[MUD-Dev] Wild west (was Guilds & Politics)

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

JC Lawrence <claw at under.Eng.Sun.COM> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:10:25 PST8PDT Ola wrote:
>> In my view a good
>> interactive design will take "human factors" into account.  Even
>> feelings.  Even irrational feelings. 
>
>Agreed.  However I strictly seperate what I class as technical
>problems and social problems, and while I'm willing to crutch the
>solutions to social problems with technical tools/solutions, I do not
>see that a technical solution should or can ever be an entire solution
>to a social problem.  

Technical design solutions introduce bias.  Machines stimulate certain
types of behaviour.

>>>> Why?  This is a self-fullfilling prophecy.
>>>  Quite.  It will happen for the utterly simple reason that it can
>>> happen, and there is nothing that can prevent it from happening.
>
>> Nonono, it will happen when everyone says it will happen. If
>> professionals start to say: we will prevent this from happening...
>
>You are thinking as if this were a local or otherwise contained
>problem.  Its not.  The problem is generic to the entire human
>population.  While one programmer, or even all the programmers of a
>country, continent, or a majority of the programmers planet-wide etc,
>can be so principled, there is no ability to ensure that any one
>programmer anywhere is __NOT__ so principled, and there are

You make it sound like one programmer is going to wipe out everything.
Rape is going to happen too.  It is possible to reduce the problem
through both system design and attitudes.

>course).  This is not a "its gonna happen"-type prediction, it is a,
>"sooner or later its gonna happen and we can't control when"-type
>prediction.

Nope. It is a matter of scale and impact. It is not an event.

>
>> I never said no interaction. You can have limited interaction.  You
>> can buy and interact in batches.  Provide as little details about
>> your actions as possible.  Utilize encryption.
>
>To the extent that you practicxe such you are removing yourself from
>the rest of society.  You have limited interaction, ergo, you have
>limited the extent to which you are a part of that society.

I do that every time I close my eyes, choose a direction etc. It is a
matter of significant. Which of my actions have most impact, is the
issue.  Minimize distribution of information that does no have a
significant impact.  (This is getting very OT)

>> I don't buy your assertion that the outcome of the current trends is
>> inevitable.
>
><shrug>
>
>Its already happening.

Matter of scale. It has "always" happend, if zero is the only
alternative.

>>> Those services in turn are often sub-collectors, and occassionally
>>> original sources.
>
>> Most people want reliable information.  Anyway, introduce laws that
>> require companies to track their sources.  Make companies that
>> assemble information about persons responsible.  Etc.
>
>Okay -- and what if its offshore?  How about if the source has no
>determinable location (not difficult to do in this digital age) or
>determinable human ownership (already happening)?  

Huh, it is usage that makes the most impact.

>Okay, XXX country makes and strongly enforces those laws.  What is to
>prevent YYY company which does business in XXX from employing an
>outside agency (outside of XXX) to gather and process the data, and
>report it to YYY outside of XXX, etc?

But usage is illegal in this scenario.
(make usage of personal info from foreign sources illegal)
Again a matter of scale and impact.

Ola.