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  • Hacker News
  • Lol this is going to go over well
    by dstnn
  • People make a ridiculous deal out of someone at any point doing any work with the CIA, or a company having IQT on their cap table, or anything like that.

    Yeah, right, as soon as you get involved you instantly meet with the smoking man from the X-Files and see the dead aliens and become part of some kind of grand conspiracy. After that every single thing you say or do is part of some giant perfectly organized CIA plot. Please.

    Most of what these three letter agencies do is boring.

    It’s a lot like guilt by association: “this person did business with this person therefore they are totally the same on everything and part of some big agenda.” False.

    I don’t think this means anything at all.

    by api
  • It is a shame but there are almost no true grassroots political organizations, most of them are payed, bought or employed by someone.

    A very good example of this is that we don't see any major feminist rallies against how the government is handling the Epstein files, whose victims where predominately young girls and women.

    by throwfaraway135
  • Yes, yes, the good ol' "liberal, non-violent, and honorable" CIA of the 50s and 60s. So different from the one we have now.

    Is this the CIA that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran after he nationalized their oil industry? Or is it the one that installed a dictatorship in Guatemala to stop land reform and tend to the whims of the United Fruit Company?

    Maybe it's the organization that murdered the first elected leader of Congo, to keep cheap copper, colbat and uranium flowing? Certainly it can't be the agency that illegally spied on American citizens who fought for Civil Rights or protested against the Vietnam War.

    So much for soft power.

    by han-tyumi
  • Was modern art a weapon of the CIA? [0]

    > Still, whatever the truth of the extent of the CIA’s financial involvement with Abstract Expressionism, Anfam believes that it was “the best thing the institution ever paid for”. He smiles. “I’d much rather they spent money on Abstract Expressionism than toppling left-wing dictators.”

    I had a similar view of my work that involved SDI "Star Wars". Better spent on my paycheck than on bombs. Don't forget, the gorgeous mirror in the Vera Rubin Telescope was one of two donated from another three-letter agency's dumpster.

    I could tell you, but then you'd have to be shredded.

    Buddhists like to "turn poison into medicine". So should we all.

    [0] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-...

    by k310
  • This is the kind of bizarre article you see in an era where people reflexively support anything having to do with the federal bureaucracy. Even the 1960s CIA that was overthrowing democratically elected leaders in other countries is now “liberal, nonviolent and honorable.” Where did this come from? Politically homeless socially liberal Reagan republicans?
    by rayiner

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