5 ms·

In reality if you are one of those edge cases, you'll still get what you need, you'll just be inconvenienced by having to wade through bureaucratic morass. Temp

In reality if you are one of those edge cases, you'll still get what you need, you'll just be inconvenienced by having to wade through bureaucratic morass. Temporary inconvenience is not dystopian.

vec 9y ago
A system where everyone has to wade through a bureaucratic mess occasionally is certainly not dystopian. A system where only a handful of people have to wade through a bureaucratic mess with alarming regularity can get very dystopian very fast for those few.
- zrth 9y ago
  Serious question, which is better though?
  - vec 9y ago
    Where possible, distributed is almost always better. Comfort and convenience, like all forms of currency, have diminishing marginal utility. Therefore, distributing the costs minimizes the net human suffering.
- ams6110 9y ago
  There are always edge cases. That's why they are called edge cases.
jlgaddis 9y ago
Not being able to find a place to live (rent, in this case) is merely an inconvenience? Or, if you do manage to find a place to live but can't get access to your money to pay for it? If you can't obtain housing or (your own) money, I'd imagine that most other aspects of your life aren't going to be very pleasant either. Personally, I would consider having to forego food and/or shelter for an unknown length of time -- while a bureaucratic morass is being sorted out, because "the computer said no" -- to be much, much more than just a "temporary inconvenience".
- forthefuture 9y ago
  You are misunderstanding. The computer only helps everyone it works for. It doesn't hurt the people it doesn't work for. The worst case is that you get handled by people because the computer didn't work, which is the same as if there were no computers. We might not be optimized for human intervention into these processes, but that's because at the scale we operate at (hundreds of millions of users) it is physically impossible to provide human to human service for everyone.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jancsika 9y ago
    > The worst case is that you get handled by people because the computer didn't work, which is the same as if there were no computers. You are for some reason assuming the article described a failed computer-aided transaction gracefully degrading to a successful human-aided transaction. But that is clearly not what it describes: > Even then, human clerks and bank tellers would sometimes see the discrepancy, shrug and say “the computer says no” while denying me access to my accounts. In other words, this was an unsuccessful computer-aided transaction that a service representative did not have permission to override. If there had been no computers, the service representative would have successfully completed the transaction since there would have been no discrepancy. So in this example, computer discrepancy + powerless human representative is worse than a representative in a world with no computers. Edit: wording
    - forthefuture 9y ago
      > If there had been no computers, the service representative would have successfully completed the transaction since there would have been no discrepancy. If you replace a computer with a piece of paper with a different name on the account, it doesn't make it any easier for a service representative to override. This isn't a computer problem. It has always been inconvenient to change your name.
f1notformula1 9y ago
Perhaps there are degrees of dystopian-ness (not a real word?), and some people might consider our current degree more acceptable than others. IMO the only thing that matters at the end is whether people _care_ that something like this is wrong and want to fix it, or if they treat it as as "outliers gonna outlie" so they choose not to care. Without that level of concern, people who don't easily fit in to the mainstream find their lives increasingly considered less and less important.
jessaustin 9y ago
Thoughtless hardhearted privileged dude says what?
booleandilemma 9y ago
What's the alternative? If some random person walks into my bank and says they're me, but they've changed their name (and had surgery to change their appearance) I would want that person to be inconvenienced and go through hoops to prove it. I wouldn't want it to be easy for them to assume my identity.
1_2__4 9y ago
The dystopian aspect is ceding to computers rather than humans the fundamental decision making in our lives. Just because it hasn't gone full Brazil doesn't mean we're not hurtling towards it.
- xkddf 9y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gukrW6h5CSA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gukrW6h5CSA

In reality if you are one of those edge cases, you'll still get what you need, you'll just be inconvenienced by having to wade through bureaucratic morass. Temporary inconvenience is not dystopian.

vec 9y ago

A system where everyone has to wade through a bureaucratic mess occasionally is certainly not dystopian. A system where only a handful of people have to wade through a bureaucratic mess with alarming regularity can get very dystopian very fast for those few.

zrth 9y ago
Serious question, which is better though?
- vec 9y ago
  Where possible, distributed is almost always better. Comfort and convenience, like all forms of currency, have diminishing marginal utility. Therefore, distributing the costs minimizes the net human suffering.
ams6110 9y ago
There are always edge cases. That's why they are called edge cases.

jlgaddis 9y ago

Not being able to find a place to live (rent, in this case) is merely an inconvenience? Or, if you do manage to find a place to live but can't get access to your money to pay for it? If you can't obtain housing or (your own) money, I'd imagine that most other aspects of your life aren't going to be very pleasant either. Personally, I would consider having to forego food and/or shelter for an unknown length of time -- while a bureaucratic morass is being sorted out, because "the computer said no" -- to be much, much more than just a "temporary inconvenience".

forthefuture 9y ago
You are misunderstanding. The computer only helps everyone it works for. It doesn't hurt the people it doesn't work for. The worst case is that you get handled by people because the computer didn't work, which is the same as if there were no computers. We might not be optimized for human intervention into these processes, but that's because at the scale we operate at (hundreds of millions of users) it is physically impossible to provide human to human service for everyone.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jancsika 9y ago
  > The worst case is that you get handled by people because the computer didn't work, which is the same as if there were no computers. You are for some reason assuming the article described a failed computer-aided transaction gracefully degrading to a successful human-aided transaction. But that is clearly not what it describes: > Even then, human clerks and bank tellers would sometimes see the discrepancy, shrug and say “the computer says no” while denying me access to my accounts. In other words, this was an unsuccessful computer-aided transaction that a service representative did not have permission to override. If there had been no computers, the service representative would have successfully completed the transaction since there would have been no discrepancy. So in this example, computer discrepancy + powerless human representative is worse than a representative in a world with no computers. Edit: wording
  - forthefuture 9y ago
    > If there had been no computers, the service representative would have successfully completed the transaction since there would have been no discrepancy. If you replace a computer with a piece of paper with a different name on the account, it doesn't make it any easier for a service representative to override. This isn't a computer problem. It has always been inconvenient to change your name.

f1notformula1 9y ago

Perhaps there are degrees of dystopian-ness (not a real word?), and some people might consider our current degree more acceptable than others. IMO the only thing that matters at the end is whether people _care_ that something like this is wrong and want to fix it, or if they treat it as as "outliers gonna outlie" so they choose not to care. Without that level of concern, people who don't easily fit in to the mainstream find their lives increasingly considered less and less important.

jessaustin 9y ago

Thoughtless hardhearted privileged dude says what?

booleandilemma 9y ago

What's the alternative? If some random person walks into my bank and says they're me, but they've changed their name (and had surgery to change their appearance) I would want that person to be inconvenienced and go through hoops to prove it. I wouldn't want it to be easy for them to assume my identity.

1_2__4 9y ago

The dystopian aspect is ceding to computers rather than humans the fundamental decision making in our lives. Just because it hasn't gone full Brazil doesn't mean we're not hurtling towards it.

xkddf 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gukrW6h5CSA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gukrW6h5CSA