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Because our corporate overlords have our best interests at heart, and no one has ever earned a salary doing something nefarious.

It's been a stunningly obvious problem with wikipedia-- THE_TOY_WEB-- all along, but they've somehow managed to keep their heads in the sand for decades.

You would not "assume good faith" if there were ten dollars on the table, so there's no way you would try to work that way if you were doing anything at all of importance-- like, oh say, hypothetically, running information infrastructure crucicial for the functioning of a modern democratic industrial state.

I've always complained that slashdot's moderation system was very weak because it used free, unverified accounts-- if political operatives were not running hundreds of sock-puppet accounts it was because they didn't care about slashdot, not because slashdot could do anything about it.

It's remarkable how every other site out there, reddit definitely included, has succeeded in rolling out moderation systems that are even weaker, and even more easily gamed. Then everyone acts stunned and amazed to realize that they are being gamed-- but why wouldn't they be? Either the site is a toy and no one bothers, or the site is influential, and it gets gamed.

(Remember back when this sort of thing was regarded as paranoid raving? THE_TOY_WEB.)

"Occam's Razor says it's not 'The Russians.'

Occam's Razor says you don't understand Occam's Razor very well: RAZING_CONSPIRACY

What you're actually making is a plausibility argument based on a (dubious) claim that Russia's resources are too limited to have any effect in this realm.

If you wanted to make the point that multiple different player's are out there astroturfing as web surfers-- including, for example, Hillary's Brock puppets who were such a joy to deal with during the Democratic primary-- you would certainly be correct.

Come on Friedmann, key parties aren't new, they've been around since the 70s!

Do you have a cite on that? I've always thought they've got to be urban legends. I can't figure out how the system would make any sense. Tossing slips of paper into a jar would work, but keys?

KEYPART

I think the real fix is pretty obvious: verified ids + full disclosure + penalties

Verified IDs can be done a number of ways, most likely credit card auth, or possibly via something like Google+. (Needless to say, there is no way to do this that won't rub someone the wrong way, because they all involve centralized agencies... you "web of trust" guys, this is your queue, but please explain how you're going to get something that hasn't taken-off for decades to work now).

The "full disclosure" bit is also obvious: you have a TOS that requires you explain (at a minimum) any financial connection that might bias your opinions.

The "penalties" bit is trickier: we need the courts to start recognizing intentionally deceptive behavior on the internet as a form of fraud, and not just "guerrilla marketing" or "the way politics works" or some such.

I've been saying this for years, now, anything that doesn't work this way (and that's nearly everything, including slashdot) is just a part of the THE_TOY_WEB.

The standard counter-argument is that if you impose any user-restrictions at all, your traffic drops off by a factor of a 100 or more, but I fail to see how this is such an insurmountable difficulty. Reducing the number of comments on, say, New York Times columns by a factor of 100 wouldn't greatly disturb me, and myself I'd prefer it if the political operatives were required to label themselves.

I'm sometimes wonder if there might be something clever you can do with privileges that ramp up if you're willing to pay a nominal fee and not incidentally, verify who you are.

I think the real fix is pretty obvious: verified ids + full disclosure + penalities

Verified IDs can be done a number of ways, most likely credit card auth, or possibly via something like Google+. (Needless to say, there is no way to do this that won't rub someone the wrong way, because they all involve centralized agencies... you "web of trust" guys, this is your queue, but please explain how you're going to get something that hasn't taken-off for decades to work now).

The "full disclosure" bit is also obvious: you have a TOS that requires you explain (at a minimum) any finacial connection that might bias your opinions.

The "penalities" bit is trickier: we need the courts to start recognizing intentionally deceptive behavior on the internet as a form of fraud, and not just "guerilla marketing" or "the way politics works" or some such.

I've been saying this for years, now, anything that doesn't work this way (and that's nearly everything, including slashdot) is just a part of the THE_TOY_WEB.

The standard counter-argument is that if you impose any user-restrictions at all, your traffic drops off by a factor of a 100 or more, but I fail to see how this is such an insurmountable difficulty. Reducing the number of comments on, say, New York Times columns by a factor of 100 wouldn't greatly disturb me, and myself I'd prefer it if the political operatives were required to label themselves.

