[IdSayThatllDoIt]

It's a nash equilibrium, the primary value of spycraft is opposition to hostile spycraft.

It's like wishing militaries didn't exist.

[CalChris]

I like the idea of explaining Mad Magazine's Spy v Spy as a Nash equilibrium. Nash is about strategies, particularly that neither side could do any better with any other strategy. Spying's justification then comes from fact that withdrawal would be a worse strategy.

[lazide]

Well, and being worse than your opponents likely has material negative effects.

[thrance]

The CIA does more than counterespionage. For example, Chile would be a much better place if the CIA didn't overthrow its democracy and install a fascist dictator, Pinochet, in its stead.

[logicchains]

>Chile would be a much better place if the CIA didn't overthrow its democracy and install a fascist dictator

Empirically that's not a very well-supported statement, if you compare the economy and living conditions of Chile to its neighbours. Empirically speaking, electing communist governments almost always leads to reduced living standards. It's like if the US hadn't intervened in to help a fascist dictator in South Korea, the whole of South Korea would be as poor as North Korea is now.

[randomname93857]

Yeah, with help of KGB. What could possibly go wrong? It could become as democratic as Cuba. In best case. Or take path of other countries with exported communist revolutions, like North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. You just don't know about pervasive and perverted level of informants and delation that was installed by these "democratic" countries

[freejazz]

The head side of the coin comes with the tail side of the coin.

[refurb]

Saying the "CIA overthrew its democracy and installed a fascist dictator" is a vast oversimplification of what actually happened and ignores the role of other international actors, not to mention the domestic actors themselves.

Like most "CIA coups", the role the CIA played in Chile is more of a "hey let's help this guy who is already planning a coup" and if you dig into the details, it raises the question if the CIA had done nothing whether the outcome would have changed at all.

[jMyles]

> It's like wishing militaries didn't exist.

I'm convinced that the evolution of the internet will bring this as well.

[ambicapter]

I think the internet is making this problem worse, actually.