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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 arg

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)
- tomhoward 3y ago
  There is no “social contract” against simulating usage on a site that has no organic usage. > a better founding team who was chasing Digg's fall but did not cheat Every new social site has to find some trick to kickstart usage and break out of their chicken-and-egg trap. There’s no “cheating” to speak of here. It’s playfulness. The teams that tried and failed to grow this kind of thing would have failed due to a lack of playfulness and imagination. I say again, we can afford to see the fun in this, and commenters might reflect on their need to react to my appeal against grumpiness by replying with more grumpiness.
  - Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
    > There is no “social contract” against simulating usage on a site that has no organic usage If we cannot agree that most people expect nick to mean one person then we are not gonna agree on anything else. But that is one of the most basic assumptions of anonymous internet comms since IRC. > Every new social site has to find some trick to kickstart usage and break out of their chicken-and-egg trap. good marketing, leveraging existing IRL networks, transparent content from the founding team. Youtube made a video with the creators at the zoo, Facebook used harvard students knowing each other irl, etc. > There’s no “cheating” to speak of here. It’s playfulness. They say the way to hell is paved with good intentions. Playfullness is a very cute way to frame deceit, but its still a lie to most. Grumpiness out of the market rewarding liars and cheaters is the obvious, and normal response. The proposed goal of a market led economy is the efficient market hypothesis, if you find obvious, glaring, examples of non optimal solutions (such as cheating, corruption, law breaking, scams, deceit, fraud etc) being rewarded instead of punished then yeah you should be grumpy.
    - tomhoward 3y ago
      Please try and step outside yourself for a moment and consider how many extreme words (hell, deceit, lie, cheating, corruption, law breaking, scams, fraud) you've included in this comment, about an act that nobody has ever claimed to be harmed by and no government agency has ever expressed any concerns about, and by your own argumentation can only be deemed wrong according to the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, which is no objective standard of morality at all - just one person's musings a couple of centuries ago. If the Reddit foundation story was as self-evidently heinous as you're insisting, you wouldn't need to use all those charged words.
brightlancer 3y ago
> So this whole argument presupposes there were any “rules” that were broken. You're conflating legal laws with social and moral rules. Nobody's claiming they broke legal laws; they're claiming they broke social and moral rules. Rather than discuss that point, you retreat to arguing they didn't break legal laws.
- tomhoward 3y ago
  There is no social/moral rule against simulating usage on a brand new website that has no organic usage. People in this thread are writing whole screeds arguing the importance of condemning this supposed moral breach, but it’s a case of the beg the question fallacy: people are seeking to prove there was a moral breach by assuming there was a moral breach. I say again: nobody who was an early organic visitor to Reddit has ever complained of being deceived or harmed, and indeed they self-evidently benefited by finding content they liked and a site they wanted to post to. Also: from the very start of this subthread my main point has been against grumpiness, and people keep grumpily replying, apparently trying to defend the importance of grumpiness. I mean, sure!

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)

tomhoward 3y ago
There is no “social contract” against simulating usage on a site that has no organic usage. > a better founding team who was chasing Digg's fall but did not cheat Every new social site has to find some trick to kickstart usage and break out of their chicken-and-egg trap. There’s no “cheating” to speak of here. It’s playfulness. The teams that tried and failed to grow this kind of thing would have failed due to a lack of playfulness and imagination. I say again, we can afford to see the fun in this, and commenters might reflect on their need to react to my appeal against grumpiness by replying with more grumpiness.
- Arkhaine_kupo 3y ago
  > There is no “social contract” against simulating usage on a site that has no organic usage If we cannot agree that most people expect nick to mean one person then we are not gonna agree on anything else. But that is one of the most basic assumptions of anonymous internet comms since IRC. > Every new social site has to find some trick to kickstart usage and break out of their chicken-and-egg trap. good marketing, leveraging existing IRL networks, transparent content from the founding team. Youtube made a video with the creators at the zoo, Facebook used harvard students knowing each other irl, etc. > There’s no “cheating” to speak of here. It’s playfulness. They say the way to hell is paved with good intentions. Playfullness is a very cute way to frame deceit, but its still a lie to most. Grumpiness out of the market rewarding liars and cheaters is the obvious, and normal response. The proposed goal of a market led economy is the efficient market hypothesis, if you find obvious, glaring, examples of non optimal solutions (such as cheating, corruption, law breaking, scams, deceit, fraud etc) being rewarded instead of punished then yeah you should be grumpy.
  - tomhoward 3y ago
    Please try and step outside yourself for a moment and consider how many extreme words (hell, deceit, lie, cheating, corruption, law breaking, scams, fraud) you've included in this comment, about an act that nobody has ever claimed to be harmed by and no government agency has ever expressed any concerns about, and by your own argumentation can only be deemed wrong according to the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, which is no objective standard of morality at all - just one person's musings a couple of centuries ago. If the Reddit foundation story was as self-evidently heinous as you're insisting, you wouldn't need to use all those charged words.

brightlancer 3y ago

> So this whole argument presupposes there were any “rules” that were broken. You're conflating legal laws with social and moral rules. Nobody's claiming they broke legal laws; they're claiming they broke social and moral rules. Rather than discuss that point, you retreat to arguing they didn't break legal laws.

tomhoward 3y ago
There is no social/moral rule against simulating usage on a brand new website that has no organic usage. People in this thread are writing whole screeds arguing the importance of condemning this supposed moral breach, but it’s a case of the beg the question fallacy: people are seeking to prove there was a moral breach by assuming there was a moral breach. I say again: nobody who was an early organic visitor to Reddit has ever complained of being deceived or harmed, and indeed they self-evidently benefited by finding content they liked and a site they wanted to post to. Also: from the very start of this subthread my main point has been against grumpiness, and people keep grumpily replying, apparently trying to defend the importance of grumpiness. I mean, sure!