I'm sometimes wonder if there might be something clever you can do with privileges that ramp up if you're willing to pay a nominal fee and not incidentally, verify who you are.

Well, I feel like I'm responding seriously to a post that was intended as satire, but in any case...

Yeah, it's often seemed to me that "Social Text" was beaten up on for the wrong reasons... falling for Sokal's prank wasn't in itself that serious a problem, they could've just said "Hey, this just goes to show that author intent really is irrelevant".

Instead they waffled: they could tell the paper had problems, but they ran it anyway, because they thought they'd found a "new ally in the sciences".

Admitting that you'd published garbage because of who wrote it, that's what indicates a real problem there.

THE_SO_CALLED_HOAX

Hmm I think Judge Posner has a much deeper knowledge than you of what one can and cannot do in a court of law.

As long as we're judging the source (aka the judge), let me say that I've actually read one of Posner's books, and he struck me as a raging egocentric jerk. His "Public Intellectuals: A Study in Decline" argues that no one should ever speak out on anything but his subject of expertise, and yet the entire book is an example of him doing just that (posner). I've also seen him engage in some sleazy, politically motivated attacks on people like Paul Krugman (krugman).

So, if conservative partisans give you the warm fuzzies, you should have a warm glow about Posner's name, if not, then this is just another "broken clock" example.

Hmm I think Judge Posner has a much deeper knowledge than you of what one can and cannot do in a court of law.

As long as we're judging the source (aka the judge), let me say that I've actually read one of Posner's books, and he struck me as a raging egocentric jerk. His "Public Intellectuals: A Study in Decline" argues that no one should ever speak out on anything but his subject of expertise, and yet the entire book is an example of him doing just that (posner). I've also seen him engage in some sleazy, politically motivated attacks on people like Paul Krugman (krugman).

So, if conservative partisans give you the warm fuzzies, you should have a warm glow about Posner's name, if not, then this is just another "broken clock" example.

Well, in terms of coining the phrase "World Wide Web", and actually creating http, he certainly had an impact. Yeah, no kidding. It's depressing that you need to explain something as stunningly obvious as that on slashdot.

Yes, what Tim Berners-Lee did in inventing the http protocol was small, but it was obviously (in retrospect) the minimal amount of work needed to kick-off the whole phenomena. There are people such as Ted Nelson (who I also have a lot of respect for), who had much grander visions about what could be done with hypertext, but notably they had trouble getting their visions implemented. Sometimes keeping it simple is the right thing to do, eh?

(On the other hand, I still can't figure out what he was thinking about the whole "semantic web" business, but that's another story.)

(My review of "Weaving the Web": WWW).

It often strikes me as an interesting thing that we have no social mechanism for turning down a technical capability, even when we largely believe it's a bad idea. If a gadget exists, we have to have it, like it or not...

This is me writing on the subject of cellphones at burning man, back in 2005: MORE_OR_LESS

sabernet (751826) wrote:

Tell me what, exactly, does Foundation realistically predict? It was a retelling of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in space with funny maths, glowey nuclear bits and, most importantly, damn good writing.

The whole notion of science fiction as prediction is a red herring, the issue at hand is science fiction as a source of inspiration.

Notably, Paul Krugman admits that Asimov's "psychohistory" was one of the things that inspired him as a kid to go on to do work in macroeconomics: TWISTED_PATHS

I think you'll find that the typical young physicist these days got involved in the game because they wanted to discover hyperdrive.

Try asking the question the other way around: why did anyone ever start writing hard science fiction? Doesn't pressing into service the framework of an adventure story to explore the future potential of the human race seem like a strange thing to do?

Science Fiction was an important forum for a certain style of thinking only as long as that mode of thought was considered disreputable... once it became more acceptable to speculate about the future, other forums opened up for it: you can write up your ideas as a "non-fiction" book, or for that matter go shopping for venture capital. It didn't used to be that way...

• THE_SECRET_MASTERS_OF_DESTINY
• LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS.html

Try asking the question the other way around: why did anyone ever start writing hard science fiction? Doesn't pressing into service the framework of an adventure story to explore the future potential of the human race seem like a strange thing to do?

