419

[Testin da Cable]

I read on a certain dutch newsie/security/info site that I frequent that several Nigerian people are about to be pushed through their extensive and just legal system for the crime of internet scamming gullible guys and dolls out of their hard earned dosh.
There was, at the time I read it, one comment:

Ik zou ook mensen gaan oplichten als ik in zo'n kut land woonde.
sleep die mensen die daar intrappen maar voor de rechter. die mensen zijn zo dom dat ze een gevaar voor de samenleving vormen.

I'd scam people too if I lived in such a shitty country. take the people who fall for it to court. those people are so stupid they present a danger to the world at large.

now I find the above to be a rather nasty statement, but that's not quite what I contest about it. you see, the nameless person quoted above asserts that only fools fall for scams on the internet but this isn't true to my mind. the example I'd like to present is my mother (ewwo mummy!) Mum, 66 now, is a classic 'internet newbie': never seen spam, never been harassed by "hot nekkid wet shaved teen lesbians" via ICQ, doesn't know the first thing about the more dodgy ways of email, etc. Mum, bless her, still believes (really -and sometimes I'm jealous) in the goodness of mankind in general and bears goodwill to all.
Because of all this I imagine were she to ever recieve something remotely like a '419' style email she'd think something along the lines of "ooh that poor nice nigerian man! how terrible that his father's recent tragic terrible unnamed illness has left him sole heir to a large fortune" etc. etc. In short I think she'd email back because she's just too nice to see the other thing.

Luckily I've programmed her to call me whenever anything even remotely dodgy happens on her computer...like an email from Prince Johan Ali Musfrat Ben Gazza Musfrittialle the third.

anyway, what do you think? internet scammers? SG's just seen 'real life' dodgyness in action, I once fell for a pyramid scheme before I realised what it was. is it true there's a sucker born every minute?

 

[xane]

Whilst I'm not a fool to think that the world should consist only of "nice people", the "nasty people" will always exist who will leech off the "nice people's" generosity, it isn't about stupidity, it's about game theory and how a population as a whole benefits from having a balance between "nice" and "nasty".

I can only say that a country with a high percentage of "nice" people like the Netherlands (Life Expectancy 78 years, GDP/capita $26,900, Literacy 99%) is probably a better country than one like Nigeria (Life Expectancy 50 years, GDP/head $840, Literacy 57%) with it's abundance of "nasty" people.

 

[xane]

BTW TdC re: your sig link

 

[Testin da Cable]

well, I'd not call it an abundance of "nasty" people Xane, as I think it's a "nasty" few. Those few bad apples prey apon the majority, and also inspire the bad wannabies to lesser heights of evilness.

a genuinely 'cool' scam, utilising say...an extremely silly loophole in law (for example) I can laugh at. others too: once I heard a story of an old geezer who lived in a home for the elderly. this person insisted on changing a stack of coins into 25cent pieces at a machine the home had installed near a public payphone. the staff couldn't work out why this old man enjoyed doing what he did so much until they found that the machine was maladjusted and gave back 5 25cent coins to the guilder. cool.

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by xane
BTW TdC re: your sig link

aye, so I gathered cool isn't it?

 

[Sir Frizz]

This thread reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption.

 

[Testin da Cable]

why? don't make me all curious and then leave me hanging like that

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
well, I'd not call it an abundance of "nasty" people Xane, as I think it's a "nasty" few. Those few bad apples prey apon the majority, and also inspire the bad wannabies to lesser heights of evilness.

By "abundance" I don't imply more than half, simply more than is necessary. The laws within the Netherlands tend to keep "nasty" people to a minimum, and this is reflected by a better economy and everyone benefits instead of the "nasty" few, whereas Nigera don't have the same laws and there are more "nasty" people willing to earn a quick buck off the unaware and gullible.

A country of 100% "nasty" people would implode or stagnate very quickly, and there is actually a critical mass of "nasty" people that happens way before that, the anti-"nasty" laws are in place to stop that point ever getting reached.

An example is seagulls, who need to preen in order to remove fleas and keep infection at bay. A seagull cannot preen it's own head so it relies on another one to do so. Most "nice" seagulls will return the preening. If "nasty" seagulls exist that get preened but don't return the favour, spending the time instead mating or breeding (to give a return on their nastiness), eventually the population of "nice" seagulls reduces due to infection caused by head fleas, to the point where the only seagulls remaining are the "nasty" ones and they quickly die out when they don't preen each other's head at all.

Q.E.D.

Game Theory Beginner Level complete, we move on to the prisoner's dilemma next.

 

[Will]

Game theory? It sounds identical to an arguement for the Gaia Theorum to me.

Do go on xane. I'll contribute more than a one-liner if work gets quieter.

 

[Lester]

Originally posted by Will.
for the Gaia Theorum to me.

This theorom does not aply to Tdc and I as neither of us are Gaia than the other.

This thread is too serious.

Sort it aaaaahht!

