Big brother becomes little brother | Hacker News Reader

Big brother becomes little brother

kenklippenstein.com

40 pointsanigbrowl15 comments

Wouldn't corporate revenues (not market cap) be a better comparison with a country's GDP?

> The move underscores the awesome power of corporations — the appistocracy, as I call them, or “non-state entities,” the directive’s euphemistic term.

This term already exist. It's corporatocracy. Not to be confused with an oligarchy which can overlap with a corporatocracy.

> Several years ago an FBI recruiter lamented to me how difficult hiring cyber talent had become, given how much better tech companies pay than the Bureau. “All we can offer is patriotism,” I recall her sighing.

People find the 3 letter agencies to be corrupt and gross. Good Will Hunting has a scene dedicated to this. The fact FAANG pays incredibly well is just a bonus.

Snow Crash is, yet again, so prescient in this regard. Still waiting on my Deliverator

though some intellectuals may delight in listing the sins of the three letter agencies at length and in detail, it is probably overgeneralizing to say "everyone finds this" .. Actual career families pass down the profession in different ways.. some appreciate the stable income to start.. Overall, there has to be something like those agencies with career professionals. How to minimize harm?

It's a generalization but I'm not sure it's overgeneralizing. I don't think many people have a good or even neutral opinion on the FBI or NSA.

True, but I have a fairly positive opinion of the EPA, FDA, CDC, IRS, FTC, and a neutral opinion on the FCC, DOT and others. The DOD and DOJ are hard to have an opinion about, partly as they're so much a reflection of what the President wants, partly because they have huge internal constraints, logistical and legal respectively.

I do not subscribe to the view that agencies are just running around doing their own thing without much regard to who's in the White House.

This article is talking about intelligence agencies which none of those you listed are. I don't know if you didn't read it or just want to point out any 3 letter agencies to be technically correct.

Comments above broadened the scope and hostility to any government agencies is rampant in some quarters.

Overall, there has to be something like those agencies with career professionals. How to minimize harm?

20% of the people do 80% of the work. The problem is incentives. Which political appointee has the incentive to fight the federal workers union and be great manager, rewarding the 20% and punishing the rest? Until the next election?

It's tragic, but this inability to deal with federal employees is a reason why perhaps getting rid of whole departments is the only practical way to make real reforms.

This sounds like a truism, and truisms don't seem like a great basis for policy. Surely you can come up with some more objective measure of federal worker productivity rather than relying on lazy cliches.

Wellp, we're boned.

/Bender

Weird that he's hosting the directive himself, in that it's a public document available from dni.gov.

Probably insurance against the file changing or moving or general link rot.

Meh. The public directive doesn't strike me as a big deal.

Also, I find it hard to take seriously anyone who compares company market capitalizations to country GDPs -- that makes no sense.

>Where the CIA once might have coveted the secrets of Albania, now it is Apple, whose wealth exceeds all but the four richest countries.

It's really hard to take this seriously when he makes the fundamental error of comparing corporate market cap to national GDP.

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