Hacker News Reader

Is it really? Theoretically with perfect information you don't need to go to war, you can just compute the result and start with treaty negotiations.

This. There's actually an argument that spying helps peace.

My dad (a journalist, RIP) was once at a UN conference in the 70s, and made the remark to a Chinese official in a light-hearted spirit: "of course you spy on us, we spy on you, and what's wrong with that?" This caused a major row and he was forced to apologize.

It seems like a fair game to me. You can always protect yourself by investing in cyber-security if you don't want to be spied on.

It's not like war where innocent people die and a there's a lot of human suffering. It's just a tech race where the nations doing a good job get a deserved advantage without doing direct damage to the population.

Unless someone exacts extensive damage to something like the electrical grid. In which case it would cause mass suffering and death. Don't underestimate the steel trap of that cold war mentality.

There are hacks that can cause extensive destruction. But it isn't good to talk about them lest we give people ideas.

It's just business.

Welcome to the world :)