[MUD-Dev] Totally OT... (Or is it?) (yes it is ;)

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

"Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>On  7 Jan 98 at 17:20, Ola Fosheim Gr=B0stad wrote:

Cutting things short...

>and US.  There is strong resistance in the US in adopting the sorts of=20
>"rights" workers enjoy in many european countries.  Many forms of socialis=
m=20
>are very much under attack here.  IMO, this is a good thing. :) =20

The problem with all such ideas is that they end up approaching what
they try to not to be. (I refrain from participating in any further
debates, would most likely be a flamewar)

>A good design under your terms would not allow the administrators to shut
>it down over the objections of the playerbase.  That would be immoral
>since the administrator would be violating user ownership???  Sort of
>like forcibly taking their lands and burning their castles.

*shrug* Depends on how, why and what way.  I don't see how this
applies to exessive logging of innocent conversations.

>I still believe that act of logging is morally neutral.  It causes no
>harm to any individual.  Can you point to any example where this is so,=20
>even a hypothetical?  How the information is used _is_ morally relevant no=
t=20
>the obtaining of it.=20

You don't see moral going further than harm?  You haven't defined
harm.  Moral is about mental harm, if the harm is physical, then it
only matters if it in the end ends up as mental harm (ref rape).

>> The cognitive psychologist Norman calls most people's view of how the
>> human mind works for "folk psychology".  "folk psychology" is in the
>> best case misleading or incomplete, I am tempted to say: wrong.

>Most psychologists neither respect dualism of mind and body nor moral=20
>intuitionism.  They are wrong and ignorant on both accounts.  I can only=20

I think you are plain wrong.  Norman does not discuss moral at all, btw.

>I would suggest that the decision to log indicates an strong desire of the=
=20
>designer to accept moral and ethical responsibility for how the system is=
=20
>used.

Yeah, and not through design, but by logging everything...  You see,
what makes it wrong is that exessive logging is in there for making
the _admins_ life easy.  Look it up and kick.

According to this thinking: most public toilets should be monitored
with videocamras because rape frequently occur there.  Actually, that
is a lot better than logging all kinds of _innocent_ private
communication over a long period of time.  Everybody goes to the
toilet and do more or less the same thing in there, not much private
information to collect in there...

>then they woudn't bother to log.  From what your saying, every general=20
>ledger, purchasing and banking system that I've encountered could be=20
>termed, morally, a bad design.

I have no idea about what type of systems you use.  If it is the
functionality you seek, then it is ok.

>Logging is certainly a good enforcement of users' morals.

There you go again, people are morons: "enforce".=20

>  It also ensures=20
>user's behave both legally and are user-friendly users.  Users have =20
>responsibilty to behaive in a legal and moral manner.

Ensure well behaved morons through survailance control.

>To not log, therfore would be immoral.

Yeah, if you don't appreciate the indivdual, sure, then public
beheading and all other kinds of things that will enforce good moral
is a good idea.

The trouble is that any deductions not based on the indivduals freedom
can give rather unpleasant conclusions.

(there is no point in discussing this)

Ola.