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Author Topic: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes  (Read 7702 times)

Kyle Aaron

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #15 on: May 03, 2021, 11:13:13 PM »
That bit where Picard says, "We have outgrown money, we work to better ourselves," I always wanted to say to him, "And yet you are still the Captain, people go to die on your orders, and you have a bigger cabin than everyone else."

Fuck you, Picard, you champagne socialist, you.
Now that's just social credits. Reputation in the sense that it replaces all currency is just effectively centrally planned socialism. It encourages corruption and shmoozing.
If 38 years of D&D has taught me anything, it's that a sufficiently-complex system will be gamed by its users to abuse its good intentions. :)
« Last Edit: May 03, 2021, 11:15:46 PM by Kyle Aaron »
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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #16 on: May 03, 2021, 11:29:13 PM »
That bit where Picard says, "We have outgrown money, we work to better ourselves," I always wanted to say to him, "And yet you are still the Captain, people go to die on your orders, and you have a bigger cabin than everyone else."
Man that's on the money.

TNG to me has some of the most preachifying of all the series. Even with its blegh ending, DS9 all the way.

Quote
If 38 years of D&D has taught me anything, it's that a sufficiently-complex system will be gamed by its users to abuse its good intentions. :)
Its human nature to maximize our benefits from ANY system. It's folly to assume that people won't.

'I want my son to attend college' is a reasonable desire, and if your son attending college depends on some bureaucrat deciding, your gonna do what your gonna do. And because the system is inefficient everywhere and works against human nature shortages are everywhere. When everybody is hungry, everybody is happy to take a bribe.

It was funny to me when I watched the film 'Garage' with my grandmother (from the USSR), because a character came onscreen that was visibly high status, and I was confused about what she did. Turns out she was a regional manager for a grocery store. And she had the authority at a meeting (a meeting of scientists at an institute mind you) like a megacorporate head. Because in a system like that, the one who controls the food controls EVERYTHING.

Socialists always rage against abusive corporations, but while I dislike the corporations as well, reputation-based systems have all the disadvantages of abusive mega-entities, plus the disadvantages of being mega inefficiency and creating mini dictators as well as large ones.

jhkim

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2021, 01:48:56 AM »
To distinguish: Everybody has a reputation and that's normal, ethical, and fine. If a restaurant serves you shit food, and the waiters fart in your face, you spread the word to others, and possibly leave a review on yelp. That's 100% fair and ethical.
However, reputation systems track that sort of review across all aspects of their lives. And add in algorithms or a set of ethics demanded by the state, and you have an invasive system that cross-references you at every aspect of your life and turns every citizen into a snitch, that are encouraged to snitch on each other.

This was more the norm throughout history. You couldn't run a store in a small town without people knowing about how your family is, and whether you turn up to church, and a hundred other parts of your life -- and small towns and farms were 90+% of the people in history. The ability to be a total asshole online with no consequences is an unusual exception of the modern age.


Star Treks' economics are just hand-waved and just assume that what the fundamental change is in the average PERSON. The idea is that it's not so much that a system made people better, but better people made a better system regardless of underpinnings. When it got all anti-money that was just stupidity on the writer's parts. It's like an idea that not having toilets will make people poop less. 'We have outgrown the need for toilets so we don't have them anymore.

Because human greed is limitless, no matter the replicators and near infinite energy. Some credit systems would have to be implemented for access and special privileges.

I disagree. Yes, there will be some sort of economic system -- but I think it is possible for human behavior to improve. This exactly like how critics three centuries ago said that democracy and free speech couldn't work, because it is human nature to be violent and dominate. But human social behavior today is better in many many ways compared to pre-Enlightenment times. There are some things that haven't changed as much, but it is possible to picture improvement.

In the bigger picture, some societies have been far worse to their people -- and had people behave far worse to each other.

Yes, it's hand-wavey to suggest that society could be better like -- but that's what much of science fiction is... postulating things that don't exist at present. I think picturing that everything would work exactly the same is unnecessarily limiting. I like a lot of cyberpunk with its megacorps, but it shouldn't be the only type of science fiction future.

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #18 on: May 04, 2021, 02:38:28 AM »
Greetings!

*Laughing* I think we will soon be in an age where people routinely deal with others with a lead pipe. The rich, the academics, the self-righteous elites and the smug--none will be spared.

Semper Fidelis,

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #19 on: May 04, 2021, 03:56:50 AM »
Hahaha yes, we will kill all the intellectuals probably.
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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #20 on: May 04, 2021, 04:54:54 AM »
Hahaha yes, we will kill all the intellectuals probably.

So things will work out pretty good for you :/
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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #21 on: May 04, 2021, 07:56:03 AM »
The ability to be a total asshole online with no consequences is an unusual exception of the modern age.

I find the way you frame the argument to be very disingenuous. That cancel culture or social credit systems are just responses to online asshattery.