Science Fiction was an important forum for a certain style of thinking only as long as that mode of thought was considered disreputable... once it became more acceptable to speculate about the future, other forums opened up for it: you can write up your ideas as a "non-fiction" book, or for that matter go shopping for venture capital. It didn't used to be that way...

• THE_SECRET_MASTERS_OF_DESTINY
• LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS.html

Anyone who's been around the block on this subject knows better than to get to concerned about getting a precise distinction between "fantasy" and "science fiction":

HARD

It isn't just that you've "grown up" or something -- the world has changed a lot, and I suspect Science Fiction (and it's variants) has a much smaller role to play...

LOST_WORLDS_OF_UNKNOWN_TOMORROWS

Our biggest problem in process improvement is that we can't easily measure productivity. If we could, then it would be a walk in the park to determine if one way of doing things was better than another. Instead we can say that project A was successful at meeting its targets while project B was not. Even then management always games the system to claim that their projects were successful.

Actually, I think this is a lazy cop-out by people who don't want to do the work of getting the answer.

Myself, i can think of ways to get real data on these questions: MODEST_PROPOSAL.

And there are other methods that could be applied: Plat_forms Contest.

Yes, computer philosophy is important, but it's not like it's unusual these days:

• REPTILLIAN_MONOTHEISM
• THE_COMPUTER_PHILOSOPHERS

But I submit that what we really could use is some "computer social science":

• MODEST_PROPOSAL

Yes, computer philosophy is important, but it's not like it's unusual these days:

• REPTILLIAN_MONOTHEISM
• THE_COMPUTER_PHILOSOPHERS

But I submit that what we really could use is some "computer social science":

• MODEST_PROPOSAL

Well, I just read the article, and what I see is a couple of lines devoid of context that are being used to support a sweeping statement, and there you have the conservative-hit-piece MO in a nutshell.

Dismiss the remark "if the rich get more, that leaves less for everyone else" as over-simplified, if you like, but try reading the entire article and tell me that Krugman isn't talking about a real problem: For richer

You might consider this point (which addresses your implicit "but the pie gets bigger!" argument): "We pride ourselves, with considerable justification, on our record of economic growth. But over the last few decades it's remarkable how little of that growth has trickled down to ordinary families." Or how about this point: "The reason conservatives engage in bouts of Sweden-bashing is that they want to convince us that there is no tradeoff between economic efficiency and equity -- that if you try to take from the rich and give to the poor, you actually make everyone worse off. But the comparison between the U.S. and other advanced countries doesn't support this conclusion at all."

But on the other hand, I have no doubt that you're correct that the award is "politically motivated", at least in part: it's much like the Dixie Chicks getting a Grammie... there are so many people so disgusted with the Bush regime at this point that the awards committees can't resist tweaking some Republican noses.

(And if anyone cares, this is my take on Krugman: KRUGMAN_FUNNIES.)

we all know that language snobs dislike perl -- why they appear to dislike it more than the far-worse PHP is hard to discern, but clearly they do

Actually, it occurs to me that I probably do know why perl provokes such rabid responses, I think it's because of "The State of the Onion" talks.

"Larry has turned what was a gentleman's war into guerrilla tactics. He consistently and cleverly (I never said he wasn't brilliant) slanders other languages and language communities, and encourages this behavior in his lieutenants." -- Steve Yegge

I don't know where Yegge got this "gentleman's war" stuff -- when I got started in this game, Nikalaus Wirth was making pronouncements about how a generation of programmers have had their brains irreparably damaged by programming in Basic (and Larry Wall alludes to this in his talk).

I think what's really going on here is that like most "gentleman's" rules, it's only intended to protect you if you're a member of the club. The club got very upset at Wall for daring to suggest that there might be some limitations to their worldview (most "computer scientists" are really mathematicians trying hard to pretend that they're still doing math). That's the really unforgivable thing.

In contrast, the PHP culture is just happy they're doing better than ASP, and makes no explicit philosophical statements about language design.

