161–170 of 183 posts
"Someone who hated computers so much that she had the secretary print out her emails so she could read them was interrogated for hours about hacking into Agency networks [...] there was often a gross mismatch between a person and the accusations made against them." Well, isn't it expected? If I were a double agent, faking that I was so computer illiterate that I ask my emails to be printed out would be the perfect co…
Didn't RMS do this with his emails?
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Maybe Reformation religions require belief, but the paganism was a set of rituals known to work (by virtue of having worked before), sort of a like a spiritual experimental science. Belief was not required. Religions don't necessarily work because people believe in it, either. There are a number of religious sects that started with end of the world prophecies. I think that religions work the opposite way: people beli…
Would you mind expanding on the scientific-ness of paganism? That sounds really interesting!
A bit of spelling it out
Point-1. People just interpreted that paganism works.
E.g. Somebody made offering to gods, and year later won a war - proof.
Point-2 paganism had this transactional notion with gods giving and taking based on your offerings.
While christianity on the other hand does not promise anything good in this life (the only promise being: bear all the bad things in this life, you will be rewarded in the afterlife), so there can’t be proof.
Adding my POV from a former National Security perspective: Author is 100% on point. The point of a polygraph is three-fold: weeding out the dipshits; exerting power over the powerless; and identifying the valuable assets (typically sociopaths). It does not - cannot - identify liars, deceit, or bad actors on its face (that comes from the manual the author linked). It's not scientific assessment, it's psychological tor…
This is so interesting. I guess I was a dipshit in this scenario? Because I just accepted that the reviewer thought I was lying. Began to question my own memory. And just gave up on the idea of working at that place. In hindsight, I should have protested and not given up. But I was a meek 21 year old and didn't know anything. Seems like a strange filter to apply.
Almost anyone who spent enough time at an alphabet agency has stories about polygraph candidates who spill the beans on crimes during their initial polygraph, thinking that somehow gives them "cred" or immunity.
They are the dipshits.
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It sounds like religion; it only works if people believe in it.
Maybe Reformation religions require belief, but the paganism was a set of rituals known to work (by virtue of having worked before), sort of a like a spiritual experimental science. Belief was not required. Religions don't necessarily work because people believe in it, either. There are a number of religious sects that started with end of the world prophecies. I think that religions work the opposite way: people beli…
The orthopraxy requiring those precision rituals, take Rome and Greece, had little or maybe no mandatory beliefs. City-state-sized gods in Mesopotamia probably functioned the same way. Traditions still have precise orthopraxy today. But we talk about differences in belief whereas Caesar doesn’t even acknowledge any.
> As we walked across the lobby, I thought I was going to faint. I sort of detest people who always ask if things are ai slop, but... is this real? This guy has been working with a clearance for years - i think decades - and taken multiple polygraph, including failures, and is gonna pass out on his way to an interview regarding somewhere he no longer works? Maybe hes just on the spectrum, but this article is weird.
I’m under the impression this was written by a woman. Obviously could be either gender, but it "fits better" if you read it from a female perspective. > I left only because I got married and had a baby. > I was so frustrated, I started to cry. > As we walked across the lobby, I thought I was going to faint.
I don't get it. The author is 'honest to a fault,' but then lies about discussing the polygraph with others and posts an anonymous op-ed.
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Knowing someone had committed petty theft is at least a red flag. I can't blame an employer for considering it disqualifying when they have many equally qualified candidates without it. Even for a burger flipper, let alone a secret agent.
> Knowing someone had committed petty theft is at least a red flag. Not really, since everyone has done so. Even you. Not getting caught for it on the other hand could be a positive.
I'm always surprised to hear that a government agency administers polygraph tests in something as serious as hiring but then I remember the CIA also spent millions of dollars trying to develop telekinetic assassins and train clairvoyants to spy on the Kremlin.
The polygraph doesn't have to emit any useful data at all to be very useful in interrogations. Like a bomb doesn't have to have any explosive in it to clear a building. Interrogation is a head game and a complicated box with knobs and buttons and maybe even blinking lights makes a fine prop. And there's enough ambiguity in it that it's easy for the operator to believe it helps. Like a dowser with their rods, a clergy…
Here is why lie detectors exist.
1. They are legal. 2. Abusive interrogation of US citizens is not legal.
A polygraph is a risk assessment. If you break under completely safe sanctioned questions. You are gonna spill everything if someone from the others side is questioning you.
This person could have just shown up and shrugged for X hrs and they would have had no more than 1 polygraph every 10 years. Instead they kept doing exactly what the test is concerned about. How easy are you to break? Which is why they kept getting more and more tests. They were considered high risk.
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Didn't RMS do this with his emails?
No, Stallman uses Emacs: > I spend most of my time editing in Emacs. I read and send mail with Emacs using M-x rmail and C-x m. I have no experience with any other email client programs. You may have confused this with his somewhat idiosyncratic way of browsing the web: > I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web page…
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> Knowing someone had committed petty theft is at least a red flag. Not really, since everyone has done so. Even you. Not getting caught for it on the other hand could be a positive.
I'm not sure what culture or friends you live around, but to believe everyone has thieved is disturbing. What other ills may you believe everyone does, and so do flippantly?
No, it's fact. It's part of learning and growing up. You never stole anything in your life, not a piece of candy, nothing?