<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>heynk</author><text>Imagine you were a US intelligence officer with an extremely in-depth knowledge of socioeconomic momentum around the world. You are aware that oil is a relatively irreplaceable dependency and that most oil is controlled by foreign regimes that are not allies of the US. You realize that if things keep going this way, those in control of oil will have huge advantages in the future. &lt;i&gt;You&lt;/i&gt; have the ability to recognize that perhaps in the long term, this could result in these countries overtaking the US economically and culturally. These regimes have religious connections to organizations who are militarily anti-american, too!&lt;p&gt;But the society is not familiar enough with the threat to fully grasp and take seriously. Do you wait for the threat to play out and take your chances with the society sufficiently changing its attitude towards it in time? Or do you galvanize things with a false flag operation that will cause less damage than the real threat but induce the much needed urgent action against it? Almost like a vaccine. Innocent people will die either way.</text><parent_chain><item><author>recuter</author><text>It is actually incredibly easy to see how smart people tasked with solving complicated societal problems arrive at false flag operations as a viable solution:&lt;p&gt;Imagine you have a credible imminent threat to your society posted by a danger to which the society is not familiar enough with to fully grasp and take seriously.&lt;p&gt;Do you wait for the threat to play out and take your chances with the society sufficiently changing its attitude towards it in time? Or do you galvanize things with a false flag operation that will cause less damage than the real threat but induce the much needed urgent action against it? Almost like a vaccine. Innocent people will die either way.&lt;p&gt;It is incredibly paternalistic in a way, and a morally gray area. Ultimately it is a lack of faith in the people the operation is trying to protect, a lot of times it is flat out wrong or backfires in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways - for example Iran.&lt;p&gt;And yet. And yet, not always. And when it works you&amp;#x27;ll never hear about it.&lt;p&gt;Thought exercise: You are a marine biologist who has become convinced that over fishing is about to cause a sudden, sharp, and potentially irreversible collapse in the sea food supply. Millions will starve. But meanwhile tuna cans remain cheap and abundant in supermarkets across the world.&lt;p&gt;This is a long standing serious issue but &lt;i&gt;now&lt;/i&gt; it is coming to a head, do you wait for the crisis to unfold and hope international politics find a way to avoid it in time or..?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Governments admit to faking terrorism: a list</title><url>http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/governments-admit-they-carry-out-false-flag-terror/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>mercurial</author><text>&amp;gt; It is actually incredibly easy to see how smart people tasked with solving complicated societal problems arrive at false flag operations as a viable solution:&lt;p&gt;The end justifies the means. And we surely shouldn&amp;#x27;t be naive about it. And if we don&amp;#x27;t do it first, the opposition will no doubt get ahead. And that&amp;#x27;s all that matter in the end. It&amp;#x27;s a pissing contest taking place in a graveyard.</text><parent_chain><item><author>recuter</author><text>It is actually incredibly easy to see how smart people tasked with solving complicated societal problems arrive at false flag operations as a viable solution:&lt;p&gt;Imagine you have a credible imminent threat to your society posted by a danger to which the society is not familiar enough with to fully grasp and take seriously.&lt;p&gt;Do you wait for the threat to play out and take your chances with the society sufficiently changing its attitude towards it in time? Or do you galvanize things with a false flag operation that will cause less damage than the real threat but induce the much needed urgent action against it? Almost like a vaccine. Innocent people will die either way.&lt;p&gt;It is incredibly paternalistic in a way, and a morally gray area. Ultimately it is a lack of faith in the people the operation is trying to protect, a lot of times it is flat out wrong or backfires in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways - for example Iran.&lt;p&gt;And yet. And yet, not always. And when it works you&amp;#x27;ll never hear about it.&lt;p&gt;Thought exercise: You are a marine biologist who has become convinced that over fishing is about to cause a sudden, sharp, and potentially irreversible collapse in the sea food supply. Millions will starve. But meanwhile tuna cans remain cheap and abundant in supermarkets across the world.&lt;p&gt;This is a long standing serious issue but &lt;i&gt;now&lt;/i&gt; it is coming to a head, do you wait for the crisis to unfold and hope international politics find a way to avoid it in time or..?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Governments admit to faking terrorism: a list</title><url>http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/governments-admit-they-carry-out-false-flag-terror/</url></story>