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Don't hate the player hate the game. Governments made scientist only survive if they show results and specifically the results they want to see. Otherwise no an

by Lionga 2y ago

Don't hate the player hate the game. Governments made scientist only survive if they show results and specifically the results they want to see. Otherwise no anymore grants and you are done. Whether the results are fake or true does not matter "Science" nowadays is mostly BS, while the scientific method (hardly ever used in "science" nowadays) is still gold.

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
Do hate the player. People are taught ethics for a reason: no set of rules and laws are sufficient to ensure integrity of the system. We rely on personal integrity. This is why we teach it to our children.
- dhruvkar 2y ago
  When everything is a commodity (nothing runs outside of the market economy), the incentives are skewed to this type of behavior. 'Hate' the player' and 'hate' the game. Some things shouldn't be part of the market economy - education, health and food.
- hacksoi 2y ago
  If people can get away with it, they will do it. Rules and punishments for breaking them exist for a reason.
  - pmarreck 2y ago
    My sole rational argument for Christianity is that it has made the societies that it is, or was, infused with, more honest than the ones that were not.
    - Lionga 2y ago
      We should really do some more honest crusades to export our honest values to the non believers to make the world a better, more honest place.
      - pmarreck 2y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 also the crusades were in significant part a competitive reaction to Islamic "proselytization via violence" so you're placing the blame on the wrong religion, there
    - ksenzee 2y ago
      I’m not sure there are any rational arguments for Christianity. I say that as a practicing Christian. Either it meets a spiritual need in you, or it’s not very valuable. I imagine that belief in a God who punishes evildoers has kept some people honest throughout history, but the value of that is surely outweighed by the evil done in the name of that God. I also don’t believe Christian societies are more honest than others. Every religion I know of teaches honesty, as does every non-religious ethical framework I can think of.
      - pmarreck 2y ago
        I unfortunately cannot track down the prior research that I did on this in the time I have available as a new father but I am as skeptical as they come and I seemed to have found some solid data suggesting that nations with Christian values are simply broadly more honest and trustworthy. This includes countries such as Iceland because even though it is technically atheist, there's inertia there still from the influence of Christianity on its culture.
        ksenzee 2y ago
        Congratulations! I hope you're getting some sleep. If you do ever happen across that data I'd be interested.
    - projektfu 2y ago
      That sounds like it is loaded with a lot of "no true Scotsman" caveats including, perhaps, Scotland, which has crime like any other country.
      - pmarreck 2y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157
    - regus 2y ago
      People doing bad things, including Christians, is completely in line with the Christian teachings of original sin, the fall and concupiscence. It is human nature to do bad things and it is very difficult to over come this behavior.
    - inglor_cz 2y ago
      If I read pagan Roman observations about life and people, they strike me as way, way more honest (sometimes brutally honest) than anything that we are used to for the last 1000 years, perhaps with exceptions like Machiavelli and some verbal jokes of the "unprintable" character. In Christian theory, everyone is a sinner, but in a real Christian society, people try to cover up their particular sins all the time, at least against other laypeople (not the priest), which leads to the opposite of honesty - hypocrisy.
      - pmarreck 2y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157
  - throwawayofcour 2y ago
    > If people can get away with it, they will do it. This isn't true of everyone, but assuming it is increases the likelihood that it will become so. Because if everyone is trying to get away with it, why shouldn't I? That sort of breakdown in trust is high up on my list of worrying societal failure modes.
  - thfuran 2y ago
    If they can get away with it, some people will do it.
  - testfoobar 2y ago
    > If people can get away with it, they will do it. This is not universally true and individuals and societies don't have to be organized this way. Why are streets in some countries filled with trash when others are clean? My community does not have anyone policing littering - yet our streets, parks and public areas are litter free.
    - Chris2048 2y ago
      You are kind of begging the question - Do all members of your community take mandatory ethics classes?
- artificialLimbs 2y ago
  How did those teachings work out for the fraudsters?
  - SpaceManNabs 2y ago
    Most of them become distinguished in academia, and only a few get punished if they are too blatant or piss off too many people (see recent ivys losing their presidents over academic fraud).
  - indymike 2y ago
    Their parents taught them different ethics.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
    This is exactly what personal integrity is about. You make the right choices specifically and only because they are right. And they are hard choices because you are forgoing immediate gain. Time favors integrity, and a lack of integrity is usually punished. Sometimes at the individual level, as you age and see the error of your ways. Sometimes at the group level, as you watch your community suffer. "You reap what you sow."
Spivak 2y ago
You are clearly deeply disconnected from the actual practice of research. The best you can really say is that the statistics chops of most researchers is lacking and that someone researching say caterpillars is likely to not really understand the maths behind the tests they're performing. It's not an ideal solution by any means but universities are starting to hire stats and cs department grads to handle that part.
ljosifov 2y ago
You have agency. Yes - the system provides incentives. However, you are not some pass-through nothingness to just accept any incentives. You can chose to not accept the incentives. You can leave the system. You're lucky - it's not a totalitarian system. There will be another area of life and work where the incentives align with your personal morals. Once you bend your spine and kneel to bad incentives - you can never walk completely upright again. You may think and convince yourself that you can stay in the system with bad incentives, play the game, but still somehow you the player remain platonically unaffected. This is a delusion, and at some level you know it too. Who knows? If everyone left the system with bad incentives, it maybe that the bad system collapses even. It's a problem of collective action. The chances are against a collapse, that it will continue to go on for some time. So don't count on collapse. And even if one was to happen in your time, it will be scorched earth post collapse for some time. Think as an individual - it's best to leave if you possibly can.
greenavocado 2y ago
A true scientist never says, "trust me" or even worse, "trust the science." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnPFL0Dr34c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnPFL0Dr34c
- vostrocity 2y ago
  Reminds me of this tweet that calls out the problem of the popular position "science is real" "Science isn’t real - that’s terrible epistemology. It’s a process or method to generate and verify hypotheses and provisional knowledge, using replicable experiments and measurements. We don’t really know the real - we just have some current non-falsified theories and explanations that fit data decently, till we get better ones. The “science is real” crowd generally haven’t done much science and take it on faith." [1] https://x.com/rao_hacker_one/status/1811295722760982939 https://x.com/rao_hacker_one/status/1811295722760982939
  - dekhn 2y ago
    It's probably better to say that engineering based on science is usually real. Engineering cares a lot less about falsifying theories and more on what existing theories seem to have general predictive value, and can be used to do stuff, including things where human lives are at risk (tall buildings, fire reduction materials, airplanes). And if there are failures out in the field, they're inspected, and those results are fed back to update both the practices, and the theories. Personally I believe we live in an objective universe that can be understood by human brains (possibly using AI augmentation) and that our currently most advanced experimentally verified theories correspond to some actual true aspect of our universe. In that sense, science is real when the current theories match those aspects well enough to make generalizable predictions (general relativity and quantum mechanics).
    - greenavocado 2y ago
      I think you've hit on an important point. Science isn't about finding absolute truth, but rather about generating testable hypotheses that can be validated through experimentation and observation. This is why it's so crucial for scientists to follow the scientific method - they need to be willing to revise their theories based on new evidence. Your comparison between science and engineering is a good one. Engineering is often more focused on practical application, whereas science is more about understanding the underlying mechanisms that govern our world.
BobaFloutist 2y ago
"Nobody is ever responsible for their own actions. Economics predicting the existence of bad actors makes them not actually bad."
vanderZwan 2y ago
> Don't hate the player hate the game. When the game is designed by the most succesful players you absolutely should hate the players for creating a shitty game.

