Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by CamperBob2 1064 days ago
I don't know. These "equity" arguments are indistinguishable from a deliberate attack.... the sort of attack you'd expect from a country that, having been unable to either compete with the West or conquer it, is well-known to have resorted to memetic warfare.
1 comments
throwanem 1064 days ago
> I don't know.
link
linksnapzz 1064 days ago
Robert Conquest’s Third Laws of Politics:

"The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies."

link
CamperBob2 1064 days ago
But you do, it sounds like. Enlighten us.
link
throwanem 1064 days ago
I'm not claiming to know anything. I'm just asking that those who do make such claims be a little less gnomic in their commentary, so that the rest of us can evaluate whether or not you're talking nonsense.
link
CamperBob2 1064 days ago
TIL gnomic. Thanks!

And if I knew whether or not it was nonsense, I wouldn't have prefaced the post with "I don't know." I was just suggesting that proxiful-wash's downvoted post wasn't completely out of the question.

The priors are suspicious enough: might a country that attempted to get the world to believe that the US created the HIV virus [1], successfully influenced a razor's-edge Presidential election [2], and plotted to stir up domestic racial conflict [3] try to handicap the US by originating and propagating counterproductive educational ideologies? It's certainly believable, but there's no smoking gun.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/14/russian...

2: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-rus...

3: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-documents-reveal-...

link
throwanem 1064 days ago
You're putting "plotted to" and "successfully" to a lot of work here, on behalf of claims your sources appear at great pains not to make or even imply.

You seem to take this whole concept very seriously, so maybe you can help me understand why. Out of the idea that Russians are responsible for all of America's worst problems, what endgame do you see that actually improves our situation? What specific and relevant changes in domestic and foreign policy would you prescribe?

link
CamperBob2 1063 days ago
Out of the idea that Russians are responsible for all of America's worst problems

Translation: "A good-faith discussion is not going to happen, so let's hit the mud and see how dirty we can get."

I don't think so. Only one of us would enjoy it.

link
baremetal 1064 days ago
That would be way too spicy for this place, Bob.
link