On shitting on Google.

[Captain Utopia]

That presumes a great deal of internet security, to an extent that is currently not feasible.

Have you ever used online banking?  If we can do one, why not the other?

Here.

No - Sigmatic was stating that it was not feasible to implement an E-Democracy system with our current level of internet security, and I provided online banking as a counter-example.

There is some risk in using a cat's paw like that.   Getting caught means never being publically trusted again.

Wouldn't stop me, and there are in fact less responsible people than myself on Facebook.

In addition, the very fact that there are people willing to do this to you = baggage no employer wants to deal with, even assuming he accepts that you really weren't known for raping thalidomide victims.

But if having someone false shit on you = baggage no employer wants to deal with, then why would an employer want to deal with someone who was publicly known for spreading those lies?  Wouldn't it stop you if you knew it'd mean you'd be out of a job and find it difficult to get another?

Good luck catching me.  And it would have no effect whatsoever on hordes of basement dwellers.

In that case I agree with Sigmatic - anonymous slander would just be filtered.  Perhaps not initially, but certainly after the Nigerian scammers started routinely blackmailing people - a small fee and we don't invent shit.  In fact any group of non-anonymous individuals who were known for such activity could be also blacklisted quite easily, and their slander filtered too.

And here.

Again, I'm not rooting for a lack of anonymity here.  If anonymous slander becomes a real problem, then the obvious approach to deal with it is to filter out all anonymous slander.  Assuming that system is in place, it non-anonymous "basement dwellers" start slandering maliciously for fun or profit, then the logical step is to add them to the anonymous slanderers blacklist.

Actually, I don't think slander will become a problem, but it was a concern which was raised and so I addressed it.

Online banking was never iimmaculate.

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6652

Those particular flaws may have been fixed, but it just goes to show that not even banks can afford perfect online security.  It just doesn't exist.

I agree, but the fact is that online banking works for the vast majority of people -- it need not be 100% completely secure for it to be a valuable resource.  If an individual hack is detected, then that vote will be switched.  If a widespread hack has actually made a difference and changed the outcome of a vote then that will be repealed.

But there's very little motivation for such activity - there would be more money to be made hacking banks.

Ah, so your argument is to put more security and controls on regular internet behavior?

No, I don't think that is necessary.  I don't see why anything more than a username and password would be required to access the service.

And here.

I'm really not sure what you see in this one which makes it sound like I want to strip anonymity from the internet.

[Jasper]

That hypothetical situation we were talking about.  Where dirt on everyone is available, and there's effectively no privacy?

Yeah, in effect there's no such thing as anonymity in a situation like that.  If there is, it's only accomplishable by, well, 2600 types under low scrutiny.

[Doktor Howl]

That presumes a great deal of internet security, to an extent that is currently not feasible.

Have you ever used online banking?  If we can do one, why not the other?

Here.

No - Sigmatic was stating that it was not feasible to implement an E-Democracy system with our current level of internet security, and I provided online banking as a counter-example.

There is some risk in using a cat's paw like that.   Getting caught means never being publically trusted again.

Wouldn't stop me, and there are in fact less responsible people than myself on Facebook.

In addition, the very fact that there are people willing to do this to you = baggage no employer wants to deal with, even assuming he accepts that you really weren't known for raping thalidomide victims.

But if having someone false shit on you = baggage no employer wants to deal with, then why would an employer want to deal with someone who was publicly known for spreading those lies?  Wouldn't it stop you if you knew it'd mean you'd be out of a job and find it difficult to get another?

Good luck catching me.  And it would have no effect whatsoever on hordes of basement dwellers.

In that case I agree with Sigmatic - anonymous slander would just be filtered.  Perhaps not initially, but certainly after the Nigerian scammers started routinely blackmailing people - a small fee and we don't invent shit.  In fact any group of non-anonymous individuals who were known for such activity could be also blacklisted quite easily, and their slander filtered too.

And here.

Again, I'm not rooting for a lack of anonymity here.  If anonymous slander becomes a real problem, then the obvious approach to deal with it is to filter out all anonymous slander.  Assuming that system is in place, it non-anonymous "basement dwellers" start slandering maliciously for fun or profit, then the logical step is to add them to the anonymous slanderers blacklist.

Actually, I don't think slander will become a problem, but it was a concern which was raised and so I addressed it.

Online banking was never iimmaculate.

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6652

Those particular flaws may have been fixed, but it just goes to show that not even banks can afford perfect online security.  It just doesn't exist.

I agree, but the fact is that online banking works for the vast majority of people -- it need not be 100% completely secure for it to be a valuable resource.  If an individual hack is detected, then that vote will be switched.  If a widespread hack has actually made a difference and changed the outcome of a vote then that will be repealed.

But there's very little motivation for such activity - there would be more money to be made hacking banks.

Ah, so your argument is to put more security and controls on regular internet behavior?

No, I don't think that is necessary.  I don't see why anything more than a username and password would be required to access the service.

And here.

I'm really not sure what you see in this one which makes it sound like I want to strip anonymity from the internet.

[Captain Utopia]

Because if you DON'T strip the system of anonymity, in a very strong way, 4chan will fuck you with the business end of a rake.  For fun.

That's the world you have to work with if you want a practical means of utopia.

Well I don't think an E-Democracy system could be anonymous... oh wait, E-Democracy is the other thread.  

Sorry - disregard pretty much all my responses in the last few pages.  Sorry about that.

[Doktor Howl]

Wait.

So the internet stays anonymous in your utopia or not?

[Jasper]

I thought we were discussing a hypothetical situation where embarrassing crap of everybody was publicly available, and widespread non-privacy, and the possible repercussions of that.

[Captain Utopia]

Wait.

So the internet stays anonymous in your utopia or not?

