4 ms·

It comes down to fighting against the human nature. And that's a lost battle. Set any law you want, our nature will push us to circumvent it even legally.

thrance 2y ago
Not nature no, it's all about incentives. Oftentimes it's financial, for github stars it's prestige and visibility.
mentalgear 2y ago
Most people are happy living in a fair ecosystem - it's only the 1-2% of the population that seek control, money and power that start trying to exploit the system. Only if we let that minority keep manipulating the system without consequences, it becomes the driving market force that the rest of the population also feels they have to comply to, to go along, as it already has happened in finance, academia, etc.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Most people are happy living in a fair ecosystem For varying and self-serving definitions of fair. (Almost everyone in the rich world is in an unfairly-advantaged minority.)
- tcmart14 2y ago
  I'd push back against the 1-2%. I think the reality is, 1-2% is the group of people who will exploit the system and more importantly, have the means to do so. But the number of people who would exploit the system is probably quiet a bit higher, but it doesn't matter because they don't have the means to do so.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
I don't really think so. The Amish have a nice system. Their society has many fewer bad actors compared to general society. Actually one of the keys is repeated contact. People who have to interact again and again will try and game the system less. Not sure how to build that into a star system but why give up so easily? Do programmers give up when you say "this algorithm can't be made any faster?"
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > one of the keys is repeated contact The other is hierarchy. You can't automate reputation scoring.
- eddythompson80 2y ago
  I don't think it's just the Amish. Collectivist cultures in general have (or maybe perceived to have, I don't know) fewer bad actors compared to individualistic cultures. It doesn't matter if people have to interact frequently if there is no real consequences to that interaction. The punishment in those collectivist cultures involves social shunning, shaming, etc. Individualistic cultures almost pride themselves on how much they can disregard social shunning and shaming. Shameless people are celebrities and elected officials. They are admired as opposed to shunned and ignored. A bad actor in an Amish community is expelled and loses access to what that community offers. That would be illegal in the general society unless their "bad act" was actually illegal. Discriminating against someone for being a dickhead who exploits loopholes and unregulated corner cases (without explicitly breaking the law) would be illegal in many contexts. > Not sure how to build that into a star system but why give up so easily? Do programmers give up when you say "this algorithm can't be made any faster?" I don't think people have given up. Online fraud detection is a massive industry as is. Spotify plays, YouTube views, Google search, Amazon reviews, reddit upvotes, twitter's retweets, facebook likes/shares, etc all fall exactly into the same bucket. There is even a significant dollar amount attached to many of those more so that GitHub stars. All are frequently gamed/faked and it's a battle between the platforms and the adversary
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Good points. I'll only add that I just mentioned the Amish because it's the only culture ("subculture?") that I've read thoroughly about. But I think in collectivist cultures it is indeed much harder to be a bad actor. Perhaps we should have a little more shunning...
  - lupire 2y ago
    You are describing small communities, not collectivist ones. Large "Collectivist" communities have body count in the hundreds of millions.
banannaise 2y ago
It's not fighting against human nature, it's fighting against the incentives of our economic system and the people who exploit them. What you're doing here is sometimes referred to as naturalizing - acting like something is the natural state of things, when it is specific to a present social system.

thrance 2y ago

Not nature no, it's all about incentives. Oftentimes it's financial, for github stars it's prestige and visibility.

mentalgear 2y ago

Most people are happy living in a fair ecosystem - it's only the 1-2% of the population that seek control, money and power that start trying to exploit the system. Only if we let that minority keep manipulating the system without consequences, it becomes the driving market force that the rest of the population also feels they have to comply to, to go along, as it already has happened in finance, academia, etc.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Most people are happy living in a fair ecosystem For varying and self-serving definitions of fair. (Almost everyone in the rich world is in an unfairly-advantaged minority.)
tcmart14 2y ago
I'd push back against the 1-2%. I think the reality is, 1-2% is the group of people who will exploit the system and more importantly, have the means to do so. But the number of people who would exploit the system is probably quiet a bit higher, but it doesn't matter because they don't have the means to do so.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

I don't really think so. The Amish have a nice system. Their society has many fewer bad actors compared to general society. Actually one of the keys is repeated contact. People who have to interact again and again will try and game the system less. Not sure how to build that into a star system but why give up so easily? Do programmers give up when you say "this algorithm can't be made any faster?"

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> one of the keys is repeated contact The other is hierarchy. You can't automate reputation scoring.
eddythompson80 2y ago
I don't think it's just the Amish. Collectivist cultures in general have (or maybe perceived to have, I don't know) fewer bad actors compared to individualistic cultures. It doesn't matter if people have to interact frequently if there is no real consequences to that interaction. The punishment in those collectivist cultures involves social shunning, shaming, etc. Individualistic cultures almost pride themselves on how much they can disregard social shunning and shaming. Shameless people are celebrities and elected officials. They are admired as opposed to shunned and ignored. A bad actor in an Amish community is expelled and loses access to what that community offers. That would be illegal in the general society unless their "bad act" was actually illegal. Discriminating against someone for being a dickhead who exploits loopholes and unregulated corner cases (without explicitly breaking the law) would be illegal in many contexts. > Not sure how to build that into a star system but why give up so easily? Do programmers give up when you say "this algorithm can't be made any faster?" I don't think people have given up. Online fraud detection is a massive industry as is. Spotify plays, YouTube views, Google search, Amazon reviews, reddit upvotes, twitter's retweets, facebook likes/shares, etc all fall exactly into the same bucket. There is even a significant dollar amount attached to many of those more so that GitHub stars. All are frequently gamed/faked and it's a battle between the platforms and the adversary
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  Good points. I'll only add that I just mentioned the Amish because it's the only culture ("subculture?") that I've read thoroughly about. But I think in collectivist cultures it is indeed much harder to be a bad actor. Perhaps we should have a little more shunning...
- lupire 2y ago
  You are describing small communities, not collectivist ones. Large "Collectivist" communities have body count in the hundreds of millions.

banannaise 2y ago

It's not fighting against human nature, it's fighting against the incentives of our economic system and the people who exploit them. What you're doing here is sometimes referred to as naturalizing - acting like something is the natural state of things, when it is specific to a present social system.