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Accountability Sinks

250bpm.substack.com

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Re: Accountability Sinks

#121

Post by Viliam1234 »

godelski wrote: post #83
xg15 wrote: post #49

One example that's missing from the list is the TV series 24. A recurring plot point was that, yes, of course torture is bad and it's against the rules and we don't do it, etc etc, but it just so happens that here is such an exceptional, unprecedented, deeply urgent emergency situation where we need to have the information now or horrible things will happen, we need the hero who breaks the rules and goes on torturing…

Convictions aren't convictions if you abandon them when it's hard. It's just cosplay

Also, if you do something every day, it is not an exception.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#122

Post by diognesofsinope »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #66

My go-to example of a whole mesh of "accountability sinks" is... cybersecurity. In the real world, this field is really not about the tech and math and crypto - almost all of it is about distributing and dispersing liability through contractual means. That's why you install endpoint security tools. That's why you're forced to fulfill all kinds of requirements, some of them nonsensical or counterproductive, but necess…

> "we've implemented all best practices, contracted out the hard parts to world-renowned experts, and had third party audits to verify that - there was nothing more we could do, therefore it's not our fault"

The amount of (useless) processes/systems at banks I've seen in my career that boil down to this is incredible, e.g. hundreds of millions spent on call center tech for authentication that might do nothing, but the vendor is "industry-leading" and "best in-class".

> It's just that understanding this explains a lot of paradoxes of cybersecurity as a field. It all makes much more sense when you realize it's primarily about liability management, not about hat-wearing hackers fighting other hackers with differently colored hats.

Bingo. The same situation for most risk departments at banks or healthcare fraud and insurance companies.

I thought risk at a bank was going to be savvy quants, but it's literally lawyers/compliance/box-checking marketing themselves as more sophisticated than they are. Like the KYC review for products never actually follow up and check if the KYC process in the new products works. There's no analytics, tracking, etc. until audit/regulators come in an ask, "our best-in-class vendor handles this". All the systems are implemented incorrectly, but it doesn't matter because the system is built by a vendor and implemented by consultants, and they hold the liability (they don't, but it will take ~5 years in court to get to that point).

Beginning to understand what "bureaucracy" mechanically is.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#123

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I have a feeling that AI will be used to replace the folks that might get squeamish.

If I understand it correctly, that's what United Healthcare was doing, that got people so mad at the guy that was shot. He brought in "AI Denial Bots," so the company could knowingly cause the death of their customers, without having any "soft" humans in the process.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#124

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

xg15 wrote: post #49

One example that's missing from the list is the TV series 24. A recurring plot point was that, yes, of course torture is bad and it's against the rules and we don't do it, etc etc, but it just so happens that here is such an exceptional, unprecedented, deeply urgent emergency situation where we need to have the information now or horrible things will happen, we need the hero who breaks the rules and goes on torturing…

I watched a season of Chicago PD, and noticed that they had a convenient "plot accelerator."

Whenever they got to a point, where the detectives and CSI would be painstakingly going through the evidence, sifting out clues, they'd throw the suspect into "the cage," and beat a confession out of them.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#125

Post by srameshc »

The moment I saw 250bpm, my mind took me to ZeroMQ and indeed it was Martin. Then ofcourse Pieter Hintjens came to my thoughts next. I just loved ZeroMQ but I don't use it anymore. Good to find Martin's blog and a great writeup.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#126

Post by dsego »

xg15 wrote: post #49

One example that's missing from the list is the TV series 24. A recurring plot point was that, yes, of course torture is bad and it's against the rules and we don't do it, etc etc, but it just so happens that here is such an exceptional, unprecedented, deeply urgent emergency situation where we need to have the information now or horrible things will happen, we need the hero who breaks the rules and goes on torturing…

Well, it's the motive behind any atrocity committed during war, what's a few cracked eggs if there is a grand goal in mind. There are always people in places who feel like it's a historical duty to carry out those plans. And the war crimes stay in the past and get forgotten but nobody can deny the new reality on the ground. You can ethnically cleanse an area and in a 100 years that becomes barely a historical footnote and a new reality emerges and nobody can dispute that the area is occupied by a nation that claims rights based on self determination. Same for settler colonialism, they're not invading, just changing the actual conditions as a precursor to claiming political legitimacy.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#127

Post by apexalpha »

melvinmelih wrote: post #105

According to Dutch law, you lose your Dutch citizenship if you accept another nationality. The Dutch embassies (who are responsible for renewing Dutch passports abroad) are well aware of this law and have processes in place to refuse a passport renewal if you can’t provide proof of temporary residence in the country you reside in. The local institutions however, don’t have these processes in place and are generally n…

There is also a fun - legal - bypass to this.