The internet I'd like to see is pretty much how it is now -- you can get anonymity easily, and you can choose to trade privacy to interact with personalised services.  I'd go a step further and codify that applications which deal with personal information should allow the user to drill down and explicitly check or remove the personal data which it shares and with whom.

I thought we were discussing a hypothetical situation where embarrassing crap of everybody was publicly available, and widespread non-privacy, and the possible repercussions of that.

We were, I wasn't entirely (in the last few posts), because I got confused around about the time I started talking about online-banking

[Jasper]

Plz to repost your thoughts unambiguously for further discussion.

[Captain Utopia]

Either online slandering will remain an issue which effects only a tiny minority of people, or it will be nightly-news/60 minutes material.  Heck, even if it only effects a tiny minority, it makes for a great story so it'll likely get plenty of attention regardless.

And if it's newsworthy then public perception will be turned in favour of the victims.  Expect the word "Anonymous" in large fonts with sinister music playing in the background.  Scammers will try to exploit and profit from this by promising not to publish slander for a small fee.  And if having undesirable data (false or not) online is commonplace, then it becomes a pointless metric to track when as a H.R. person, you're Googling a job applicant.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if searching the internet for data on job applicants becomes prohibited by law, since if you're doing it right you can use it to gain access to the protected data you're not supposed to know about.

So overall I find it hard to get worked up about this "slander" issue.


Towards the broader issue of just having embarrassing crap about you online, I stand by the posts I wrote starting here.

[Jasper]

I'll get back to this tomorrow, it's late here.

[Cramulus]

I don't have anything to add, but I want to say that I find all this speculation very interesting.

[Pope Lecherous]

Either online slandering will remain an issue which effects only a tiny minority of people, or it will be nightly-news/60 minutes material.  Heck, even if it only effects a tiny minority, it makes for a great story so it'll likely get plenty of attention regardless.

And if it's newsworthy then public perception will be turned in favour of the victims.  Expect the word "Anonymous" in large fonts with sinister music playing in the background.  Scammers will try to exploit and profit from this by promising not to publish slander for a small fee.  And if having undesirable data (false or not) online is commonplace, then it becomes a pointless metric to track when as a H.R. person, you're Googling a job applicant.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if searching the internet for data on job applicants becomes prohibited by law, since if you're doing it right you can use it to gain access to the protected data you're not supposed to know about.

So overall I find it hard to get worked up about this "slander" issue.


Towards the broader issue of just having embarrassing crap about you online, I stand by the posts I wrote starting here.

i am inclined to agree that your vision will become reality, but i imagine it will take decades at least.  the others' perception of modern society's reaction to what you envision is accurate... if your internet was suddenly thrust upon them.  i think only a major technological breakthrough will evolve us to narrow the disconnect you spoke of earlier.

make any sense?

[Jasper]

And this is what interests me -- what do we do when faced with the evidence that society has been up to a whole bunch of crazy unexpected shit out-of-the-office or behind-closed-doors, than previously held by conventional wisdom?  GA supposes that we'll become more conservative and less tolerant, I suppose the opposite.  Look at the major trends in social issues over the last few decades centuries and come to your own conclusions I guess.

This would be a great question to ask a social psychologist.  I've only taken one 300-level SP course myself, but here goes:

In an event where we become aware, collectively, that everyone is weirder than anticipated, cognitive dissonance naturally looms.  In a situation like this, we look at each other hoping for a clue about how to react.  In that moment, the first person to react sets the pace for the entire group's reaction.  Are they disgusted?  Amused?  The first impression on things will color the flurry of rationalizations and arguments that attempt to integrate the new knowledge.  

The direction an event like this would push us would tend to be reflected by the prevailing mindsets, then.  

Stepping out of the classroom a bit, my pet theory is that it's the narratives we work with that determine how these things go.  I would seem to have a "the world gets weirder every day" narrative, whereas my grandma might have a "the world gets scarier every day" narrative.  These tiny stories seem to shape the way we integrate our experiences into our understanding, and the best way to model a person's behavior is by determining what their narratives look like.

To explain my idea a bit more, I'm not thinking of entertainment narratives.  I'm talking about pre-digested sequences of events that we fit our observations to as a way of easily contextualizing things.  For example, cups don't exist.  Barstool, let me rephrase that:  Materials don't know about cups.  There are however stories we tell about cups.  The liquid goes in, and you sip it out.  That's a cup narrative, and any object that can suitably stand in for the role will be called "the cup".

More complex narratives involve the way we model other people's behaviors.  Cf: Dennett's intentional stance; in the event where everyone's embarrassing photos are made available by Evil Search Engine #9 (or whatever ) we will probably lack an appropriate narrative to tell what role to play.  So we check with other people onstage.  Do you have the script?  Could someone prompt me here?

What story gets told all depends on who has the narrative.

I guess that's my take on what happens when society figures out how weird it is.

[Jasper]

To expand: The outcome would be a situation where nobody actually knows how to react, and they end up looking at each other for hints.  The most self-assured person in the room is the first person to give a hint as to possible reactions.  People pick up on that, and that provides a starting point for how we decide to incorporate the new knowledge into our understanding of the world. 

You will likely find that people are much more interested in a new worldview that everyone else seems to agree with, rather than the most rational and veracious one.  This is because the pressure doesn't come from being objectively wrong, the pressure comes from not sharing the same outlook on life as other people.

[Captain Utopia]

I really like this concept of narratives.  It sounds somewhat familiar - is it yours or taken from someplace else?

My first thought is O:MF related - if some events are predictable, how feasible is it to implant sleeper narratives, or is there always competition?

Secondly, once a narrative has shaped a perception, what is more effective at modifying that perception - rationality or a more compelling narrative?

Is a narrative a certain class of meme?