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Are you trying to say that you don't believe in integrity?

by s5300 6y ago

roenxi 6y ago
Sure. And they hopefully do their best. But it sits in tension with friendship. That is why there are all sorts of principles against it for high-integrity systems.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  Well, props for sticking with a truly unpopular opinion. I’d like to change your mind one day though. My friendship with Scott was instructive here. He was a former HN mod. I looked to him as a mentor and a friend, though I’m not sure it went both ways. Regardless, we worked together on Lumen for years. When I was banned for a year from HN, he never once allowed our friendship (such as it was) to affect his duty to the site. The decision wasn’t his, and he wasn’t going to pull strings internally just because we occasionally wrote code together. I get what you’re saying. And I agree that in the long term, it’s extremely important to set up incentive structures in the right way. But friendship — a word quite hard to define, if you think about it — is a part of the human experience. The point here is that there are people with integrity. They do exist. And they can be friends regardless of other duties — sometimes unpleasant ones. Now, my little story isn’t quite related. I wasn’t an adversarial peer, which is what you’re talking about. But your reasoning seems to be: if the incentive structure permits friendship, it compromises integrity. It’s a reasonable concern, especially over the course of decades. But the word “professional” reflects the fact that business comes before friendship. It’s a fundamental truth that people will try to form friendships regardless of their occupation. Rather than change the incentive structure, as you propose, shouldn’t we recognize that truth? The reason I related to your comment so much is, for a time, I felt exactly the same way: if business was any indication, it was a web of insider deals, “friendships”, and favors behind closed doors. I wanted nothing to do with that world. But two people with integrity can sidestep all of those concerns and simply... be friends. Even in the highest court of the land, which determines our fate. (As a sidenote, you seem like an interesting person. If you happen to want a friend, or to debate hypothetical political structures, feel free to DM me on Twitter.)
  - superflit 6y ago
    It not because you can isolate your friendship from duty that other people can do the same. What may seem natural for you isn't for others. Thus system are designed considering that.
  - serf 6y ago
    >The point here is that there are people with integrity. They do exist. And they can be friends regardless of other duties — sometimes unpleasant ones. Sure. There are fantastic individuals out there. The key to fair systems is to structure the system in such a way that does not rely on the recruitment of extraordinary individuals who are filled to the brim with integrity. The key is to create a system of checks and balances that disallows obvious unfairness by means of liability isolation and personal separation, etc. I'm glad your friendship with whoever Scott is worked out despite whatever problems on HN, but all the example tells me is that Scott (and to a smaller degree, yourself) have some level of personal integrity; but facts and statistics generally say that systems that can be gamed, will be -- and that's without a motivating factor other than a personal win; include motivation like money and power and the scales tip much more radically against those with integrity. For every 'Scott' there are 10 folks without any integrity that'd have gladly re-instantiated their friends' accounts that had been banned AS LONG AS it didn't mean hurting their own position. That's exactly why 'fair' systems are generally built in such an isolated fashion so as to reduce inclusion of bias and personal feelings.
    - sukilot 6y ago
      If we can't find people of integrity for the Supreme Court, the Republic is lost regardless of the official policies.
    - sillysaurusx 6y ago
      Exactly! Which is why this conversation is so interesting – and why it seemed they were unfairly downvoted. The question of "does friendship compromise integrity of systems over time?" is quite fascinating, and there are many examples across many countries that show "yes, yes it does." So it seemed entirely legitimate to say that perhaps a system should penalize friendships, somehow. But, after watching Scalia, how can you not like him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0&ab_channel=AmericanRhetoric.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0&ab_channel=Ameri... https://youtu.be/TRS-jdgHok4?t=105 https://youtu.be/TRS-jdgHok4?t=105 He was witty, charming, and a master orator. So when people hear "can't have a friendship with Scalia, even though you work with him," it's kind of like "can't breathe, even though you're human." It's a logical contradiction. And it's not even a well-defined problem: what is a "friendship," anyway?

