Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 322 posts

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#181

Post by shanemhansen »

arethuza wrote: post #166
justinlaster wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insulting. But doesn't make it any less true or false. To presume that your average joe has bothered to play in the realm of academic, diligent logic and reason is a mistake. I am not saying you need to go into a university, I'm not claiming a piece of paper will lend you credibility in this regard. It's about the time and effort that people spend practicing these subjects. How many people do you know outside of STEM…

Do we have evidence that STEMers are paragons of logical reasonable minded virtue outside of their particular domains?

You're getting downvoted, but over the last decade I've seen a pretty high number of STEMers that seem to confine their logical reasoning skills to very specific domains.

Example (I'll let you be the judge of which one is being irrational): I know STEMers who are adamant atheists. I also know STEMers who are pretty devout and think that science supports all of their beliefs.

For a less controversial example just look at the sheer amount of fashion trends that sweep through the programming community. Pushing those trends is literally a core function of this website. Just like many people in america jump from fad diet to fad diet , and we jump from fad framework to fad framework. The number of software engineering decisions we make that are based on actual software engineering research is vanishingly small.

Fellow STEMers please understand that you (and me) are human and very likely just as irrational and emotional as any other group of people. Ignoring that fact will lead to a false sense of superiority.

Theoretically science is supposed to be that paragon of reasoning where we attempt to falsify our beliefs and thereby make the more correct ones stronger, but my interaction with the academic world has made me realize that science is again mostly about developing relationships so that your papers will be favorably reviewed, publishing junk to make sure your boss thinks you are productive, and researching whatever the people paying your bills are interested in researching.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#182

Post by jessaustin »

jononor wrote: post #64
trendia wrote: post #5

This struck out at me: > There are objective measures of code similarity that can be quoted, like the edit distance between abstract syntax trees ... If this became the primary legal metric, then programmers who stole code would change the code so that functions achieved the same output with practically no AST similarity. That is, they could maximize functional similarity while minimzing code similarity. This would b…

Copyright does not protect the functional aspects, only the "expressive" ones. IANAL though.

Also NAL, but I don't think this case was about copyright? It was more about breach of contract, wasn't it?

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#183

Post by jessriedel »

albedoa wrote: post #42
pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. Nothing in the constitution says anything about peers, and the fact that most juries are comprised of people who don't know much about the subject matter comes from lawyers wanting those people on the bench, since they're less l…

"jury of one's peers" is in reference to "an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed" from Article VI (criminal prosecutions) and preserved through Article VII (civil suits). It has been interpreted to mean a broad representation of the population.

The point is that the GP is interpreting "peers" in the academic/social sense, when it never meant this in this context, and the word doesn't actually appear in the Constitution.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#184

Post by galacticpony »

ISL wrote: post #60
ue_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…

I once espoused a similar opinion, but have since changed my mind. I'm a physicist, and once expressed to a judge I had met on the trail that I wished I could be judged by my academic peers. It was my belief that they would be more receptive to logical argument, understanding in their analysis, and more committed to fundamental principles. The judge was visibly surprised, but said little. What later changed my mind w…

"What later changed my mind was the realization that our society is a human one, and that humanity has a huge spectrum of experience. A group of physicists may not understand something about the world that others do. Furthermore, any select group of citizens will differ in belief somewhat from the interests of society at large."

Why the hell would that realization change your mind? For society at large, that "huge spectrum" includes copious amounts of superstition and ignorance, which (one would hope) should be significantly lower in those people subjected to scientific scrutiny on a regular basis. You're gambling on something being in that spectrum that will positively offset this negative, but you don't know (or mention) what it is.

"But do I want educated and principled jurors on any jury that judges me, ones with enough fortitude to mis-trial a jury or nullify a law if that's what is required? Damn straight."

So you actually want a different kind of elite to be jurors, but not just physicists. You don't actually want citizens as a whole.

"If the notion that your citizen-peers might not be informed troubles you, take time to help others form informed opinions."

