admiration Re: Oversimplifications in HtN -- Philosophy and biology

[Angelo Schneider]

Hi,

after following your thread for a while now it seems to me
that you both agree more or less to each other but simply
use different terms/words to express your selves.

To comment you, Richard, I do not believe that there is any
software engineer/software architect/programmer who does NOT
play the reputation game.

But what is the difference between reputation and admiration?

Reputation is usualy for the work sombody does, he GAINS reputation.

Admiration is usualy something which comes from a third person
to you, you simply recieve it.

Working to get admiration is something for simple minded people,
working for reputation is a bit different from that but my also
be a bit simple minded/narrow minded.

So, for what do you work(if not for your living)? For satisfaction?
I think so! How do you get satisfaction? One might simply get
satisfaction
by sitting in his cell and "hacking" unknown and unnoticed.
But what you like most is being praised from people you like or love.
Or you like to be praised by people who have a reputation (by you?).

If a human does not care about reputation he gains from mankind
he is in my eyes simply not a member of mankind, but you/he might define
that in a different way ...

Your example of Bill Gates fits: one might admire him
for being rich and wealthy, but what reputation did he gain so far?
And from whom? (In fact I do not know anyone who realy likes his
work/way of live.)

I think you get reputation for things which last (or ideas) but you
get admiration for your way to impress people ...

And even you can get negative reputation, I do not think that 
negative admiration exists.

Bill Gates has the negative reputation to be the the person which
braked out economic and industrial progress in the software industry
most effectivly. So why should I admire somone who got rich by stopping
progress in my "world" for nearly ten years now?

Well, one of your topics seem to be "prediction of behaviour of people".

For me it is clear that you actually can predict the behaviour of
people.
So the same is true for hackers. It has nothing to do with which
specific
game people play. 

"Everybody is playing the game, but not everybodys rules are the same."
	From the musical CHESS.

If you understand the rules sombody is playing, you can predict his
behaviour.
If you know how often he is changing HIS rules you can estimate your
accuracy
or the likelyhood whith which your prediction will come true.

I'm working a lot with "design patterns", some years ago I read a book
about
"behaviour patterns". I think you need to be very open minded and very
brought
interested in nature/science etc. to be less predictable than others.
Many people "learned" such a limited set of "behaviour patterns" that
they
are not only predictable but ill in a psychological sence.
If you can discover "patterns" you can build "models"(we had that
before)
if you models are good you can feed them with input and get some output.
You can use the output as prediction on you own risk :-)

You need to have the courage to confess that things you have done so far
are outdated now, for what reason ever. You need to have the courage to
confess that everything you talked so far might no longer be true at
all.
You need to confess that you gained insight which forces you to take
just the
opposite possition you took so far.
If you achieve that you are not to predictabel, are you? Because you
change
your own model, the patterns you think with and work in.

Unfortunatly you will get reputation for beeing so "open minded".

Regards,
	Angelo


Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
>     How the heck do you get that out of a presentation that includes
>     John Locke, microeconomic analysis, and several million years of
>     human evolutionary history?
> 
> You've said many things in your carreer; I have not read your papers
> recently.  I'm responding to things you said earlier in this
> discussion, such as this:
> 
>     Not quite.  My claim is more like this:
> 
>     1. Most hackers are motivated by the reputation game, whether or not
>        they realize it consciously.  (Most don't, but come to realize it
>        once they see the analysis and do a little introspection.)
> 
>     2. For those who are not, their behavior can be correctly predicted by
>        an "as if" because it's the way they learn to function in the culture.
> 
> You are urging us to understand hackers' motivations in terms of a
> "reputation game", even if we know that is not always what they
> actually feel, because that suffices for "predicting their behavior".
> 
> I was unable to find the earlier part of the discussion, but I recall
> that when Ian stated his motivations, you said that they were beside
> the point, because (you believed) his behavior could be predicted from
> reputation-seeking anyway.  That is surely not true if we count, as
> part of his behavior, his messages in this discussion.  So you must be
> using "behavior" in a narrow sense.
> 
> So I stand by what I have said.
> 
> I expect most people want admiration, at least among other things.
> But there is more than one kind of admiration a person can seek.  Bill
> Gates may want to be admired for making a lot of money, Donald Knuth
> may want to be admired for good programming, and I may prefer to be
> admired for standing firm for the community but settle if necessary
> for being admired for good programming.
> 
> Thus, even if we look only at people whose principal motivation is
> desire for admiration, their other beliefs, convictions, and so on
> will affect what they do to seek it.  Our values about life affect our
> actions.  Talking about values with other people will affect their
> actions.


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