How long ago something happened shouldn’t be relevant if you are looking to see if our species is capable of implementing certain types of long-term plans.
Making Constantinople the capital of the Eastern Empire and building its defenses represents perhaps the most successful example in all of human history of someone nudging “specific distant events in a positive direction through highly targeted actions or policies.”
I was under the impression that EY wants to keep some of what he discovered a secret. Greek Fire represents an historical example of successfully keeping a tech secret, despite that secret having enormous military value.
I was under the impression that EY wants to keep some of what he discovered a secret. Greek Fire represents an historical example of successfully keeping a tech secret, despite that secret having enormous military value.
It seems to me that keeping secrets has gotten much harder since then. The US government, for example, seems to be having enormous difficulties keeping its diplomatic, intelligence, and technology (including military technology) secrets secret. Do you have a different impression?
I would have agreed with you until the very recent Snowden revelations. Snowden seems to have revealed secrets that a huge number of people had access to (over a million?), showing its possible for a vast number of people to keep secrets. I have a much higher probability that 1,000 or so people could keep a really good secret than I did before.
Snowden seems to have revealed secrets that a huge number of people had access to (over a million?)
Snowden was a contract sysadmin for NSA. Surely there aren’t anywhere near a million such people? Where are you getting that number from? Are you talking about the 4 million people having “top secret” security clearance? I’m pretty sure the vast majority of them did not have access to the particular secrets that Snowden is revealing, i.e., there are other controls besides the clearance level that prevented them from accessing those secrets.
showing its possible for a vast number of people to keep secrets.
If there really were a huge number of people who had access to the secrets, it seems likely that foreign intelligence agencies already knew them. Do you have a reason to think otherwise? (In other words, given that we don’t know whether they really were kept secret rather than merely not publicly known, why are you updating towards secrets being more easily kept?)
Yes, “knowledgeable people” are saying that Snowden has damaged U.S. security.
I think what they meant is that the typical terrorist did not know about the NSA programs, not that foreign intelligence agencies didn’t know. (If they actually had good evidence that foreign intelligence agencies did not know, that would also reflect badly on people’s abilities to keep secrets in general.)
How long ago something happened shouldn’t be relevant if you are looking to see if our species is capable of implementing certain types of long-term plans.
Making Constantinople the capital of the Eastern Empire and building its defenses represents perhaps the most successful example in all of human history of someone nudging “specific distant events in a positive direction through highly targeted actions or policies.”
I was under the impression that EY wants to keep some of what he discovered a secret. Greek Fire represents an historical example of successfully keeping a tech secret, despite that secret having enormous military value.
It seems to me that keeping secrets has gotten much harder since then. The US government, for example, seems to be having enormous difficulties keeping its diplomatic, intelligence, and technology (including military technology) secrets secret. Do you have a different impression?
I would have agreed with you until the very recent Snowden revelations. Snowden seems to have revealed secrets that a huge number of people had access to (over a million?), showing its possible for a vast number of people to keep secrets. I have a much higher probability that 1,000 or so people could keep a really good secret than I did before.
Snowden was a contract sysadmin for NSA. Surely there aren’t anywhere near a million such people? Where are you getting that number from? Are you talking about the 4 million people having “top secret” security clearance? I’m pretty sure the vast majority of them did not have access to the particular secrets that Snowden is revealing, i.e., there are other controls besides the clearance level that prevented them from accessing those secrets.
If there really were a huge number of people who had access to the secrets, it seems likely that foreign intelligence agencies already knew them. Do you have a reason to think otherwise? (In other words, given that we don’t know whether they really were kept secret rather than merely not publicly known, why are you updating towards secrets being more easily kept?)
I’ve heard the million number in the media but I’m not sure about it, hence the ”?”.
Yes, “knowledgeable people” are saying that Snowden has damaged U.S. security.
I think what they meant is that the typical terrorist did not know about the NSA programs, not that foreign intelligence agencies didn’t know. (If they actually had good evidence that foreign intelligence agencies did not know, that would also reflect badly on people’s abilities to keep secrets in general.)
Thanks, I’ll investigate these things more.