Have you ever tried that? What makes you believe that your citizen-peers are even interested in spending their valuable time to listen to someone else trying to change their opinion? Lots of people are quite fond of their uninformed opinions.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#185

Post by whatever_dude »

dosgonlogs wrote: post #71
whatever_dude wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it has a recurring theme that any time he got involved, things didn't go well so he decided to let go of it. That's not to say he didn't have influence; many times the games' stories were derived FROM the tech, not the other way around. Doom was originally supposed to be much more story- and character-driven, but that took a backseat given the focus on the development side was on the gameplay mechanics. Also,…

He was the Dungeon Master in their Dungeons & Dragons games. John Romero loved Carmack's campaign world, but John Romero destroyed it, Opening up a gateway to hell, and then immediately regretted it (but they got the idea for Doom from it), since it was a long running campaign in a world completely designed by John Carmack. I think Heretic/Hexen and Quake also borrowed heavily from their D&D games. Masters of Doom is…

Good point. I forgot about that.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#186

Post by Retric »

sqeaky wrote: post #171
Retric wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to understand files, just the connection with [code] > computers running a program vs. [architectural drawings] > people making a house. Architects don't build houses they design them in the same way computer architects don't build programs they design them. The analogy is a little fiddly as programmers > compilers also works like Architects > construction workers. But the line of thinking is not that…

It seems you are asserting that people who don't understand anything about the core concept can make reasonable decisions based on contrived analogies. Perhaps you are right, but I don't think so. When both sides put forward equally convincing analogies and few, if any, of the jurors know what is actually going on then how do they choose which analogy to believe?

That argument sounds better in the abstract. In practice both sides get to cross examine these experts and they are going to attack the weak points in the arguments.

Another consideration is in very close cases a random outcome is not necessarily a bad thing. Programmers like binary logic, but court cases are impacted by things like what someone thinks someone else was thinking. Being 'correct' in every case is less important for society than avoiding outright corruption and lawlessness.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#187

Post by LeicaLatte »

Carmack is a hero for me but he seems to come across as very naive here. I employ other people now and employees who argue this sort of stuff isn't copying are toxic to the culture and ethics of work. When you are paid a salary every month, I actually don't care if you are productive. But the least I expect you to be is loyal. And I am no monster for expecting that.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#188

Post by justinlaster »

shanemhansen wrote: post #181
arethuza wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have evidence that STEMers are paragons of logical reasonable minded virtue outside of their particular domains?

You're getting downvoted, but over the last decade I've seen a pretty high number of STEMers that seem to confine their logical reasoning skills to very specific domains. Example (I'll let you be the judge of which one is being irrational): I know STEMers who are adamant atheists. I also know STEMers who are pretty devout and think that science supports all of their beliefs. For a less controversial example just look…

You two are missing the point. See my reply to the parent comment of your post.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#189

Post by Buttons840 »

zardo wrote: post #175
gregw2 wrote: post #162

It's kinda hard to square John's post-trial comments "I never tried to hide or wipe any evidence, and all of my data is accounted for, contrary to some stories being spread." with ZeniMax's post-trial comments at http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2017/02/01/zenima... that " (vi) Carmack intentionally destroyed data on his computer after he got notice of this litigation and right after he researched on Google…

I wouldn't trust the testimony of a paid expert witness. They always have strong convictions in favor of the side paying the bill, even if the evidence available clearly can't support such absolute conclusions. Even if they aren't just liars, the lawyers can just keep trying different 'experts' untill they get one who tells the story they want to hear. It's just cover for making an argument from authority.

"As an expert, I can definitely tell you that the people paying me are correct."

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#190

Post by afthonos »

dpark wrote: post #156
afthonos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole (original) point though. Historically, people would be taken away from people who had known them all their lives, be accused of something fantastical, and be condemned on the strength of he-said, she-said. In the specific case of the USA, a big complaint of colonists is that they would be whisked back to England for trial ("For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transpor…

> Peers are supposed to know you, your character, and your history. I don't think so. It's one thing to say that juries should be made of private citizens drawn from your nation/state/town. It's another thing entirely to say that juries should be made up of your buddies. Peer is not a synonym for neighbor. It means "equal".

Note that each level you've selected makes it more likely that they're sympathetic to you. Nation: shared culture. State: shared local culture. Town: shared understanding of what's considered acceptable here.

There's of course a balance to be struck, and mobs will turn on people in an instant anyway. I'm merely saying that "peers" did not originally mean "random fellow humans"; it implied a level of connection above that.

Personally, though, I think we've idealized the "impartial" jury too much—mostly because I don't believe there's such a thing.

Post reply on HN