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Re:A SpaceX engineer's dark web insider trading sparks an SE... by TeMPOraL on Sunday March 21, 2021 @10:03AM (#26530521)
That's generally the case for everything in our lives, though. Part of what keeps civilization going is minimizing variance / maximizing predictability of people.

In modern societies, we try to keep unpredictable people away from anything important. In the most extreme cases, we lock them up in prisons and mental hospitals. In less extreme cases, we gatekeep: for example, you have to go through a psychological evaluation to get your pilot's license, driver's license, to be allowed to own a firearm, or be employed in certain positions. Degree of such gatekeeping is usually proportional to the damage wrong behavior can cause.

And then in general, we have laws and cultures and social customs that slowly grind us into shape, every day of our lives, making us ever so slightly more similar to each other with every interaction, so that we can predict each others' behaviors and cooperate effectively.

(I bring this up sometimes in context of AI/ML, where I complain that modern ML is made of black boxes with unpredictable failure modes. The usual reply is, "but humans are black boxes too!". Well, they aren't completely opaque - thanks to shared hardware architecture and "theory of mind", and to the degree it's not enough, society ensures predictability is maximized.)

Re:A SpaceX engineer's dark web insider trading sparks an SE... by teatree on Sunday March 21, 2021 @02:31PM (#26532673)
I had never thought about society this way. Thanks for this insight.
Re:A SpaceX engineer's dark web insider trading sparks an SE... by mlyle on Sunday March 21, 2021 @03:47PM (#26533305)
> for example, you have to go through a psychological evaluation to get your pilot's license, driver's license

Where? Wasn't required for me to fly or drive...

> to be allowed to own a firearm,

Not true even of a lot of restrictive jurisdictions. (even the UK).

> or be employed in certain positions

Sometimes this is true of being e.g. law enforcement or somewhere that requires a security clearance. But not very common.