Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

simonwillison.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 197 posts

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#101

Post by normalaccess »

boshomi wrote: post #75
clintfred wrote: post #29

Facts are the enemy. I remember reading books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as a teen thinking, "Cool story, but the US will never look like that." Oof.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present i…

Just wait until the AI "layer" gets fast enough to rewrite the web in real time. Text, Photos, Videos, even real time phone calls will soon be in the grasp of the corporations. Forever locking us into our own personal prisons, controlled silos of information perfectly crafted and tailored to extract the maximum value where truth is not just hard to know but is imposable to know.

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#102

Post by casenmgreen »

nostrademons wrote: post #69
clintfred wrote: post #29

Facts are the enemy. I remember reading books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as a teen thinking, "Cool story, but the US will never look like that." Oof.

FWIW both of these books were written about western societies. 1984 was about Orwell’s experience writing propaganda for the BBC during WW2. Oceania is explicitly modeled on the U.S. + Britain; “air strip one” is his tongue-in-cheek name for the British isles. Fahrenheit 451 is based on the second red scare and McCarthyism in the U.S. It’s explicitly set in America, and the inspiration for it was actual calls to ban…

I looked to see if I could find anything asserting 1984 was about propaganda at BBC - nothing.

I found no interviews, no recordings - it seems what survives are his notebooks.

Can you describe the basis for the claim?

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#103

Post by niobe »

clintfred wrote: post #29

Facts are the enemy. I remember reading books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as a teen thinking, "Cool story, but the US will never look like that." Oof.

Having said that, there is nothing there that isn't public information. I guess the CIA's name added some weight but this could easily be published by any public institution interested in foreign affairs.

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#104

Post by alpha_squared »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #67
idle_zealot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels to me like they don't feel like it's as useful as the application simple hard power. They do feel that way, but I think they're wrong. Pervasive soft power is a lot better for building stable systems of oppression than more overt shows of force. They're either really bad at, or not interested in (probably both) building anything. I don't think this period of brutal oppression they're gearing up for is goin…

this isn't 1820 -- most people's perception is via social media, and failing that, legacy media. which is why the big tech bros and the openAI execs donated money to Trump; "kiss the ring". it's why Larry Ellison desperately wants to buy CBS. recent posts show that 1/3 of the US electorate will still, in all likelihood, vote Republican, again, even after everything that has happened.

> it's why Larry Ellison desperately wants to buy CBS.

I think this specific take is wrong. For example, Netflix doesn't want CNN/cable in the WB deal, so that's still up for grabs if Netflix acquires WB but Ellison still wants the whole thing (studio and cable). Extrapolating to CBS, it was Paramount the studio that Ellison was after, the network piece is just a dying artifact of a bygone era with a handy mouthpiece that has the veneer of credibility.

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#106

Post by pohl »

gampleman wrote: post #77
irishcoffee wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave New World always gets overlooked. I understand why we gravitate towards 1984, however it sure seems like we are much closer to BNW. What is TikTok (read: all of the addictive parts of the internet/smartphones) if not a gramme?

I always thought if Orwell was quite prescient of the eastern block than surely Huxley was even more so about the western.

Huxley was plenty prescient. Soma is basically scrolling for dopamine hits and distraction.

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#107

Post by guywithahat »

clintfred wrote: post #29

Facts are the enemy. I remember reading books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as a teen thinking, "Cool story, but the US will never look like that." Oof.

But these are publications written by the CIA. Factbook was a name given to the book by the CIA, nobody is banning facts, that's just what they called it. It presumably just doesn't make sense anymore for the CIA maintain an encyclopedia, and I'm surprised they haven't sunset the program sooner.

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#108

Post by andy_ppp »

casenmgreen wrote: post #102
nostrademons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW both of these books were written about western societies. 1984 was about Orwell’s experience writing propaganda for the BBC during WW2. Oceania is explicitly modeled on the U.S. + Britain; “air strip one” is his tongue-in-cheek name for the British isles. Fahrenheit 451 is based on the second red scare and McCarthyism in the U.S. It’s explicitly set in America, and the inspiration for it was actual calls to ban…

I looked to see if I could find anything asserting 1984 was about propaganda at BBC - nothing. I found no interviews, no recordings - it seems what survives are his notebooks. Can you describe the basis for the claim?

[flagged]

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#109

Post by gffrd »

normalaccess wrote: post #101
boshomi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present i…

Just wait until the AI "layer" gets fast enough to rewrite the web in real time. Text, Photos, Videos, even real time phone calls will soon be in the grasp of the corporations. Forever locking us into our own personal prisons, controlled silos of information perfectly crafted and tailored to extract the maximum value where truth is not just hard to know but is imposable to know.

It’s a shame we don’t have physical bodies and a means to share the human experience with other humans without intermediaries.

Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

#110

Post by indubioprorubik »

nostrademons wrote: post #69
clintfred wrote: post #29

Facts are the enemy. I remember reading books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as a teen thinking, "Cool story, but the US will never look like that." Oof.

FWIW both of these books were written about western societies. 1984 was about Orwell’s experience writing propaganda for the BBC during WW2. Oceania is explicitly modeled on the U.S. + Britain; “air strip one” is his tongue-in-cheek name for the British isles. Fahrenheit 451 is based on the second red scare and McCarthyism in the U.S. It’s explicitly set in America, and the inspiration for it was actual calls to ban…

Eh, orwell got his fare share of socialisation with socialism in spain and became a ardent anti-communist (more anti-totalitarian after seeing what this "experiment was all about" when it betrayed the anarchists).

Its like animal farm a staunch criticism of the communist experiment and the societies it would form. The history rewritting was actually a typical socialist society pehnomena, going so far that china basically erased its whole past permanently. Its a incredible young country (barely 70 years old) and had to reimport a ton of its culture from taiwan!

Orwell lived through the hyper akward year, where hitler and stalin where allies and best friends - and thus saw the moscow controlled part of the international defending facists as best friends for a year, right after they stabbed the anarchists in the back in spain.

Post reply on HN