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His ethic treaties are the most boring of his work, but Kant the german philosopher had an opinion on ethics around your actions becoming universal. So in this

His ethic treaties are the most boring of his work, but Kant the german philosopher had an opinion on ethics around your actions becoming universal. So in this case, would you want most internet traffick to be sock puppets that increase visibility for companies? I think the obvious answer is no. So if we do not want to have the entire internet be fake content pretending to be organic users, we should not want it for Reddit either

autoexec 3y ago
> So in this case, would you want most internet traffick to be sock puppets that increase visibility for companies? I might if it were only for the first few weeks/months of a totally new internet almost nobody except sock puppets was logging into. If there's nothing on the new internet, anyone who does log in will log out once they see they can't find anything. > So if we do not want to have the entire internet be fake content pretending to be organic users, we should not want it for Reddit either No one wants the entirety of reddit to be fake content, and thankfully it isn't because the founders could back off once they got momentum. Of course there are still sockpuppets on reddit, and the internet as a whole, but that doesn't mean there's never a time, a place, duration, or proportion at which they're acceptable. It's kind of like saying: "You should never ever eat ice cream because of how terrible it would be if everyone on the entire planet ate nothing at all but ice cream for every single meal. We'd all get sick so clearly eating ice cream at any point for any length of time must be inherently wrong!"
- Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
  Yep thats one of the criticisms of his Ethics (there are plenty others). But the problem is, there is no arbitror on what amount, duration, or proportion is acceptable. Being inherently dishonest from the start, there is absolutely no way to know what percentage of early, or current Reddit content is inorganic. The problem with "I will break the rules a little" is that its a gateway drug. Corruption does not start from someone signing a blood diamonds deal with a warlord, but with people in the org thinking small ways to not do things "by the book" and escalating from there. Thats the reason there is "a book", because if we all agree on the rules and we let those who cheat win, then the ones who cheat the most will win every time. (See taxation loopholes for another glaring example). You could always have transparent inorganic content. "Admin_cat_content", "Admin_politics_content" as named accounts, post some content and people clearly know who is behind the content, and the type of stuff they are sharing, the communities they are fostering etc. Or you could have an existing network that you leverage (like harvard students for facebook) instead of starting a social media with fake accounts.
  - Sai_ 3y ago
    > with people in the org thinking small ways to not do things "by the book" and escalating from there …and then you get the chaos of India.
  - tomhoward 3y ago
    If Kant is being invoked about this we might have strayed into the weeds just a little! > The problem with "I will break the rules a little" So this whole argument presupposes there were any “rules” that were broken. There weren’t. It was/is an anonymous site, where anyone could/can register any number of usernames and post whatever they want under each one. And nobody who liked Reddit then or now would have any problem with what the founders did to simulate activity and get it growing. It is only people like finding reasons to finger-wag who fixate on this. Honestly there is room for playfulness in how we start products/companies and how we look at it years later.
    - Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
      > If Kant is being invoked about this we might have strayed into the weeds just a little! I find his ethics quite a bore, like many christian thinkers he very quickly skips all the fun bits to jump into "god" as an answer. But the universal maxim principle is quite fun to use as a metric for "small infractions" that are easy to wave away (specially when forgiving yourself) but that would make live hell if everyone did them all the time. > There weren’t. They were though. Maybe not explicitly but social contracts are still rules. And despite having usernames and not personaly linked info most people assume 1 nick = 1 person. If I created twelve accounts and replied to you with all of them, sure no "rules" would be broken, but anyone who stumbled upon this conversation would implicitly think a large number of people disagree with you. Famous users have been banned later into the platforms lifecycle for doing exactly that, just getting a few accounts to upvote themselves. In reddits economy the first 5 upvotes are are good as the next 1000 basically. > And nobody who liked Reddit then or now would have any problem with what the founders did to simulate activity and get it growing. They do not know what they could not get. If there was a better app, a better founding team who was chasing Digg's fall but did not cheat they might be left in the dust of history. And in a parallel universe the users would be happier with that platform than they are now on Reddit. Capitalism could reward something more than speed (or in this case network effects) if someone else had a better platform without sock puppet accounts. (Similar arguments can be made about the jailbait subreddit and the ethical implications of that and the initial growth of reddit but thats just seeing trends in their ethical behaviour beyond their founding)