 

[Will]

Sorry Lester, but this is one of those serious threads we like to have from time to time.

Gaia Theorem (sic this time) is a theory that, in laymans terms, means that the world is a giant self-regulating organism, and all its sub-systems are also self-regulating. The difference between what xane said and Gaia Theorem is that the segulls wouldn't have died. Instead, the flocks of segulls with nasty gulls would be less competative, as the illnesses caused by head-lice would have weakened them. Therefore the flocks with higher percentages of nice seagulls would have out-competed them, and the number of nasty seagulls would have been kept in check.

Just like the statement xane made about the number of nasty people in society.

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by xane
By "abundance" I don't imply more than half, simply more than is necessary

yes indeed, but I would also argue that there is a certain number of nasty needed to spark a 'bad' event. I believe that 'nasty' people need to escalate against each other or be driven by an external factor (perhaps insanity), then after the 'badness' reaches a certain level a 'bad' event will occur. goodness, I'm starting to sound really vague here

please continue to gaia's game room 202.

 

[xane]

Gaia is a global concept, individual seagulls or even flocks will live and die all the same, the Game Theory applies to the set of individuals in the colony (of any size).

Say a seagull colony exists where the "nice" and "nasty" numbers are equally balanced, the actual percentages are irrelevant, like in the fox and rabbits scenario, as the "nice" seagulls increase it gives more opportunity to the "nasty" ones, and if the "nasty" increase then so does infection and the "nice" ones come back.

If a big wave suddenly strikes the colony washing away vast numbers of eggs, or a big eagle appears and carries off the chicks, all of a sudden a large swathe of "nice" seagulls are killed, the immediately the "nasty" ones could break the critical mass and the colony would be wiped out within a few generations. Whereas if the "nasty" ones were wiped out then the colony of "nice" ones would recover, and actually be beneficial for a while, although the remaining "nasty" seagulls would have a field day.

Gaia Theory provides the wave/eagle, the colony still dies but is replaced by another one or another animal (maybe a seagull with a curved beak that can preen itself).

 

[Will]

I'm with you xane. I'd never really heard Game Theory, but the two fit together very well.

 

[Lester]

Did Game theory used to be called Barry theory?

sorry.



Where does self-governance come into that tho? As in the human race "police" itself to some extent?

 

[Testin da Cable]

as Lester says...where is free will in gaia? what happens if I decide to beat the crap out of the nasty seagull? am I just maintaining equilibrium? what if I inspire other good seagulls to kick the nasties out?

 

[nath]

Free will is a myth. Everything we do is merely a result of everything that has happened before. Conciousness is the brains reaction to cause and effect, we have no say in what we do, we simply believe we had something to do with a choice we made *after* the choice is made.

Discuss.

 

[Wij]

Originally posted by Will.
I'm with you xane. I'd never really heard Game Theory, but the two fit together very well.

Read some Richard Dawkins. He's an arsey bastard who's married to Romana off Dr Who but it's all good stuff.

 

[Will]

It is a self-regulating system, it will attempt to maintain balance unconciously, but things only bend so far. On the grand scale, the proof of this is that way that, in fossil records, rather than having lots of species disappearing slowly over time, we have periods of mass extinctions, where the balance has slipped. The stasis bends, but will eventually break if something pushes hard enough.

At lunchtime, I'll fill you in on the classic examples of Gaia.

Edit : Wij, I think its James Lovelock who came up with Gaia, but its all a bit murky since I studied it 7 years ago.

 

[Wij]

Originally posted by nath
Free will is a myth. Everything we do is merely a result of everything that has happened before. Conciousness is the brains reaction to cause and effect, we have no say in what we do, we simply believe we had something to do with a choice we made *after* the choice is made.

Discuss.

So many errors and equivocations. Depends on your definition. Trivial question that only sounds important. Etc...

 

[nath]

Well, the thing that got me thinking about this whole thing a while ago was when I saw something (nothing spectacular) on tele about some guy claiming to be insane at the time of something and so not in control of his actions thus can't be made responsible for some crime or whatever.

I started thinking about responsability. We don't trial people under the age of 16 (or is it 18) in the standard way because we can't expect them to be responsible for their actions. What happens when they turn 18. We're supposed to become adults and suddenly know right from wrong. Something that springs to mind is "S\He's an adult and should stop blaming other factors and take responsability for his/her actions".

What *is* the reason for our actions. If our actions are not a result of everything that has happened in our life/everything that we have encounted, plus the genetic structure of our brain, then what else is there? Ok you could play the soul card, but I wanna ignore theology for the moment. Why should we automatically know better?

It's from thinking this that I start to question free will. Then there was that theory (which has been backed up by timed results) that conciousness and the act of decision making is merely a result of decisions being made. So if we're just slightly more complex versions of ants, but ultimately entirely predictable (not by us though) then where's the free will?


Hopefully some of you will be able to scoop up some of the grey matter that just leaked out of my ears on to this forum and make some vague sense out of it.