Are you trying to say that you don't believe in integrity?

by s5300 6y ago

Are you trying to say that you don't believe in integrity?

Sure. And they hopefully do their best. But it sits in tension with friendship. That is why there are all sorts of principles against it for high-integrity systems.

sillysaurusx 6y ago
Well, props for sticking with a truly unpopular opinion. I’d like to change your mind one day though. My friendship with Scott was instructive here. He was a former HN mod. I looked to him as a mentor and a friend, though I’m not sure it went both ways. Regardless, we worked together on Lumen for years. When I was banned for a year from HN, he never once allowed our friendship (such as it was) to affect his duty to the site. The decision wasn’t his, and he wasn’t going to pull strings internally just because we occasionally wrote code together. I get what you’re saying. And I agree that in the long term, it’s extremely important to set up incentive structures in the right way. But friendship — a word quite hard to define, if you think about it — is a part of the human experience. The point here is that there are people with integrity. They do exist. And they can be friends regardless of other duties — sometimes unpleasant ones. Now, my little story isn’t quite related. I wasn’t an adversarial peer, which is what you’re talking about. But your reasoning seems to be: if the incentive structure permits friendship, it compromises integrity. It’s a reasonable concern, especially over the course of decades. But the word “professional” reflects the fact that business comes before friendship. It’s a fundamental truth that people will try to form friendships regardless of their occupation. Rather than change the incentive structure, as you propose, shouldn’t we recognize that truth? The reason I related to your comment so much is, for a time, I felt exactly the same way: if business was any indication, it was a web of insider deals, “friendships”, and favors behind closed doors. I wanted nothing to do with that world. But two people with integrity can sidestep all of those concerns and simply... be friends. Even in the highest court of the land, which determines our fate. (As a sidenote, you seem like an interesting person. If you happen to want a friend, or to debate hypothetical political structures, feel free to DM me on Twitter.)
- superflit 6y ago
  It not because you can isolate your friendship from duty that other people can do the same. What may seem natural for you isn't for others. Thus system are designed considering that.
- serf 6y ago
  >The point here is that there are people with integrity. They do exist. And they can be friends regardless of other duties — sometimes unpleasant ones. Sure. There are fantastic individuals out there. The key to fair systems is to structure the system in such a way that does not rely on the recruitment of extraordinary individuals who are filled to the brim with integrity. The key is to create a system of checks and balances that disallows obvious unfairness by means of liability isolation and personal separation, etc. I'm glad your friendship with whoever Scott is worked out despite whatever problems on HN, but all the example tells me is that Scott (and to a smaller degree, yourself) have some level of personal integrity; but facts and statistics generally say that systems that can be gamed, will be -- and that's without a motivating factor other than a personal win; include motivation like money and power and the scales tip much more radically against those with integrity. For every 'Scott' there are 10 folks without any integrity that'd have gladly re-instantiated their friends' accounts that had been banned AS LONG AS it didn't mean hurting their own position. That's exactly why 'fair' systems are generally built in such an isolated fashion so as to reduce inclusion of bias and personal feelings.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    If we can't find people of integrity for the Supreme Court, the Republic is lost regardless of the official policies.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    Exactly! Which is why this conversation is so interesting – and why it seemed they were unfairly downvoted. The question of "does friendship compromise integrity of systems over time?" is quite fascinating, and there are many examples across many countries that show "yes, yes it does." So it seemed entirely legitimate to say that perhaps a system should penalize friendships, somehow. But, after watching Scalia, how can you not like him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0&ab_channel=AmericanRhetoric.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0&ab_channel=Ameri... https://youtu.be/TRS-jdgHok4?t=105 https://youtu.be/TRS-jdgHok4?t=105 He was witty, charming, and a master orator. So when people hear "can't have a friendship with Scalia, even though you work with him," it's kind of like "can't breathe, even though you're human." It's a logical contradiction. And it's not even a well-defined problem: what is a "friendship," anyway?