by Lionga 2y ago

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago

Do hate the player. People are taught ethics for a reason: no set of rules and laws are sufficient to ensure integrity of the system. We rely on personal integrity. This is why we teach it to our children.

dhruvkar 2y ago
When everything is a commodity (nothing runs outside of the market economy), the incentives are skewed to this type of behavior. 'Hate' the player' and 'hate' the game. Some things shouldn't be part of the market economy - education, health and food.
hacksoi 2y ago
If people can get away with it, they will do it. Rules and punishments for breaking them exist for a reason.
- pmarreck 2y ago
  My sole rational argument for Christianity is that it has made the societies that it is, or was, infused with, more honest than the ones that were not.
  - Lionga 2y ago
    We should really do some more honest crusades to export our honest values to the non believers to make the world a better, more honest place.
    - pmarreck 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 also the crusades were in significant part a competitive reaction to Islamic "proselytization via violence" so you're placing the blame on the wrong religion, there
  - ksenzee 2y ago
    I’m not sure there are any rational arguments for Christianity. I say that as a practicing Christian. Either it meets a spiritual need in you, or it’s not very valuable. I imagine that belief in a God who punishes evildoers has kept some people honest throughout history, but the value of that is surely outweighed by the evil done in the name of that God. I also don’t believe Christian societies are more honest than others. Every religion I know of teaches honesty, as does every non-religious ethical framework I can think of.
    - pmarreck 2y ago
      I unfortunately cannot track down the prior research that I did on this in the time I have available as a new father but I am as skeptical as they come and I seemed to have found some solid data suggesting that nations with Christian values are simply broadly more honest and trustworthy. This includes countries such as Iceland because even though it is technically atheist, there's inertia there still from the influence of Christianity on its culture.
      - ksenzee 2y ago
        Congratulations! I hope you're getting some sleep. If you do ever happen across that data I'd be interested.
  - projektfu 2y ago
    That sounds like it is loaded with a lot of "no true Scotsman" caveats including, perhaps, Scotland, which has crime like any other country.
    - pmarreck 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157
  - regus 2y ago
    People doing bad things, including Christians, is completely in line with the Christian teachings of original sin, the fall and concupiscence. It is human nature to do bad things and it is very difficult to over come this behavior.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    If I read pagan Roman observations about life and people, they strike me as way, way more honest (sometimes brutally honest) than anything that we are used to for the last 1000 years, perhaps with exceptions like Machiavelli and some verbal jokes of the "unprintable" character. In Christian theory, everyone is a sinner, but in a real Christian society, people try to cover up their particular sins all the time, at least against other laypeople (not the priest), which leads to the opposite of honesty - hypocrisy.
    - pmarreck 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41684157
- throwawayofcour 2y ago
  > If people can get away with it, they will do it. This isn't true of everyone, but assuming it is increases the likelihood that it will become so. Because if everyone is trying to get away with it, why shouldn't I? That sort of breakdown in trust is high up on my list of worrying societal failure modes.
- thfuran 2y ago
  If they can get away with it, some people will do it.
- testfoobar 2y ago
  > If people can get away with it, they will do it. This is not universally true and individuals and societies don't have to be organized this way. Why are streets in some countries filled with trash when others are clean? My community does not have anyone policing littering - yet our streets, parks and public areas are litter free.
  - Chris2048 2y ago
    You are kind of begging the question - Do all members of your community take mandatory ethics classes?
artificialLimbs 2y ago
How did those teachings work out for the fraudsters?
- SpaceManNabs 2y ago
  Most of them become distinguished in academia, and only a few get punished if they are too blatant or piss off too many people (see recent ivys losing their presidents over academic fraud).
- indymike 2y ago
  Their parents taught them different ethics.
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
  This is exactly what personal integrity is about. You make the right choices specifically and only because they are right. And they are hard choices because you are forgoing immediate gain. Time favors integrity, and a lack of integrity is usually punished. Sometimes at the individual level, as you age and see the error of your ways. Sometimes at the group level, as you watch your community suffer. "You reap what you sow."