GENTLE_ART_OF_PROGRAMMING

Very moving and emotive. What would you have done that would have saved those lives?

Well, This is my idea.

Quadraginta wrote:

Good golly, if my country's intelligence services are not monitoring every major web site (plus a lot of obscure minor web sites of which I've never heard), then they're incompetent idiots and I want them all shot, or at least fired.

If they want to contribute true information to Wikipedia out of their own knowledge, well that's nice. If they want to contribute false information to Wikipedia for some obscure reason -- to fox the opposition, I guess, who are clueless newbs who believe anything they read on the 'net -- then that's an annoying waste of my tax dollars, but hardly seems worth raising a fuss over.

There are some cases that definitely would be worth raising a fuss over. Take a really far-fetched hypothetical case: imagine a US administration that decided to use covert operations to influence an election to keep itself in power.

If the Wikipedia has to rely on the honesty of every last J. Random Web User --

if they can't easily detect a nontrivial campaign of deliberate falsehood -- then they're clearly doomed.

(The current state of my thinking on the subject, if anyone cares: THE_TOY_WEB, THE_ROVERS, SURROGATE_TRUTH)

Quadraginta wrote:

Good golly, if my country's intelligence services are not monitoring every major web site (plus a lot of obscure minor web sites of which I've never heard), then they're incompetent idiots and I want them all shot, or at least fired.

If they want to contribute true information to Wikipedia out of their own knowledge, well that's nice. If they want to contribute false information to Wikipedia for some obscure reason -- to fox the opposition, I guess, who are clueless newbs who believe anything they read on the 'net -- then that's an annoying waste of my tax dollars, but hardly seems worth raising a fuss over.

There are some cases that definitely would be worth raising a fuss over. Take a really far-fetched hypothetical case: imagine a US administration that decided to use covert operations to influence an election to keep itself in power.

If the Wikipedia has to rely on the honesty of every last J. Random Web User --

if they can't easily detect a nontrivial campaign of deliberate falsehood -- then they're clearly doomed.

(The current state of my thinking on the subject, if anyone cares: THE_TOY_WEB, THE_ROVERS, SURROGATE_TRUTH)

Quadraginta wrote:

Good golly, if my country's intelligence services are not monitoring every major web site (plus a lot of obscure minor web sites of which I've never heard), then they're incompetent idiots and I want them all shot, or at least fired.

If they want to contribute true information to Wikipedia out of their own knowledge, well that's nice. If they want to contribute false information to Wikipedia for some obscure reason -- to fox the opposition, I guess, who are clueless newbs who believe anything they read on the 'net -- then that's an annoying waste of my tax dollars, but hardly seems worth raising a fuss over.

There are some cases that definitely would be worth raising a fuss over. Take a really far-fetched hypothetical case: imagine a US administration that decided to use covert operations to influence an election to keep itself in power.

If the Wikipedia has to rely on the honesty of every last J. Random Web User --

if they can't easily detect a nontrivial campaign of deliberate falsehood -- then they're clearly doomed.

(The current state of my thinking on the subject, if anyone cares: THE_TOY_WEB, THE_ROVERS, SURROGATE_TRUTH)

The reason wikipedia works despite rogue users is the odds that vandalism will be corrected because the whole world is watching. That model can't compensate for mischief by administrators with direct database access.

The way I would put it is that the safe guards in place that do such an excellent job of repelling small-scale amateur vandals on a site such as wikipedia are in no way adequate to repel a well-funded attack from a large organization.

Whether or not the "SlimVirgin" cabal is such a case, I think cases like this are inevitable as wikipedia grows in importance... Jimbo Wales appears to be in a state of denial on the subject. E.g. after his talk at Long Now Foundation, someone asked the question: "What if the Chinese government changed tactics and instead of banning wikipedia set out actively to subvert it?" He essentially punted on the question, and told an anecdote about how they dealt with a small group of neo-nazi idiots, as though the two cases have anything to do with each other.

(If anyone cares, the state of my thinking thus far on the subject is: the the toy web is being (or is about to be) exploited by the rover boys or some other purveyors of a surrogate truth).