The very major difference is that the reputations you mentioned were tangible nearby things by people with a motive to remember and interact with you. Social credit systems see you as an automated cog within the system and depersonalize you. They can control what you can do all over the country, but you in response have no control or even idea who said what about you.

Quote
I disagree. Yes, there will be some sort of economic system -- but I think it is possible for human behavior to improve.

I have very little respect for this train of thought because of the millions that have died for it. I don't view humans in general as bad. I don't believe once we purge enough humans or brainwash them enough they will be 'better people'.
I think people are largely 100% the same as they were before, we just have enough systems and technology to make certain decisions now that people in the past couldn't take. And I'm not a misanthrope that hates humans because they aren't 'good' enough for some criteria.

That said, I don't disbelieve that maybe humans will find some larger social structure to be better in some way, but it will be from bottom to top, not top to bottom. And certain things will remain fundamental to the human experience.

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #22 on: May 04, 2021, 09:53:14 AM »
To distinguish: Everybody has a reputation and that's normal, ethical, and fine. If a restaurant serves you shit food, and the waiters fart in your face, you spread the word to others, and possibly leave a review on yelp. That's 100% fair and ethical.
However, reputation systems track that sort of review across all aspects of their lives. And add in algorithms or a set of ethics demanded by the state, and you have an invasive system that cross-references you at every aspect of your life and turns every citizen into a snitch, that are encouraged to snitch on each other.

This was more the norm throughout history. You couldn't run a store in a small town without people knowing about how your family is, and whether you turn up to church, and a hundred other parts of your life -- and small towns and farms were 90+% of the people in history. The ability to be a total asshole online with no consequences is an unusual exception of the modern age.

The ability to arbitrarily declare someone an asshole in the world-stage, for EVERYONE to see (not just people in a small town), and enact punitive action against them from across the globe, based on spurious accusations* alone without trial or oversight, is also an unusual exception of the modern age.

We don't live a hundred years ago in a small town we can always escape from if things go south to restart our life someplace else. We live in the Information Age, where everything is interconnected across the globe, and everyone's personal details are backed up in a database somewhere, like a centralized permanent record of them. And just because "things were (presumably) always that way throughout history" (assuming that's even true or consistently so) that doesn't mean that therefore they should be that way, which is a naturalistic fallacy.

*sometimes based on simple misunderstandings alone or even things they objectively never said, with online records SHOWING that they never said it.

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #23 on: May 04, 2021, 01:26:36 PM »
Hahaha yes, we will kill all the intellectuals probably.

So things will work out pretty good for you :/

No shit right, everybody's all like "You're gonna lose in the purge," but not this time!
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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #24 on: May 04, 2021, 01:57:41 PM »
This is what reputation based economies look like. In the video there was clearly a bad guy, it was the guy holding the camera, and in the story there's actually two bad guys, the asshole holding the camera and Tariq "Wash yo ass" Naseed.



A small town isn't comparable with this level of surveillance, where things you said in the past as a joke can be dug up to destroy your life forever and everywhere you go.

And it is disingenuous to even try and compare the two.

Or take what happened to Gina Carano: She likes and shares some post saying we shouldn't demonize and dehumanize those who think different because that leads to genocide and is fired, and the corporation, the media and her colleagues try to destroy her life and make her unemployable anywhere at any time.

If you think any of this is okay YOU are the baddies.
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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #25 on: May 04, 2021, 02:00:11 PM »
If you think any of this is okay YOU are the baddies.

You keep saying this around a buncha assholes who already agree with you and it keeps having zero impact on the world accordingly way to take a stand dude.
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jhkim

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #26 on: May 04, 2021, 02:18:41 PM »
We don't live a hundred years ago in a small town we can always escape from if things go south to restart our life someplace else. We live in the Information Age, where everything is interconnected across the globe, and everyone's personal details are backed up in a database somewhere, like a centralized permanent record of them. And just because "things were (presumably) always that way throughout history" (assuming that's even true or consistently so) that doesn't mean that therefore they should be that way, which is a naturalistic fallacy.

*sometimes based on simple misunderstandings alone or even things they objectively never said, with online records SHOWING that they never said it.

For most people in history, it was really really difficult to just pick up and move to a completely new place where no one knew you. It's roughly equivalent today to deleting all your online accounts, moving, and changing your name and career -- which is all possible, but very difficult.

I'm not arguing that this is good. But many people were saying that reputation was only a thing for 21st century online liberals or explicitly communist countries. But I think it's far broader and more normal than that. Reputation has been hugely important in both historical and current societies, and it's not clear to me exactly how a "reputation-based economy" would be different or how it would work. For me to judge whether something is good or bad, I first need to understand how it works and thus what it would be like for most people.

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #27 on: May 04, 2021, 02:22:39 PM »
Off topic but need to address this and will not do it in the gaming forum so...


Also, no, we don't live in a patriarchy, we live in a meritocracy.

Cool delusion bro.

So you have any evidence that we do?

