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CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

simonwillison.net

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

#61

Post by georgemcbay »

exe34 wrote: post #31
supjeff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? For the most part, the truth is trump's enemy. as far as he can control it, it's better for his to be the only authoritative voice. If he says Australia is full of muslims and bad hombres, he doesn't need the CIA contradicting him.

It gives me hope that Trump will replace the top generals and a few layers down with yes-men who will spend the military budget on coke and then the US will be less of a threat to the rest of the world. Another Russia is not a good thing, but it's better than a mad man at the top of the most powerful military in history.

> It gives me hope that Trump will replace the top generals and a few layers down with yes-men who will spend the military budget on coke and then the US will be less of a threat to the rest of the world.

I realize this is kind of a joke, but...

The US will continue to be the most powerful military in history for a very long time even with a highly incompetent top-layer. It will just have less people with the wisdom and power to push back on the president's worst impulses.

Unfortunately(?) there's not enough coke in the world to put much of a dent in our current military spending (which they hope to increase even further to 1.5 trillion dollars in 2027). And if the price of coke ever did become a problem, well the US now believes it reserves the right to the entire western hemisphere which includes Columbia...

On a more serious note there is also likely to be a rapid burst of nuclear proliferation across the globe as everyone else adjusts to this new reality sans the traditional post-WW II world order.

On the current Trump path the world is going to get far more dangerous and chaotic, not less.

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

#62

Post by andrewmcwatters »

milesvp wrote: post #43
Noaidi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While the parent comment is low quality I disagree with this. I think the comment was perfect quality. As we are slowly sinking into totalitarianism in the US, you will understand that this "noise" was in fact the signal you should have been listening to.

Forgive me, my bar is high, but I tend to agree with you. I didn’t have a good way to indicate that I find value in a small number of comments like these without potentially undermining my greater desire to avoid toxic comments here.

Your back-seat moderation is annoying and contributes to the wank of the site, too.

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

#63

Post by deepsun »

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.

Brunhilde Pomsel, Joseph Goebbels’s former personal secretary, said something like "even when we heard about atrocities, we didn't believe it, because come on, Germany was the most civilized, most developed country in the world, we couldn't do such things".

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

#64

Post by arjie »

Really don't like this engagement-bait style "suddenly stops" / "have quietly" and all this stuff. It's no wonder it works. The headline from the CIA is far more staid and off the front page in comparison https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891794

It's not even a bad submission saying that he mirrored it here: https://simonw.github.io/cia-world-factbook-2020/

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

#65

Post by JumpCrisscross »

supjeff wrote: post #18
scarecrowbob wrote: post #13

Damn I wish the waning of US soft power felt like a positive thing to me; the CIA, along with the DEA, has been one of the more powerful criminal networks on the planet since its inception in the mid 20th C. It doesn't feel like the US gov is moving away from the soft-power/understated action stuff because the US gov is somehow committed to being less evil. It feels to me like they don't feel like it's as useful as t…

How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? For the most part, the truth is trump's enemy. as far as he can control it, it's better for his to be the only authoritative voice. If he says Australia is full of muslims and bad hombres, he doesn't need the CIA contradicting him.

> How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"?

Broadly? A lot. Donald Trump is wickedly smart. So is Stephen Miller. Susie Wiles. Hegseth is an idiot, but he's Chip 'n' Dale to Marco Rubio. (Our planes aren't falling off our carriers any more. And the raid on Caracas was executed flawlessly. That isn't something numpties can pull off.)

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

#66

Post by esseph »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65
supjeff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? For the most part, the truth is trump's enemy. as far as he can control it, it's better for his to be the only authoritative voice. If he says Australia is full of muslims and bad hombres, he doesn't need the CIA contradicting him.

> How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? Broadly? A lot. Donald Trump is wickedly smart. So is Stephen Miller. Susie Wiles. Hegseth is an idiot, but he's Chip 'n' Dale to Marco Rubio. (Our planes aren't falling off our carriers any more. And the raid on Caracas was executed flawlessly. That isn't something numpties can pull off.)

> Donald Trump is wickedly smart

This is the exact opposite of what has been said about Trump by his "friends" in the Epstein files.

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

#67

Post by red-iron-pine »

idle_zealot wrote: post #28
scarecrowbob wrote: post #13

Damn I wish the waning of US soft power felt like a positive thing to me; the CIA, along with the DEA, has been one of the more powerful criminal networks on the planet since its inception in the mid 20th C. It doesn't feel like the US gov is moving away from the soft-power/understated action stuff because the US gov is somehow committed to being less evil. It feels to me like they don't feel like it's as useful as t…

> 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.

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

#68

Post by iAMkenough »

dizlexic wrote: post #47
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.

I love that you're lamenting a CIA website closure as a step toward dystopia... 10/10 It could be as simple as budget changes.

Real reason to remove the facts and archive of the records is so that they're not cited in deportation litigation and government lawyers don't have to argue against the facts the government holds true

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

#69

Post by nostrademons »

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 books in the U.S.

They not only could happen here, they did happen here. It’s a testament to the power of propaganda that people view them as a hypothetical rather than as a lightly fictionalized documentary where the countries were changed to prevent the authors from going to jail.

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

#70

Post by red-iron-pine »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65
supjeff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? For the most part, the truth is trump's enemy. as far as he can control it, it's better for his to be the only authoritative voice. If he says Australia is full of muslims and bad hombres, he doesn't need the CIA contradicting him.

> How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? Broadly? A lot. Donald Trump is wickedly smart. So is Stephen Miller. Susie Wiles. Hegseth is an idiot, but he's Chip 'n' Dale to Marco Rubio. (Our planes aren't falling off our carriers any more. And the raid on Caracas was executed flawlessly. That isn't something numpties can pull off.)

> Donald Trump is wickedly smart.

wut. this is a joke, right?

Stephen Miller... maybe. He's mostly evil and shiftless, and willing to utilize any and all tools.

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