autoexec 3y ago

> So in this case, would you want most internet traffick to be sock puppets that increase visibility for companies? I might if it were only for the first few weeks/months of a totally new internet almost nobody except sock puppets was logging into. If there's nothing on the new internet, anyone who does log in will log out once they see they can't find anything. > So if we do not want to have the entire internet be fake content pretending to be organic users, we should not want it for Reddit either No one wants the entirety of reddit to be fake content, and thankfully it isn't because the founders could back off once they got momentum. Of course there are still sockpuppets on reddit, and the internet as a whole, but that doesn't mean there's never a time, a place, duration, or proportion at which they're acceptable. It's kind of like saying: "You should never ever eat ice cream because of how terrible it would be if everyone on the entire planet ate nothing at all but ice cream for every single meal. We'd all get sick so clearly eating ice cream at any point for any length of time must be inherently wrong!"

Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
Yep thats one of the criticisms of his Ethics (there are plenty others). But the problem is, there is no arbitror on what amount, duration, or proportion is acceptable. Being inherently dishonest from the start, there is absolutely no way to know what percentage of early, or current Reddit content is inorganic. The problem with "I will break the rules a little" is that its a gateway drug. Corruption does not start from someone signing a blood diamonds deal with a warlord, but with people in the org thinking small ways to not do things "by the book" and escalating from there. Thats the reason there is "a book", because if we all agree on the rules and we let those who cheat win, then the ones who cheat the most will win every time. (See taxation loopholes for another glaring example). You could always have transparent inorganic content. "Admin_cat_content", "Admin_politics_content" as named accounts, post some content and people clearly know who is behind the content, and the type of stuff they are sharing, the communities they are fostering etc. Or you could have an existing network that you leverage (like harvard students for facebook) instead of starting a social media with fake accounts.
- Sai_ 3y ago
  > with people in the org thinking small ways to not do things "by the book" and escalating from there …and then you get the chaos of India.
- tomhoward 3y ago
  If Kant is being invoked about this we might have strayed into the weeds just a little! > The problem with "I will break the rules a little" So this whole argument presupposes there were any “rules” that were broken. There weren’t. It was/is an anonymous site, where anyone could/can register any number of usernames and post whatever they want under each one. And nobody who liked Reddit then or now would have any problem with what the founders did to simulate activity and get it growing. It is only people like finding reasons to finger-wag who fixate on this. Honestly there is room for playfulness in how we start products/companies and how we look at it years later.
  - Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
    > If Kant is being invoked about this we might have strayed into the weeds just a little! I find his ethics quite a bore, like many christian thinkers he very quickly skips all the fun bits to jump into "god" as an answer. But the universal maxim principle is quite fun to use as a metric for "small infractions" that are easy to wave away (specially when forgiving yourself) but that would make live hell if everyone did them all the time. > There weren’t. They were though. Maybe not explicitly but social contracts are still rules. And despite having usernames and not personaly linked info most people assume 1 nick = 1 person. If I created twelve accounts and replied to you with all of them, sure no "rules" would be broken, but anyone who stumbled upon this conversation would implicitly think a large number of people disagree with you. Famous users have been banned later into the platforms lifecycle for doing exactly that, just getting a few accounts to upvote themselves. In reddits economy the first 5 upvotes are are good as the next 1000 basically. > And nobody who liked Reddit then or now would have any problem with what the founders did to simulate activity and get it growing. They do not know what they could not get. If there was a better app, a better founding team who was chasing Digg's fall but did not cheat they might be left in the dust of history. And in a parallel universe the users would be happier with that platform than they are now on Reddit. Capitalism could reward something more than speed (or in this case network effects) if someone else had a better platform without sock puppet accounts. (Similar arguments can be made about the jailbait subreddit and the ethical implications of that and the initial growth of reddit but thats just seeing trends in their ethical behaviour beyond their founding)