[ddingus]

Well let's break it down I am the ggp.

I think this is a good conversation personally.

Now, are you unconvinced that the act of cheating itself is a social problem?

I did use course terminology, it could be a moral failing as well. I lump a lot of those under social. And that's to my detriment obviously. But let's sort that out.

And then there's the part I'm convinced that I understand you on, and that is I believe our current state of technology is not a good fit for social problems, and you believe that it is. Or maybe more accurately, the solutions work and you're happy with that I'm concerned about costs and risks associated with said solutions.

I think once we understand one another there let's have a short chat.

[maratc]

I don't disagree with your classification of cheating. I don't believe that technology is necessarily always a good fit for social problems. What I take issue with is a blunt dismissal of technology as a practical solution for social problems. Sometimes it's a good fit, sometimes it's a bad fit, sometimes it's the only solution we've got and the other solutions are either imaginary or worse ones.

[ddingus]

Fair.

I was coarse. Reading through, I was able to see it

Life, people, come with a bazillion, edge, corner, intersection cases, right? I am moved by the likes of Lessig, RMS, others in that we are super complex! And computer tech right now is missing a couple big things!

Meaning and reasoning basically.

Context is hard.

In the "we just want to play on a fair field" context, of course! I get it. Tech can help with cheaters for sure, though I do think it is a temporary help at best. The really brilliant people with resolve get through and may well be as great of a gamer as they are cheater. The challenge, "real game" is what really gets them going.

One could say the same of a cartel leader, thief, and others who play this game of life in that way.

And we struggle with tech and law constantly!

There are parallels.

Poor law causes a lot of grief, wasted time, people enduring punishment that should not, and we have a process for that.

And it is a shitty process!

I would feel a lot better with a similar dynamic applied where we do reach for tech tools.

Another parallel: mandatory sentencing. We put people, many of whom are elected, others selected, who we believe worthy of judgement (And I know how debatable that all is, just roll with it for sake of discussion please!), into a position of real power, and we accept that because our lives are generally better for having done it.

Mandatory Sentencing is a mess. Now we basically take this complex human capable of judgement and boil it down to a more rule based thing not so unlike what computers would do. I am not sure that ever made sense. Whether it does is an interesting discussion, but what I really want to say here is more about where tech falls short and put some meat behind "social", as I should have done.

We are perhaps not so far apart on this. Seems my lazy comment got me a robust discussion I find far more worthy than the comment was!

Nice when that happens.

Circling back then, if I am to say anything, it is process which bothers me the most.

When we are really impacting people, ruining lives or changing them seriously, or improving them frankly, there are no do overs. Our time here is our time and taking that very, very seriously seems like it should matter a whole lot more than it often does with tech and social / society.

We are trending toward more bad fits than good in my view.

RMS, character that he is, absolutely does take it hard to an extreme. He should not have ruling power, but we need that voice, just as we need ours.

In that context, your push back was solid and for me useful and productive! I am better for having worked at this a bit. And these matters are important. Increasingly so.

I hope my attempt to clarify and back away from the worst of my thoughts here is similar for you.

We both are likely to come away from this tuned up a bit and better at the topic at the very least. (True for me)

Cheers and game on!