The reason wikipedia works despite rogue users is the odds that vandalism will be corrected because the whole world is watching. That model can't compensate for mischief by administrators with direct database access.

The way I would put it is that the safe guards in place that do such an excellent job of repelling small-scale amateur vandals on a site such as wikipedia are in no way adequate to repel a well-funded attack from a large organization.

Whether or not the "SlimVirgin" cabal is such a case, I think cases like this are inevitable as wikipedia grows in importance... Jimbo Wales appears to be in a state of denial on the subject. E.g. after his talk at Long Now Foundation, someone asked the question: "What if the Chinese government changed tactics and instead of banning wikipedia set out actively to subvert it?" He essentially punted on the question, and told an anecdote about how they dealt with a small group of neo-nazi idiots, as though the two cases have anything to do with each other.

(If anyone cares, the state of my thinking thus far on the subject is: the the toy web is being (or is about to be) exploited by the rover boys or some other purveyors of a surrogate truth).

The reason wikipedia works despite rogue users is the odds that vandalism will be corrected because the whole world is watching. That model can't compensate for mischief by administrators with direct database access.

The way I would put it is that the safe guards in place that do such an excellent job of repelling small-scale amateur vandals on a site such as wikipedia are in no way adequate to repel a well-funded attack from a large organization.

Whether or not the "SlimVirgin" cabal is such a case, I think cases like this are inevitable as wikipedia grows in importance... Jimbo Wales appears to be in a state of denial on the subject. E.g. after his talk at Long Now Foundation, someone asked the question: "What if the Chinese government changed tactics and instead of banning wikipedia set out actively to subvert it?" He essentially punted on the question, and told an anecdote about how they dealt with a small group of neo-nazi idiots, as though the two cases have anything to do with each other.

(If anyone cares, the state of my thinking thus far on the subject is: the the toy web is being (or is about to be) exploited by the rover boys or some other purveyors of a surrogate truth).

Bruce Sterling could've pulled this off, probably... But not Robinson.

In any case, if you'd like to read the greatest Heinlein novel not written by Heinlein, you should look up the Alexi Panshin book "Rite of Passage". One of the few examples of someone writing a Heinlein Juvenile that's at all successful (and certainly many others have tried). The plot involves a culture that lives on large scale space ships, but has a custom where it's teenagers must under going a survival exercise on a planet's surface as the "Rite of Passage" of the title.

As for you folks who just don't get Heinlein, well, Heinlein can be problematic for a number of reasons -- his later work is much different than his earlier, his political opinions are controversial (in part, because they're so unusual it's hard for people to even understand what they are), and in general his style may seem a bit dated -- but there's no question that he was a totally brilliant, ground-breaking, science fiction writer, second only to H.G. Wells.

The last time this subject came up I wrote up some recommendations for people new to Heinlein... those are on the web here: HEINLEIN.

Of the later Heinlein books, I actually think the last ("To Sail Beyond the Sunset") is the strongest... he's starting to get down to the real issues, not just writing up libertine fantasies: TO_SAIL_BEYOND.

Bruce Sterling could've pulled this off, probably... But not Robinson.

In any case, if you'd like to read the greatest Heinlein novel not written by Heinlein, you should look up the Alexi Panshin book "Rite of Passage". One of the few examples of someone writing a Heinlein Juvenile that's at all successful (and certainly many others have tried). The plot involves a culture that lives on large scale space ships, but has a custom where it's teenagers must under going a survival exercise on a planet's surface as the "Rite of Passage" of the title.

As for you folks who just don't get Heinlein, well, Heinlein can be problematic for a number of reasons -- his later work is much different than his earlier, his political opinions are controversial (in part, because they're so unusual it's hard for people to even understand what they are), and in general his style may seem a bit dated -- but there's no question that he was a totally brilliant, ground-breaking, science fiction writer, second only to H.G. Wells.

The last time this subject came up I wrote up some recommendations for people new to Heinlein... those are on the web here: HEINLEIN.

Of the later Heinlein books, I actually think the last ("To Sail Beyond the Sunset") is the strongest... he's starting to get down to the real issues, not just writing up libertine fantasies: TO_SAIL_BEYOND.