Most of my disagreement is that I think most people are trying to do the right thing; dealing with occasional bad actors who are outnumbered is easier than dealing with lots of bad actors who outnumber everyone else.
Yes, perhaps most people are trying to do the right thing, but (a) they are mostly not trying very hard, and (b) trying to do the right thing is just not anywhere close to sufficient for actually doing the right thing.
It is extremely easy to just find yourself doing the wrong thing, if you are not systematically and effectively avoiding all the things that nudge you toward doing the wrong thing. This is why I have emphasized, throughout this discussion, that I am not accusing anyone in particular of bad faith or bad character, and that not only should you trust no one, you should not even trust yourself, because “trying to do the right thing” is not sufficient even from your own perspective.
Do you happen to work in computer security by any chance?
I do not, but I will take the question as a compliment.
More seriously, I don’t think the systems around me work well if they need to verify every step, so there’s some spot checking and trust extended instead.
Yes. But there is a difference between making a considered judgment not to verify every step of some process, or not to check every instance, etc., and simply not having thought about it. (At the very least, the former decision can be revisited, re-evaluated, updated—the latter decision cannot even be acknowledged or accounted for, because it was never made in the first place!)
And, of course—as per my other comment—it may well be that the answer to “if we had to do this the ‘proper’ way, then we couldn’t do it at all” is “then you shouldn’t do it at all”.
Re: the “every police force” commentary—the whole “make any move toward trying to change the system” was mostly intended to qualify the “harmless weirdoes” scenario, not to necessarily apply to all people of any sort. (But also, the “moved into the criminal category” distinction is pretty important. But this is a tangent at this point, so let’s table it for now…)
Yep, noted and agreed. And likewise the possibility of a hypothetical-you who is trying to make sure whatever process gets used isn’t going to catch them. Neither of you might go to meetups much but LessWrong moderation decisions are probably relevant. (To be clear I don’t make those, I’m not a mod here and I don’t even make moderation decisions on ACX comments, I can just see the same line.)
FWIW, I think that approaches to conflict resolution in in-person meetups and on online forums should differ considerably, for many reasons, but certainly in large part due to the different ways in which evaluation of bad actors / problems / etc. can/must happen in those two types of contexts. I would not give the same advice to operators of a web forum as to organizers of a meetup, and I would be suspicious of anyone who insisted on applying the same approach to both contexts.
Yes, perhaps most people are trying to do the right thing, but (a) they are mostly not trying very hard, and (b) trying to do the right thing is just not anywhere close to sufficient for actually doing the right thing.
It is extremely easy to just find yourself doing the wrong thing, if you are not systematically and effectively avoiding all the things that nudge you toward doing the wrong thing. This is why I have emphasized, throughout this discussion, that I am not accusing anyone in particular of bad faith or bad character, and that not only should you trust no one, you should not even trust yourself, because “trying to do the right thing” is not sufficient even from your own perspective.
I do not, but I will take the question as a compliment.
Yes. But there is a difference between making a considered judgment not to verify every step of some process, or not to check every instance, etc., and simply not having thought about it. (At the very least, the former decision can be revisited, re-evaluated, updated—the latter decision cannot even be acknowledged or accounted for, because it was never made in the first place!)
And, of course—as per my other comment—it may well be that the answer to “if we had to do this the ‘proper’ way, then we couldn’t do it at all” is “then you shouldn’t do it at all”.
Re: the “every police force” commentary—the whole “make any move toward trying to change the system” was mostly intended to qualify the “harmless weirdoes” scenario, not to necessarily apply to all people of any sort. (But also, the “moved into the criminal category” distinction is pretty important. But this is a tangent at this point, so let’s table it for now…)
FWIW, I think that approaches to conflict resolution in in-person meetups and on online forums should differ considerably, for many reasons, but certainly in large part due to the different ways in which evaluation of bad actors / problems / etc. can/must happen in those two types of contexts. I would not give the same advice to operators of a web forum as to organizers of a meetup, and I would be suspicious of anyone who insisted on applying the same approach to both contexts.