Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 08:44:04 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Bystander shot by a spam filter. Message-ID: <3E11C954.C7B21010@mindspring.com> References: <200212311138.gBVBcF181183@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org>
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Dave Hayes wrote: > > Again, we are talking about predicting the behaviour of groups, > > e.g.: any "large space of humanity". > > Which begs the question of "why?"... I thought that would be patently obvious: to permit us to design minimally intrusive systems with the emergent properties we are interested in obtaining. By understanding the probabalistic behaviour of the group, we can design a system which will have the least overall conflict with the desires of the group. > > For individuals, like Charles Manson, we have prisons and mental > > institutions, to deal with the fact that we can't predict that > > their prior antisocial behaviours will not be repeated. For the > > most part, society continues to lock someone up when it *can't* > > predict their behaviour (i.e. during a parole hearing process). > > This is not exactly true, it locks them up when someone exhibits a > behavior they have declared "wrong". To attempt to analogize > unpredictability to criminality opens up a can of worms I dont think > you want opened. I'm more than happy to open it: it's very easy to predict, on the basis of negative inference, based on the modelling of the society in which the acts are expected to occur. The simple definition is: any action against the normative force of the society which you *can* predict will, predictably, be labeled criminal by that society. > No matter how much you rationalize, people are irrational. They are > chaotic. Could you have predicted Jim Jones? Yes. Not the specific individual who would fill the role, but certainly the effect of a strange attractor of that shape. > >> > These mailing lists are completely predictable > >> > >> Looking at a sample of the population of the lists, I'd say this > >> is more true than it is for some equal random sampling of humans. > > > > Not really. People who are locked up or dead are very easy to > > predict, from one moment to the next, and the larger society > > will (predicatbly) lock up or make dead those people whose > > behaviour is anti-social. Which leads to the predictability of > > sociable behaviour by the remainder. > > Grim. I don't buy this, of course, but it paints a grim picture. Human societies have always been, in the limit, willing to turn to the use of force in order to achieve their ends. It is the nature of humans to do this. > >> Define "reality"? > > > > That which the behaviour of is not infleunced by beliefs. > > You cannot possibly perceive that which you have defined. And your point in stating that is supposed to be what? > You have also questioned the existence of this previously. Actually, I've questioned your formulation of it, because I did not agreee with the denotations that you wanted it to have. I did not agree with your preferences for human nature, vs. the facts. > >> > They are perceptual tricks. Almost all visual tricks are based > >> > on the fundamental wiring of human beings. > >> > If you want me to come up with a way to duplicate a particular > >> > trick, then provide a reference for the trick, so that I can > >> > personally observe its operation. > >> > >> Blane levitates on TV. That's about the best I can do, there are > >> a lot of recorded magic tricks on video and I'm sure these people > >> perform somewhere. > > > > Blane demonstrated the technique behind the trick in his > > special "Street Magic". > > He did? Gee, I'm sorry I missed that. I took a still of the video and > couldn't figure it out. So because you can not, no one can? There's a huge flaw in that theory: Blane himself figured it out. > Therefore all argument with you along this line of reality is > futile. It's like trying to argue me out of wanting to see True > Free Speech everywhere...quite impossible but perhaps entertaining at > times. Anytime someone uses "true" as an adjective, you know they are redefining something... -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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