[prollyignored]

NSA hires the best nerds.

DoD hires all the scientists. The ones who don't get hired, go to pharmaceuticals (which have an excellent track record of morally dubious acts).

Nerds that I have have met or seen in mailing lists, have a strong co-relation with totalitarianism aka evil sysadmins.

I would like to call a distinction b/w Aron who is first and foremost a philosophy-geek, something that all idealists have in common.

[milhous]

>> NSA hires the best nerds.

I'm skeptical of this. In a hypothetical programming/engineering competition, I'd bet Apple and/or Google could clean the clocks of any government agency or defense contractor, sans building planes and weapons.

>> Nerds that I have have met or seen in mailing lists, have a strong co-relation with totalitarianism aka evil sysadmins.

Sad. That's what assimilation and institutionalization does to you. Hope that never happens to me.

[jlgreco]

From what I have seen of the NSA's campus recruiting, I am skeptical of that as well. It is possible that they get most of their talent elsewhere, but at the very least they are missing a large source of it.

It is probably more accurate to say that they hire the best math guys that only have a single degree. They certainly aren't getting those who go on to be quants.