5 ms·

Eternal moral vigilance is the price of coding liberty! This project clearly needs to be amended to integrate with version control.

jerf 14y ago
Source control allows one to bypass the moral purity of Vigil by recovering arbitrary sinful code from the past. Moral purity can not be advanced while the sins of the past remain with us forever, uncleansed. One can only properly use Vigil without any sort of source control. Even copying files before the compiler tries to run it is an attempt to cheat the system; for that, Vigil would be justified in deleting your entire code base and all the copies it could find. Or perhaps justified in deleting you instead, as it is you who has sinned, not the source code. ... Certainly this approach leads to a more pure universe, but, I suspect, a rather sparsely populated one. (Eliezer, do me a favor and keep munificent away from AI development....)
- CurtHagenlocher 14y ago
  I was thinking that it would remove the offending source code from history -- a revisionist source control system, if you will, to show that we have always been at war with Eastasia.
  - jerf 14y ago
    Ah, I stand corrected. Good thing I haven't installed Vigil or this error could pose a problem for me.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    Have you read Implementing Memory Holes in Vigil?
  - bernardom 14y ago
    You just have to set Damnatio_Memoriae = TRUE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      If you push networked updates of the source tree, you can pull off a full Amalek on a function: "Blot out the name and memory of `class Amalek` from under the heavens!"
  - scott_s 14y ago
    My friend, I think you have just coined a term: http://www.google.com/search?q=revisionist+source+control&oq=revisionist+source+control#hl=en&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=%22revisionist+source+control%22&oq=%22revisionist+source+control%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=revisionist+source+control&#3...
  - munificent 14y ago
    > a revisionist source control system This is now my new favorite phrase.
- munificent 14y ago
  There was an issue filed for this. One simple fix would be to have Vigil delete your .git directory when a transgression occurs.
  - andrewflnr 14y ago
    The git filter-branch command might be more appropriate. It should allow you to delete just one function through all history.
- webjprgm 14y ago
  The sinning function was the product of a human mind. Is it not the human mind always that is the sinner? So vigil must always delete the human. In order for the human to produce a valid function that human must mentally execute the code s/he is writing. If that code is flawed then the mental compiler should delete the sinful code from the programmer's memory before it ever makes it to digital form. If vigil merely deletes the code then it's acting like the human's brain, and forces the human to try again. But it does not eradicate the source of the sin. It acts as a tool for the human rather than a universal enforcer of good morals. Note that one can lie as to one's sinfulness. Rather than lie about implores and swears a function can deceive by stating none at all (or just weak ones). This is like pleading the fifth. This is like not promising to not do something bad and therefore not being dishonest if you do do something bad. Should flaws in vigil cause vigil to delete itself? Or should the inherent flaws in vigil cause it to delete the programmer who made vigil? If vigil can not catch all sins, as it currently cannot, should it therefore delete both itself and it's author immediately? If it does any less than this then it falls short of being an enforcer of pure morality, instead settling on a subset deemed of utmost importance.

jerf 14y ago

Source control allows one to bypass the moral purity of Vigil by recovering arbitrary sinful code from the past. Moral purity can not be advanced while the sins of the past remain with us forever, uncleansed. One can only properly use Vigil without any sort of source control. Even copying files before the compiler tries to run it is an attempt to cheat the system; for that, Vigil would be justified in deleting your entire code base and all the copies it could find. Or perhaps justified in deleting you instead, as it is you who has sinned, not the source code. ... Certainly this approach leads to a more pure universe, but, I suspect, a rather sparsely populated one. (Eliezer, do me a favor and keep munificent away from AI development....)

CurtHagenlocher 14y ago
I was thinking that it would remove the offending source code from history -- a revisionist source control system, if you will, to show that we have always been at war with Eastasia.
- jerf 14y ago
  Ah, I stand corrected. Good thing I haven't installed Vigil or this error could pose a problem for me.
- brudgers 14y ago
  Have you read Implementing Memory Holes in Vigil?
- bernardom 14y ago
  You just have to set Damnatio_Memoriae = TRUE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    If you push networked updates of the source tree, you can pull off a full Amalek on a function: "Blot out the name and memory of `class Amalek` from under the heavens!"
- scott_s 14y ago
  My friend, I think you have just coined a term: http://www.google.com/search?q=revisionist+source+control&oq=revisionist+source+control#hl=en&tbo=d&sclient=psy-ab&q=%22revisionist+source+control%22&oq=%22revisionist+source+control%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=revisionist+source+control&#3...
- munificent 14y ago
  > a revisionist source control system This is now my new favorite phrase.
munificent 14y ago
There was an issue filed for this. One simple fix would be to have Vigil delete your .git directory when a transgression occurs.
- andrewflnr 14y ago
  The git filter-branch command might be more appropriate. It should allow you to delete just one function through all history.
webjprgm 14y ago
The sinning function was the product of a human mind. Is it not the human mind always that is the sinner? So vigil must always delete the human. In order for the human to produce a valid function that human must mentally execute the code s/he is writing. If that code is flawed then the mental compiler should delete the sinful code from the programmer's memory before it ever makes it to digital form. If vigil merely deletes the code then it's acting like the human's brain, and forces the human to try again. But it does not eradicate the source of the sin. It acts as a tool for the human rather than a universal enforcer of good morals. Note that one can lie as to one's sinfulness. Rather than lie about implores and swears a function can deceive by stating none at all (or just weak ones). This is like pleading the fifth. This is like not promising to not do something bad and therefore not being dishonest if you do do something bad. Should flaws in vigil cause vigil to delete itself? Or should the inherent flaws in vigil cause it to delete the programmer who made vigil? If vigil can not catch all sins, as it currently cannot, should it therefore delete both itself and it's author immediately? If it does any less than this then it falls short of being an enforcer of pure morality, instead settling on a subset deemed of utmost importance.