Here's an article I haven't read that exists to annoy you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_women_in_Mexico

Self reporting BS with no fucking evidence isn't evidence of jack shit.

Criminals rape and murder women, whooop de doo. They kill 10 men for every woman they murder, but that's not news worthy because Asteroid hits earth women most affected.

When you define as "gender violence" asking your wife why the fuck did she spent the money for groceries in the casino and now there's nothing to eat, but not when she asks you why did you spent your salary drinking with your buddies you can go fuck yourself (and I mean the ones making the definitions but you too).

When you define crimes of "sexual violence" as a woman self reporting a man was looking at her with "libidinous eyes". A "crime" where there's no way to prove it was even commited, and where there's no fucking damage being done.

When you define "feminicide" in a way, but if a woman murders a man and fullfills all the exact same characteristics there's no equivalent aggravated charge.

But then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy.

When mexican women can buy a gun (if they manage to get the SEDENA to say yes) at age 18, without ever doing military service, but a man has to either do said military service or wait till he's 45.

When mexican women can get their University title without doing military service but men can't.

When mexican women could vote, get a passport, work in government without doing military service but men couldn't until a few years ago.

When Female Genital Mutilation is a crime but Male Genital Mutilation isn't.

And then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy, you can go fuck yourself.

When you define rape in such a way that a woman can't rape a man unless she inserts something in his anus, when you define it in such a way that leats female pedos off the hook for rape, when you define it in suh a way that it lets lesbian rapists off the hook.

And then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy, you can go fuck yourself.

When you define intra-family violence as gender violence leaving off the hook lesbian perpetrators and female perpetrators when the victim is male.

And then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy, you can go fuck yourself.
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

― George Orwell

GeekyBugle

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #28 on: May 04, 2021, 02:23:56 PM »
We don't live a hundred years ago in a small town we can always escape from if things go south to restart our life someplace else. We live in the Information Age, where everything is interconnected across the globe, and everyone's personal details are backed up in a database somewhere, like a centralized permanent record of them. And just because "things were (presumably) always that way throughout history" (assuming that's even true or consistently so) that doesn't mean that therefore they should be that way, which is a naturalistic fallacy.

*sometimes based on simple misunderstandings alone or even things they objectively never said, with online records SHOWING that they never said it.

For most people in history, it was really really difficult to just pick up and move to a completely new place where no one knew you. It's roughly equivalent today to deleting all your online accounts, moving, and changing your name and career -- which is all possible, but very difficult.

I'm not arguing that this is good. But many people were saying that reputation was only a thing for 21st century online liberals or explicitly communist countries. But I think it's far broader and more normal than that. Reputation has been hugely important in both historical and current societies, and it's not clear to me exactly how a "reputation-based economy" would be different or how it would work. For me to judge whether something is good or bad, I first need to understand how it works and thus what it would be like for most people.

Was it as difficult to move away to a place where no one knew you as trying and deleting all your digital footprints, changing your name is?
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

― George Orwell

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Re: Reputation based economies are dystopian hellholes
« Reply #29 on: May 04, 2021, 03:02:25 PM »
Off topic but need to address this and will not do it in the gaming forum so...


Also, no, we don't live in a patriarchy, we live in a meritocracy.

Cool delusion bro.

So you have any evidence that we do?

Here's an article I haven't read that exists to annoy you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_women_in_Mexico

Self reporting BS with no fucking evidence isn't evidence of jack shit.

Criminals rape and murder women, whooop de doo. They kill 10 men for every woman they murder, but that's not news worthy because Asteroid hits earth women most affected.

When you define as "gender violence" asking your wife why the fuck did she spent the money for groceries in the casino and now there's nothing to eat, but not when she asks you why did you spent your salary drinking with your buddies you can go fuck yourself (and I mean the ones making the definitions but you too).

When you define crimes of "sexual violence" as a woman self reporting a man was looking at her with "libidinous eyes". A "crime" where there's no way to prove it was even commited, and where there's no fucking damage being done.

When you define "feminicide" in a way, but if a woman murders a man and fullfills all the exact same characteristics there's no equivalent aggravated charge.

But then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy.

When mexican women can buy a gun (if they manage to get the SEDENA to say yes) at age 18, without ever doing military service, but a man has to either do said military service or wait till he's 45.

When mexican women can get their University title without doing military service but men can't.

When mexican women could vote, get a passport, work in government without doing military service but men couldn't until a few years ago.

When Female Genital Mutilation is a crime but Male Genital Mutilation isn't.

And then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy, you can go fuck yourself.

When you define rape in such a way that a woman can't rape a man unless she inserts something in his anus, when you define it in such a way that leats female pedos off the hook for rape, when you define it in suh a way that it lets lesbian rapists off the hook.

And then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy, you can go fuck yourself.

When you define intra-family violence as gender violence leaving off the hook lesbian perpetrators and female perpetrators when the victim is male.

And then you come and cry about living in a patriarchy, you can go fuck yourself.

See, I said it'd annoy you.
I don't want to play with you.