The Dutch law doesn't say you 'can't have a second passport'. It only says: 'you can't have a second passport at the time you get your Dutch one'.

So countries like the UK allow their citizens to 'renounce' their UK citizenship, get a Dutch one, then get their UK one 'back'.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#128

Post by belter »

franze wrote: post #47

I'm now in a stage of my consulting career where I sometimes really get called into big organisation just to find out, that whatever they need to do is already panned out and they all want to do it! Still they call me cause ... it's a big decision and the "higher ups" (which quite often are not even part of the workshop/session then) want an external expert voice. cause the responsibility for this decision lies with…

> I'm now in a stage of my consulting career where I sometimes really get called into big organisation just to find out, that whatever they need to do is already panned out and they all want to do it! Still they call me cause ... it's a big decision and the "higher ups" (which quite often are not even part of the workshop/session then) want an external expert voice.

"Clients always know how to solve their problems, and always tell the solution in the first five minutes."

  - Gerald Marvin Weinberg
    The Secrets of Consulting
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/566213.The_Secrets_of_Co...

Re: Accountability Sinks

#129

Post by op00to »

dendodge wrote: post #97
cheschire wrote: post #36

I always remind myself when I have to go to the DMV[0] that I should plan on leaving with nothing more than another action or set of actions to take. I never enter the DMV expecting to complete a process, and the workers behind the counter always have this visible, visceral response when I DONT lose my fucking mind at their response to something. When I continue to be pleasant and understanding it’s like they suddenl…

Off-topic, but since you mention it, I've always been confused about what Americans always seem to be doing at the DMV. It seems to be a staple of pop culture that people are always there and the queue is always very long, but I've never known what anyone is actually trying to achieve. The DVLA in the UK doesn't have a high-street presence. I took my driving test once, then received my driving licence in the post. Wh…

Because of the importance of driving in the US (right or wrong), drivers licenses are used as the primary identification document. It looks like there’s a similar use of the DL in the UK for buying tobacco.

In the US, you need to prove both residency and identity. To prove your identity in the US, many people don’t have passports, so they bring a tranche of documents to the DMV office. To prove residency, we typically bring utility bills, leases, etc. Usually people prefer to go in person so they don’t lose these documents and get feedback if they don’t have the right stuff.

It looks like in the UK, since driving licenses are administered nationally, you don’t have the same patchwork of 50 different organizations with different requirements and rules, and the process is much simpler.

I haven’t been to a DMV for 10 years. I can renew vehicle registration, renew my license, and so on online. When I bought a new car, the dealer handled all DMV stuff like getting plates.

I’m supposed to be due to get a new “enhanced” license that is good for air travel within the US, but I have a number of other documents (passport, global entry) that serve the same purpose so I avoid the DMV as much as possible.

In my state the DMV is probably worse than a checkup at the dentist, but not as bad as a weekend with the in-laws.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#130

Post by vishnugupta »

oleggromov wrote: post #37

I once booked a plane ticket from my home town airport to another country. The purchase notification said something like "PVA" instead of "POV". I looked it up and turned out, the newly built airport that had this exact code was about to open. In a week or so, so I assumed that I'm indeed flying from the new one and forgot about it. The purchase was made through a booking aggregator similar to Expedia. On the day of…

OMG this stirred my memories. I was interviewing with companies in Amsterdam and Berlin. The Berlin recruiter made onward and return flight bookings for me from India. I though went to Amsterdam first on a separate flight because I was juggling the schedule. I thought it’s no big deal didn’t bother informing the recruiter of my side arrangement.

I then took a train to Berlin from Amsterdam, finished the interview and went to the airport for my return flight that was booked by the recruiter. To my absolute horror I was told that since my onward journey was a no show the whole PNR was cancelled. I felt like an idiot. Since then I double and triple check whenever I’m booking flight tickets.

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