4 ms·

> It's the poor, as always. The people who know the system is rigged, know the system has to be gamed in order to make money, and are desperately looking for a

by danans 7y ago

> It's the poor, as always. The people who know the system is rigged, know the system has to be gamed in order to make money, and are desperately looking for a way to be competitive and get ahead. > They get slammed for life for making a poor moral choice. Why? Because they're easy to find and it's easy to punish them. This observation has strong parallels with how the poorest are lowest rung of the drug trade - on the street, and bear the highest price of it - death or imprisonment, while the higher level traffickers usually get away with impunity. But the populace feels good because of the disheveled mugshot of the street drug dealer they saw on the evening news.

DanielBMarkham 7y ago
The drug analogy is very interesting. As you may know, 100-ish years ago, drugs were legal. Some people frowned upon them, some did not. Then there was a great moral uprising followed by legislation, then we had the War on Drugs. Finally the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way. So we've seen most of a full cycle. Continuing your low-level drug dealer example, if that guy that runs the car wash down the street gets banned for using fake likes, why shouldn't he? It was a bad thing to do! We can see him, we know him, he did a bad thing and deserves his punishment. Not only does he deserve his punishment, we should shame him if we can in order to discourage others from contemplating doing the same thing. Maybe if we increase punishment we can see less of that sort of thing around here. Ever hear how a lot of social/internet companies got started? Sock puppets, fake likes, generated social proof, paying off influencers, and so forth. All the things the little, common folk aren't supposed to do today. It seems there is a moral code for the common folk and a separate one for our betters. All animals are equal ... This story, where we find all these millions of fake people and likes, is a "drugs on the table" story: big flash, looks like progress is being made, we have heroes and villains, feats of strength and daring, and people can feel like the net is somehow safer. Then things can go on as usual.
- danans 7y ago
  Another recent example of this are the ICE raids on slaughterhouses rounding up undocumented immigrant workers. I've yet to hear of a single executive of those companies arrested and put on trial for their employment practices. It's almost as if changing the employment practices wasn't the objective.

by danans 7y ago

DanielBMarkham 7y ago

The drug analogy is very interesting. As you may know, 100-ish years ago, drugs were legal. Some people frowned upon them, some did not. Then there was a great moral uprising followed by legislation, then we had the War on Drugs. Finally the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way. So we've seen most of a full cycle. Continuing your low-level drug dealer example, if that guy that runs the car wash down the street gets banned for using fake likes, why shouldn't he? It was a bad thing to do! We can see him, we know him, he did a bad thing and deserves his punishment. Not only does he deserve his punishment, we should shame him if we can in order to discourage others from contemplating doing the same thing. Maybe if we increase punishment we can see less of that sort of thing around here. Ever hear how a lot of social/internet companies got started? Sock puppets, fake likes, generated social proof, paying off influencers, and so forth. All the things the little, common folk aren't supposed to do today. It seems there is a moral code for the common folk and a separate one for our betters. All animals are equal ... This story, where we find all these millions of fake people and likes, is a "drugs on the table" story: big flash, looks like progress is being made, we have heroes and villains, feats of strength and daring, and people can feel like the net is somehow safer. Then things can go on as usual.

danans 7y ago
Another recent example of this are the ICE raids on slaughterhouses rounding up undocumented immigrant workers. I've yet to hear of a single executive of those companies arrested and put on trial for their employment practices. It's almost as if changing the employment practices wasn't the objective.