And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
1–10 of 447 posts
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#2Also here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49329384
Submitted many hours earlier, fewer upvotes, one comment, sank without trace.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#3A good article, but missing one very important word: trust.
Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustworthy without consequence to ruin a good thing.
So no you can't build a system that's meets all of the article's criteria because almost all of them rely on the unspoken rule of trust in civil society. Everything built for good can be abused for evil.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#4Also here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49329384 Submitted many hours earlier, fewer upvotes, one comment, sank without trace.
A few days ago I submitted what may have been the largest data breach in history. It got 1 upvote and vanished. I haven't even seen people MENTION the breach here.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#5A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch ". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustwort…
Yes good point and in theory that's how it should work and mostly does. The interesting thing we're seeing is how it's playing out at a societal level with regards to the manipulation, gaslighting, cheating and bullying. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in individual interpersonal relationships, it sometimes takes a while for the victim to fully understand what's being done to them because the abuser is not only doing harmful things but then they also gaslight, manipulate, lie, etc. There's usually a lag effect for first time victims to fully understand what's being done to them, and now at a societal level it's taking a while for groups to understand the same pattern. The most unfortunate part of it all though is how many people and institutions are 'in on it' perse and continously prop up horrible behavior because it also suits them or in the case of bullying, they go along with the bullying so as to shield themselves from being the target.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#6[deleted]
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#7A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch ". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustwort…
But we have built so many enduring systems that rely on bad apples to function the way the do. See "insurance pricing", "private prisons", and "justice enforcement". In the real world, the ideal number of jails or homeless people is neither zero nor "all of them".
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#8> How would you design a system that simultaneously achieved all these goals:
There is an obvious solution that achieves all of these, that, on 1000 year timescales, seems inevitable: deprecation of the nation-state.
The internet solves every problem the nation-state purports to. For example, the very real problem of coordination, eloquently and convincingly outlined in the federalist papers (tldr: we need a central republic structure because it's too difficult to coordinate disparate statehouses via horseback with every little intrastate decision) is solved by dint of instant communication and long-term data retention. So it is with every other claim in favor of these huge legacy state structures.
In this age, there is no longer any state needs to be larger than say, 1500 square km - about the size of a large county. This way, people can flee on foot to an adjacent state if needed, and no state can possibly control enough infrastructure to force Vodaphone to send such nauseating propaganda.
We need the elder statesmen in the room to read the writing on the wall and begin this process.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#9A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch ". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustwort…
Beautifully said. I feel as if the society that we are living in does have a lot of implicit trust and if I may, I would like to add onto it with a few things.
Trust works in a society when incentives are aligned with trust ie. you trust the society, the society trusts you back and you do the work with these principles and you are rewarded. Even this belief is something that you must trust that the society is fair. This trust creates your beliefs which sets your base-line incentives.
If your society is trustworthy and you are taught to be trustworthy and you see that the rewards are fairly distributed being trustworthy. It creates an incentives to be trustworthy yourself and a society is made by people like you and so everyone else does so too and the society becomes trustworthy and the cycle continues.
You would trust the society because you think your goals are aligned. Both you and society want the same thing.
BUT, the second the average individual works that the society or system is untrustworthy, that the incentives aren't aligned and I can't trust it.
The thing now is that the incentives are so misaligned with the reality of trustworthiness and it has become apparently clear. The incentives have also become unpredictable and questionable sometimes within the society and yet we see society tolerate, dare I say celebrate it sometimes. This makes us question if my personal incentives are aligned with society or not and if I am getting screwed or not by being so trustworthy of society and doing things fairly.
This in turns creates a vicious loop.
As such, fairness, trust and incentives play a very cyclical dependency on each other. You only trust if you feel like its fair and if the incentives prefer you to be fair as well.
I would sadly say that although our society is trending towards unfairness,untrustworthiness and perverse incentives. I do have a glimmer of hope that this too shall pass.
Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway
#10> How would you design a system that simultaneously achieved all these goals: There is an obvious solution that achieves all of these, that, on 1000 year timescales, seems inevitable: deprecation of the nation-state. The internet solves every problem the nation-state purports to. For example, the very real problem of coordination, eloquently and convincingly outlined in the federalist papers (tldr: we need a central…
Given the vacuum left by pinhole-sized states, Vodafone could become the issuer of propaganda itself as it would have the airwaves and the power of a large state.