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Accountability Sinks

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Re: Accountability Sinks

#131

Post by neilv »

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…

The most unfortunate thing about much of corporate 'cybersecurity' is that it combines expensive and encumbering theatre around compliance and deniability... with ridiculously insecure practices.

Imagine, for example, if more companies would hire for software developers and production infrastructure experts who build secure systems.

But most don't much care about security: they want their compliances, they may or may not detect and report the inevitable breaches, and the CISO is paid to be the fall-person, because the CEO totally doesn't care.

Now we're getting cottage industries and consortia theatre around things like why something that should be a static HTML Web page is pulling in 200 packages from NPM, and now you need bold third-party solutions to combat all the bad actors and defective code that invites.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#133

Post by hliyan »

A few things came to mind as I read this.

1) About 8 years ago I was gifted a copy of Ray Dalio's Principles. Being a process aficionado who thought the way to prevent bureaucracy was to ground process in principles, I was very excited. But halfway through I gave up. All the experience, the observations, the case studies that had led Dalio to each insight, had been lost in the distillation process. The reader was only getting a Plato's Cave version. I used to love writing spec-like process docs with lots of "shoulds" and "mays" for my teams, but now I largely write examples.

2) I live in a Commonwealth country, and as I understand (IANAL), common law, or judge made law, plays a larger role in the justice system here than in the US, where the letter of the law seem to matter more. I used to think the US system superior (less arbitrary), but now I'm not sure. Case law seems to provide a great deal of context that no statute could ever hope to codify in writing. It also carries the weight of history, and therefore is harder to abruptly change (for better or for worse).

3) Are human beings actually accountability sinks? This is only possible if they are causal originators, or in Aristotlean terms, "prime movers", or have pure agency, or are causa sui. But the question is, once we subtract environment (e.g. good parenting / bad parenting) and genetics (e.g. empathy, propensity toward anger), how much agency is actually left? Is it correct for our legal and ethical systems to terminate the chain of causality at the nearest human being?

Re: Accountability Sinks

#134

Post by scotty79 »

Thorrez wrote: post #87
scotty79 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic is simple, we eat what's convenient to produce and we construct our morals around that.

Meat costs a lot to produce. We eat it because it tastes good, not because it's convenient.

No. Dogs also taste good but they are way less convenient to raise per kilogram of meat then cows. That's one of the main reasons we rather eat cows, pigs and poultry than dogs, dolphins, squirrels or guinea pigs.

People do a lot of expensive and wasteful things just because they are convenient in many domains of life.

Meat isn't tasty. If it was you wouldn't always eat it fried almost to a char with salt and spices. Tasty things you can just eat straight up. Meat is easy. It's easier to keep some cows on grassy hill then kill them, than to create and maintain a field there.

Meat is also easy to cook and eat. It digests nicely. It can be used in mono diet with no immediate ill effects. It's a no-brainer food even an idiot can use to sustain themselves. It's hard to poison yourself with it because if it's not fresh it stinks like hell.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#135

Post by im3w1l »

HPsquared wrote: post #65
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…

Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" comes to mind here.

Another perspective is that it's a clever way of asking for consent. Like a trial balloon, except not even carried out for real. You get to see if the public approves of the character or not, and then you decide how to proceed with that information.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#136

Post by Rhapso »

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…

Honestly is is just like Insurance. You understand the value of things you are protecting (and simple compliance has a value to you in penalties and liabilities avoided) and make sure it costs more than that to break into your system.

At a corporate level, it is contractually almost identical to insurance, with the product being sold liability for that security, not the security itself.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#137

Post by patrakov »

vishnugupta wrote: post #120
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…

What’s also interesting is that the tortured always turn out to be the bad guys. It never happens that he mistakenly tortured a good guy.

But dear sir, we have an autocracy a known corruption-free society with infallible and omniscient leaders, so you are not even allowed only reptilian slanderers would question the authorities.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#138

Post by belter »

Some of the seminal works on accountability as applied to systems and particularly the business world, are the works from Gerald M. Weinberg.

"Are Your Lights On?" - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1044831.Are_Your_Lights_...

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

"More Secrets of Consulting" - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/714345.More_Secrets_of_C...

Re: Accountability Sinks

#139

Post by dsego »

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…

> MOTs (annual vehicle safety tests) happen at any local garage.

Oh, I think we should have that in Croatia, since I'm doing yearly car service at my dealership and than still need to take my car to our national inspection station to get the car certificate renewed. Not sure why can't they organize a system were certified car garages can also inspect the vehicle and notify the Center for Vehicles. Maybe that would allow for more cheating but it's not like inspection stations employees are currently immune to taking a small bribe to overlook minor issues during the inspection.

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