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0 pointsdmix6y ago0 comments

There's plenty of memoirs by actual intelligence agents.

The world is a lot more boring than films and far more complicated and difficult to pull off serious operations. The serious operations often merely being inside information about other nation states. Not saving the world from bad guys.

It's mostly just a long series of super paranoid people chasing each other in circles. And in between plenty of useful information being given to leaders, ie before big events to give them an edge or whatnot.

The cold war was the heyday of the outside-the-office spycraft stuff. Today I'm sure it's mostly just countering massive digital campaigns hitting gov agencies, critical infrastructure, and megacorps. Plus the old school agents working within each of those agencies feeding information back to their motherlands.

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int_19h6y ago

The other amusing thing is that said leaders often ignore all that useful information when making their decisions, because they believe that they know better.

ChrisCinelli6y ago

And for 2 years of boring paranoia there may be 2 days that save the day.

I would expect that people that speak up are mostly dissatisfied and frustrated people.

And for opacity, one part of the org will likely not know about what is going on on the other side.

A big selection bias.

But who knows...

_jal6y ago

I mean, sure, if you want to believe in superheroes, that's fine. But heroics typically have an opportunity to exist due to extreme events. Those, in turn, mostly happen due to massive screwups or deliberate large destructive events. Occasionally, accidents, but that's not what you're talking about.

If you want insight as to why heroic interventions are a sign of failure, talk to your IT department and then scale that up to nation states.

galangalalgol6y ago

Wow! I have never seen it stated that well. I always said this one team got hero status for saving a contract that was horribly underbid in schedule and budget, so they proceeded to underbid contracts to recreate the success. If we treated heroics as a red flag we would all be better off.

ChrisCinelli6y ago

I completely agree that the need of superheroic actions may arise by the result of self inflicted pains and it is usually the case in big corps.

At the same time, other heroic efforts may also require hard work to keep up with the competition or to clean up someone's mess.

That seems one of the reason they monitor what is going on and are vigilant: so they are more likely successful at preventing problems before they araise or become too big. Are not those the problems that require superheroic measures?

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0 pointsdmix6y ago0 comments

There's plenty of memoirs by actual intelligence agents.

0 comments

int_19h6y ago

The other amusing thing is that said leaders often ignore all that useful information when making their decisions, because they believe that they know better.

ChrisCinelli6y ago

And for 2 years of boring paranoia there may be 2 days that save the day.

I would expect that people that speak up are mostly dissatisfied and frustrated people.

And for opacity, one part of the org will likely not know about what is going on on the other side.

A big selection bias.

But who knows...

_jal6y ago

If you want insight as to why heroic interventions are a sign of failure, talk to your IT department and then scale that up to nation states.

galangalalgol6y ago

ChrisCinelli6y ago

I completely agree that the need of superheroic actions may arise by the result of self inflicted pains and it is usually the case in big corps.

At the same time, other heroic efforts may also require hard work to keep up with the competition or to clean up someone's mess.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse