[extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....

[David Lubkin]

At 02:39 PM 1/11/2004 +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote:

>Unlike Harvey I think that hoaxes like Sokal's are not just fun, but also
>healthy. ... This a good thing, because the laughter and derision
>afterwards help point out flaws in the peer review system or other forms
>of quality control. It is also better with deliberately bad papers, since
>inevitably the creator will point them out, unlike "accidentally" bad
>papers where the author won't tell anybody that he cheated, made things up
>or didn't know what he was talking about. We need the first kind as a kind
>of vaccination against the second kind.

Sokal is an example of a general phenomenon whose ethics and legality we 
grapple with -- fraud perpetrated for the greater good. Often, fraud for 
the sake of truth.

Periodically, someone will send around a (manu)script as their own that was 
actually written by a literary great, in order to collect rejection letters 
to prove the decline and imbecility of publishing or Hollywood.

In the software industry, good engineers are often faced with stated job 
requirements that they don't meet but that aren't actually needed for the 
job. They exaggerate their experience to get the job, believing they know 
better than the HR department or hiring manager.

Reporters go undercover and use hidden cameras for exposes, submitting 
fraudulent employment applications and violating the confidentiality 
agreements they signed with their sham employment, nominally for the sake 
of the public.

Police go undercover as well, but also set up 'sting' operations. These are 
often accused of enticing their subjects into committing crimes they would 
not have absent the police initiation.

Policy advocates and politicians lie or distort (or withhold) evidence for 
the good of their cause.

Which of these are violations of the NCP?  Is "preemptive fraud" any 
different than preemptive force?


-- David Lubkin.