 

[Will]

It makes sense nath. It is a different way of looking at things, but it still adds up. Think of a trial as deciding if that person is suitable to remain in society, or if they need removed from society to either teach them the error of their ways, and adjust the mental processes (jail) or if their mind is fundamentally broken (insane).

The age of culpable responsibility is 12 in England and Wales, and 9 in Scotland (guesses). Between that age and 16, you are responsible for your actions, but you'll go into a young offenders rather than adult jail. Think of it as a second chance when you get to adult life.


Jusitice re-explained fromo another point of view. Time for food and then the daisy planet...all will be revealed.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Will.
It is a self-regulating system, it will attempt to maintain balance unconciously, but things only bend so far. On the grand scale, the proof of this is that way that, in fossil records, rather than having lots of species disappearing slowly over time, we have periods of mass extinctions, where the balance has slipped. The stasis bends, but will eventually break if something pushes hard enough.

Gaia doesn't actually refer to it "breaking", merely that should an environmental disaster occur eventually some sort of equilibrium will return but not necessarily the same as last time. Gaia is more to do with the fact that you "can't buck the system" when it comes to the Earth environment, howeve,r you can cause a major shift, but eventually things turns out more or less stable.

Game Theory is more of an individual thing, the example I gave refers to a "natural" instance but is better expressed by the "prisoner's dilemma". The seagull example I gave is in fact from one of Dawkins books as he applies Game Theory to support his thesis of the "Selfish Gene".

Dawkins proposes that there is no such thing as "for the benefit of the species", as mooted by previous behaviour analysis, or even "for the benefit of the individual", but that our specific genes are responsible for the way we act, certain seemingly altruistic behaviour can in fact be examined as genetic "programming" designed to ensure survival of the genetic code.

This could further support a "nasty" gene, not one that implies a genetic disability, and certainly not a racist one either, in fact so called "nasty" genes may actually be beneficial, if they were not so, why do they occur and thrive ?

Just like diarrhoea, it all runs in your genes.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by nath
I started thinking about responsability. We don't trial people under the age of 16 (or is it 18) in the standard way because we can't expect them to be responsible for their actions. What happens when they turn 18. We're supposed to become adults and suddenly know right from wrong. Something that springs to mind is "S\He's an adult and should stop blaming other factors and take responsability for his/her actions".

As Will stated, if this all to do with whether a "criminal" should be incarcerated then it is a side issue about responsibility.

Do we see prison as "punishment" or "rehabilitation" ? The former case bring responsibility into it, whereas the latter is only concerned with the results of ones actions, not whether one is incontrol or not.

Right now, most western prison systems are a bit of both.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Will.
and then the daisy planet...all will be revealed.

Noooo, not Daisyworld !

I still have SimEarth somewhere, it has a real simulation of this.

 

[nath]

Will, I understand the whole thing about trial and being able to be a part of society and all of that sorta stuff. The thought of that sorta stuff simply led me on to thinking about this stuff.

My thoughts are more in the line of responsibility. How responsible is someone of their actions.

Swap places with a psychopath. Be born to the same family, brought up in EXACTLY the same way, have the same genetic makeup. Infact be the same person, then you would do the same thing. (Again, barring the possible existence of a soul). Granted, all that says is "if you were the same person as him, you'd do the same things as him" so it's no big statement. The question is, what makes us so much better than murderers/rapists (other than we don't do that stuff, obviously). What's the difference between us and them? Psychopaths could be said to have genetic mental problems. Not something you could pin on them. Tossers.. just like really nasty pieces of work, why are they like that? What makes them decide to be an arsehole instead of being a decent person. How can we judge people on the way they are when there's a possibility that everyone on the planet would be the same if they were brought up the same way, in the same place, with the same brain.

Nghh.. it's impossible to get my point across properly, hopefully someone, somewhere will get what the hell I'm talking about and perhaps translate it to english.

 

[Testin da Cable]

perhaps Joe Psychopath's mental problems allow him to think and operate outside his genetic programming?

 

[Wij]

You're looking for a point that is not there. Your education has taught you an invalid definition of 'the self'. You're looking for more than there is. Your decisions are based on your prior experience and your genetic make up. That in no way implies that you are not responsible for them. It's like saying, "It's not my fault, I'm just a bad person." The things which make you act a certaijn way in a certain situation are the things that make you who you are. It doesn't matter whether it's nature or nurture or some random spark of 'free will' that might creep in if you believe that sort of thing. The things which define how we will act are the things that define us Therefore you are responsible for your own actions. Punishments can be both punitive and a deterrant. It's not an issue.

Trust me on this one please, I studied it for years

 

[old.D0LLySh33p]

There is nothing wrong with being innocent TDC

 

[nath]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
perhaps Joe Psychopath's mental problems allow him to think and operate outside his genetic programming?

But they're part of his genetic programming. Anything he does is a result of that and the surrounds he was brought up in.

Same for all of us. (imo, of course)