stunned by the fact that people here seem to think that working for a national security agency seems to be the worst thing to do moraly. i remember a time when being a spy was probably the coolest thing ever. one could argue that "spying" on people for the sake of saving lives is a much more noble cause than doing it purely for commercial purposes. ps : i am not naive,and i am aware of the recent privacy issues r…
People who are young professionals now do not remember the Cold War at all, and have grown up considering the U.S. to be essentially invulnerable on the international stage.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were the worst thing they've experienced. But while those were terrible, they were clearly not an existential threat to the entire country, the way that the Soviet Union was for 50 years, or Germany or Japan before that.
Thus, many young people see international espionage primarily as a means of corrupting lesser states for our own benefit--an abuse of our considerable power.
i'm stunned by the fact that people here seem to think that working for a national security agency seems to be the worst thing to do moraly. i remember a time when being a spy was probably the coolest thing ever. one could argue that "spying" on people for the sake of saving lives is a much more noble cause than doing it purely for commercial purposes. ps : i am not naive,and i am aware of the recent privacy issues r…
I'm guessing that you are over 30. People who are young professionals now do not remember the Cold War at all, and have grown up considering the U.S. to be essentially invulnerable on the international stage. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were the worst thing they've experienced. But while those were terrible, they were clearly not an existential threat to the entire country, the way that the Soviet Union was for 50…
Apart from the Cuban missile crisis was there ever any real threat to the US from Russia?
This is a genuine question, I really don't know the answer. I do know that Americans spent a lot of time with "Duck and Cover" exercises. the UK equivalent was "Protect and Survive" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_and_Survive
I think very few people would blame you for taking the mercenary approach here. However, you may wish to consider who it is you will be working for. Palantir is deeply entrenched in the surveillance state. Though they may come at you with a decent offer, I believe it is ethically impermissible to use my skills in order to contribute to the deprivation of the human rights of others across the world. I do not have much…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing that you are over 30. People who are young professionals now do not remember the Cold War at all, and have grown up considering the U.S. to be essentially invulnerable on the international stage. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were the worst thing they've experienced. But while those were terrible, they were clearly not an existential threat to the entire country, the way that the Soviet Union was for 50…
How much of that existential threat was really real though? Apart from the Cuban missile crisis was there ever any real threat to the US from Russia? This is a genuine question, I really don't know the answer. I do know that Americans spent a lot of time with "Duck and Cover" exercises. the UK equivalent was "Protect and Survive" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_and_Survive
1) How much of an existential threat really existed? This question can be answered by looking through the vast archives of Soviet-era information which has now been made publicly available. I'm not an expert, but I'd say it's a mixed answer--the capability for total destruction really did exist, and there were some close calls [1]. But the USSR was a lot less interested in killing everyone than folks in the U.S. thought. Which brings me to the second question:
2) How much did people in the U.S. feel that they faced an existential threat? Note that this is not the same thing as what the threat actually objectively was. I lived through the end of the Cold War (born in the mid-1970s), and I can tell you that most Americans did in fact feel deep unease and fear. More importantly, they felt that the USSR was an equal opponent--a powerful nation that the U.S. did not and could not dominate.
Following the end of the Cold War, that feeling went away. Once the USSR dissolved, and Russia went through hard economic times, the self-perception of American citizens was that we were the "last superpower" or "sole superpower"--a nation that could not be seriously threatened by anything on Earth.
This self-perception persists today. In fact I think it has become a serious source of angst, as many Americans perceive we are "slipping" because we can't dominate every situation we want to (examples: Syria, Lybia, Ukraine, China).
But IMO the reality is that our dominant position has simply been a temporary blip in our long history as one of several equal international powers.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/the...
I think very few people would blame you for taking the mercenary approach here. However, you may wish to consider who it is you will be working for. Palantir is deeply entrenched in the surveillance state. Though they may come at you with a decent offer, I believe it is ethically impermissible to use my skills in order to contribute to the deprivation of the human rights of others across the world. I do not have much…
I typically include this quote when I critique the use of advertising on HN since a lot of people here live off of advertising:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair
I would suggest that you go to Facebook. Why? Being an SV company, they will generally treat developers better than say Palantir. Being treated as a valuable member of the team and not a cost center is very important for job satisfaction. (And those free lunches/snacks will definitely help you save some money in NYC) To start your career at a place where one has to solve huge scaling issues will really do you good. Y…