site banner
god_from_celegans  6mo ago (text post)   Edited 6mo ago   2310 thread views

What did you learn from leaked documents?

We seek to understand the world, but it's made harder when part of it is hidden from us.

Leaked documents, represent a kind of ground truth, showing how the world really works. Telling us what's for sale, what the real agendas are, how powerful spies are, and how coordinated governments are. They are almost the opposite to conspiracy theories, as they present observations that can prune conspiracy theories.

But there are too many documents to read, so let's compare notes. What surprised you and caused you to update your view of the world?

Feel free to give a low effort reply, it's better than nothing.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'll start with a low effort set of "stylised facts". Feel free to argue

I assume that where there is one company or politician or agency or country doing something, they are probably all doing it.

Re: CIA spying on the Senate.

Not exactly. "Spying" heavily implies that the CIA put together a plan to covertly steal emails or other info. This was much more like corporate IT when they say "No, we can't access your computer without your password." Well, yeah, they can. And they did, which was a no-no an still bad. But it was limited to a shared drive concerned with one tranche of declassified files. It wasn't the CIA reading senator's e-mails in real time.

One thing that I think should always be kept in mind when talking about FBI/CIA/NSA etc. is that they're still all massive bureaucracies and are, therefore, subject to a lot of least-common-denominators-in-massive-bureacracy outcomes. Not everyone at CIA is a spy. They have IT people who are probably just ... IT people with security clearances. They do dumb stuff because they're bored and dumb and not the one's who get to drink martinis in Monaco and split Uber Blacks with James Bond or whatever.

Interesting, that is different from what I was imagining. I didn't realise it was on CIA premises either.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats