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I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

independent.co.uk

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Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#191

Post by zaarn »

GordonS wrote: post #150
zaarn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>though in the EU they have to provide notice of that monitoring There is an interesting exception; if private usage of your work mail account is banned, it should not contain private data and therefore, it's free to be monitored. Same for internet usage. This is usually coded into your contract when you sign.

Work emails can easily contain private data too. I might send an email to my manager asking for time off for deeply personal reasons, or informing them about very personal circumstances (e.g. health). There are of course numerous less impactful examples. An employer monitoring Internet usage is a very different case - in almost all cases it will be fully automated, and the logs only available to HR on request; not ju…

Those are still work related mails, though they get a better set of protection than normal work related mails.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#192

Post by ericb »

bena wrote: post #165
ericb wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think the point made above is that you can still choose punishment because even with no free will involved, the future decision calculations need to observe a strong penalty to deciding yes for murder. This doesn't require free will any more than an if-then I write in code requires it.

But your if-then exhibits no independent action. It just is. It can't "choose", it just takes input and gives a predetermined output based on that input. If free will does not exist, you do not have a choice. It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Or that we can make any sort of choice.

> It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything.

Not at all.

Maybe you are a free-will-lacking if-then bot that takes whatever suggestions someone says we should do and executes them, and maybe I am a free will lacking robot that periodically burps out suggestions. No disenguity or "true choice" required.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#193

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pasabagi wrote: post #172
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's suppose you're right and non-determinism doesn't exist. (Quantum physics apparently disagrees, but never mind that.) It doesn't matter. Treating people as though they have agency is still necessary, because how we treat them would affect their deterministic state function. If someone commits murder and we say it was only a product of their environment and they have no agency, therefore we shouldn't punish them,…

> If someone commits murder and we say it was only a product of their environment and they have no agency, therefore we shouldn't punish them, well, that's the sort of "choice" that, on a systemic level, causes more people to commit murder. I agree with the direction of your analysis, but I don't think this part is true. Recidivism is really high, especially in more 'punishment' oriented criminal justice systems. I t…

I think this is a consequence of living in a society with a mostly effective justice system.

If you have a law against larceny which is vigoriously enforced with proportionate penalties, it's going to deter a lot of thefts. But none of the thieves it does deter can show in your recidivism stats, because none of those people commit any thefts.

It's only the people who are desperate or irrational who steal when it means going to jail for it. And if you put that set of people in jail for a while and let them back out into a situation where they're exactly as desperate or irrational as they were before, it's no surprise you see a high recidivism rate in that population, and the only way to prevent those thefts is to remove the desperation or address whatever e.g. mental illness or drug addiction is causing the irrationality.

This is also why disproportionate penalties don't really reduce crime. Because anyone doing the math even remotely accurately will be deterred by proportionate penalties, and anyone not doing the math at all won't be deterred by any penalties, and that doesn't leave a lot of people who can only be deterred by disproportionate penalties.

But that's a different thing than saying there shouldn't be a law against murder or theft at all because punishment is totally ineffective. It's only ineffective against the people it was ineffective against to begin with, who are only a small percentage of the population.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#194

Post by pasabagi »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #193
pasabagi wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone commits murder and we say it was only a product of their environment and they have no agency, therefore we shouldn't punish them, well, that's the sort of "choice" that, on a systemic level, causes more people to commit murder. I agree with the direction of your analysis, but I don't think this part is true. Recidivism is really high, especially in more 'punishment' oriented criminal justice systems. I t…

I think this is a consequence of living in a society with a mostly effective justice system. If you have a law against larceny which is vigoriously enforced with proportionate penalties, it's going to deter a lot of thefts. But none of the thieves it does deter can show in your recidivism stats, because none of those people commit any thefts. It's only the people who are desperate or irrational who steal when it mean…

I like your argument, but I think it's specious. Unless you can show some evidence that in the absence of deterrence, ordinarily law-abiding citizens commit crimes massively more frequently (for instance, when it's very unlikely they get caught), then you're just chalking up every non-crime-committing citizen up to 'deterrence' without demonstrating any causal relationship.

I think the relevant data would be crimes that were at one point very common, and are now not. Some things, like forgery, became prohibitively technically difficult. Others, like corruption in public offices, are basically inversely related to pay and pensions for public servants. I could see how vigorous enforcement would make crime more unattractive, since it's a given crime is likely to work out, but I don't think this would always be more economical than simply providing stuff like pensions and benefits so people have social investment they don't want to lose.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#195

Post by bena »

ericb wrote: post #192
bena wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your if-then exhibits no independent action. It just is. It can't "choose", it just takes input and gives a predetermined output based on that input. If free will does not exist, you do not have a choice. It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Or that we can make any sort of choice.

> It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Not at all. Maybe you are a free-will-lacking if-then bot that takes whatever suggestions someone says we should do and executes them, and maybe I am a free will lacking robot that periodically burps out suggestions. No disenguity or "true choice" required.

But if free will does not exist and you believe that, then you would know that whomever you're making the suggestion to is incapable of changing whatever path they were going on in the first place.

By suggesting a course of action, you are implying there is an actor with agency out there.

Now, while the actor itself may not actually have agency, that does not absolve you. Any attempt to persuade is an implicit acknowledgement of free will.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#196

Post by bena »

syssbinn wrote: post #168
bena wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Free will's existence not mattering doesn't do anything for the "thrilling observations" or whatever. It says nothing to whether things get better or worse. Not to mention, you have no choice whether you find it thrilling or not. So trying to convince someone else that it is thrilling is also implicitly figuring people have some sort of free will or di…

I don't think there is a disagreement here. I agree with your long post conveying it's all fate in the end. I can still write about what I think while observing everything and knowing fate has made my impression. I just like the discussion because who knows if today will be the day to read something thought provoking around it. Anyways, I'm not trying to convince anyone something is thrilling. I just find it thrillin…

Free will exists or it doesn't. There's no middle ground. Someone is going to be right and someone is going to be wrong. But, like I said, it doesn't matter. The answer doesn't change anything. It's a purely academic question.

If you weren't trying to cherry pick, then why did you do it so blatantly?

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#197

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pasabagi wrote: post #194
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a consequence of living in a society with a mostly effective justice system. If you have a law against larceny which is vigoriously enforced with proportionate penalties, it's going to deter a lot of thefts. But none of the thieves it does deter can show in your recidivism stats, because none of those people commit any thefts. It's only the people who are desperate or irrational who steal when it mean…

I like your argument, but I think it's specious. Unless you can show some evidence that in the absence of deterrence, ordinarily law-abiding citizens commit crimes massively more frequently (for instance, when it's very unlikely they get caught), then you're just chalking up every non-crime-committing citizen up to 'deterrence' without demonstrating any causal relationship. I think the relevant data would be crimes t…

That's going to depend a lot on what the offense is. If you pass a law against suicide, the impact that has on the suicide rate is likely to be negligible, because most people don't have any interest in suicide to begin with and the people who do are not likely to be deterred by the prospect of criminal penalties.

But you can certainly find a lot of instances of things that a lot of people did before there was a law against it (e.g. polluting rivers) which now far fewer people do precisely because there is now a law against it.

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#198

Post by pasabagi »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #197
pasabagi wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your argument, but I think it's specious. Unless you can show some evidence that in the absence of deterrence, ordinarily law-abiding citizens commit crimes massively more frequently (for instance, when it's very unlikely they get caught), then you're just chalking up every non-crime-committing citizen up to 'deterrence' without demonstrating any causal relationship. I think the relevant data would be crimes t…

That's going to depend a lot on what the offense is. If you pass a law against suicide, the impact that has on the suicide rate is likely to be negligible, because most people don't have any interest in suicide to begin with and the people who do are not likely to be deterred by the prospect of criminal penalties. But you can certainly find a lot of instances of things that a lot of people did before there was a law…

I think pollution is a bit of a strange case, since it isn't typically directed at individuals, but rather firms, and in cases where such laws are not enforced they're typically universally ignored. Firms are funny because they're both highly invested in society, generally very rational (in a narrow sense), and generally not particularly interested in ethics. I think that's pretty much the opposite profile to your typical criminal.

I'm not in any case saying that such causal relationships don't exist: just that they only exist in a subset of crimes, and probably aren't major drivers in the really interesting ones (theft, violent crime, organized crime, etc).

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#199

Post by SkyBelow »

bena wrote: post #181
SkyBelow wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So. If free will doesn't exist, it doesn't change anything. Because we cannot change the path we're on. We have no choice. Which is why if I say there is free will and I'm right, then I'm right, and if I'm wrong, then I never had a choice and so right and wrong doesn't apply.

But Pascal's wager is about risk vs. reward. Here, there is neither risk nor reward. The entire question of whether free will exists or not is pointless. If it exists, nothing changes. If it doesn't exist, nothing changes. And regardless whether you believe it exists or not: If you're right about whether it exists, nothing changes. If you're wrong about whether it exists, nothing changes. So no matter the truth, no m…

>Here, there is neither risk nor reward.

I consider being wrong or right risk and reward within themselves. Most others act in such a way that seems to agree even if they don't conceptualize such a thought.

>That means the question itself is pointless.

How does one determine what does and doesn't have a point? If free will does exist then we can modify our government based on the notion it does exist if we think it does. If it does exist and we think it does not, then such modifications might be incorrect. That alone is enough for us to determine if there is a point to the question, even outside of any more abstract interest in the question.

Consider someone who crashes a car into a person because they didn't like how the other person looked at them and someone else who crashes a car into a person because of an epileptic seizure.

Should they be treated the same? If free will does exist, then the actions of the first are consider a bad choice while the actions of the second are deemed an illness beyond control, and while there needs to be actions to safeguard against either case from happening again the liability of the second individual is reduced (though not as much if they knew of the risk and choose to drive anyways).

But if free will doesn't exist, then why is the first guy any more responsible for the wreck than the second guy, and why should we even take action?

Re: I thought I was being ‘blacklisted’, so I demanded to see colleagues’ emails

#200

Post by jcranberry »

black_puppydog wrote: post #123
jcranberry wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she knew that her academic career prospects were being sabotaged by her advisor rather than having her mental health deteriorate while failing to pursue an academic career in her field, she could have pivoted to industry or a separate topic.

In which case she might be able to burn bridges, and call out people, and just tell her side of the story, if she... dunno... published it somewhere.

I doubt she views her current situation as better than the alternatives she would've had if she had been told in the first place.
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