Spivak 2y ago

You are clearly deeply disconnected from the actual practice of research. The best you can really say is that the statistics chops of most researchers is lacking and that someone researching say caterpillars is likely to not really understand the maths behind the tests they're performing. It's not an ideal solution by any means but universities are starting to hire stats and cs department grads to handle that part.

ljosifov 2y ago

You have agency. Yes - the system provides incentives. However, you are not some pass-through nothingness to just accept any incentives. You can chose to not accept the incentives. You can leave the system. You're lucky - it's not a totalitarian system. There will be another area of life and work where the incentives align with your personal morals. Once you bend your spine and kneel to bad incentives - you can never walk completely upright again. You may think and convince yourself that you can stay in the system with bad incentives, play the game, but still somehow you the player remain platonically unaffected. This is a delusion, and at some level you know it too. Who knows? If everyone left the system with bad incentives, it maybe that the bad system collapses even. It's a problem of collective action. The chances are against a collapse, that it will continue to go on for some time. So don't count on collapse. And even if one was to happen in your time, it will be scorched earth post collapse for some time. Think as an individual - it's best to leave if you possibly can.

greenavocado 2y ago

A true scientist never says, "trust me" or even worse, "trust the science." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnPFL0Dr34c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnPFL0Dr34c

vostrocity 2y ago
Reminds me of this tweet that calls out the problem of the popular position "science is real" "Science isn’t real - that’s terrible epistemology. It’s a process or method to generate and verify hypotheses and provisional knowledge, using replicable experiments and measurements. We don’t really know the real - we just have some current non-falsified theories and explanations that fit data decently, till we get better ones. The “science is real” crowd generally haven’t done much science and take it on faith." [1] https://x.com/rao_hacker_one/status/1811295722760982939 https://x.com/rao_hacker_one/status/1811295722760982939
- dekhn 2y ago
  It's probably better to say that engineering based on science is usually real. Engineering cares a lot less about falsifying theories and more on what existing theories seem to have general predictive value, and can be used to do stuff, including things where human lives are at risk (tall buildings, fire reduction materials, airplanes). And if there are failures out in the field, they're inspected, and those results are fed back to update both the practices, and the theories. Personally I believe we live in an objective universe that can be understood by human brains (possibly using AI augmentation) and that our currently most advanced experimentally verified theories correspond to some actual true aspect of our universe. In that sense, science is real when the current theories match those aspects well enough to make generalizable predictions (general relativity and quantum mechanics).
  - greenavocado 2y ago
    I think you've hit on an important point. Science isn't about finding absolute truth, but rather about generating testable hypotheses that can be validated through experimentation and observation. This is why it's so crucial for scientists to follow the scientific method - they need to be willing to revise their theories based on new evidence. Your comparison between science and engineering is a good one. Engineering is often more focused on practical application, whereas science is more about understanding the underlying mechanisms that govern our world.

BobaFloutist 2y ago

"Nobody is ever responsible for their own actions. Economics predicting the existence of bad actors makes them not actually bad."

vanderZwan 2y ago

> Don't hate the player hate the game. When the game is designed by the most succesful players you absolutely should hate the players for creating a shitty game.