RE: group based judgment

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 26 2002 - 16:13:30 MDT


Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:

  Simply put, terrorists
currently do not recruit grandmothers because they have *no reason* to
do so.

### I claim something else - recruiting grandmothers (especially other that
their own kin) is too dangerous for a tribal or denominational terrorist
organization to do. Newspaper ads won't do here. Grandmas usually do not
have the seething emotions and poorly developed prefrontal cortex of a
violent male. Every attempt to suborn a grandmother is likely to eliminate a
terrorist before he can do damage.

----
 If you institute profiling, you *give* them a reason to do so,
and the terrorist grandmothers - whether they're real grandmothers or
not - will walk right through the system.
### I'll believe it when I see it. If there are enough of them, we'll change
the profile.
------
If this were evolution, security would walk blindly right into the
profiling trap, because evolution can't see even one move ahead.
Neither, apparently, can politics.  It's sad to see how many people
assume that just because you do something unfair and unethical, the
result must be an increase in "efficiency".  Great sacrifices are not
always matched with great results, but it sure looks very impressive and
determined, doesn't it?
### I am getting the feeling here you imply that profiling can't work,
because it's evil. Well, I already addressed in a post a few months ago the
question of maintenance of moral symmetry with profiling. If properly
implemented profiling meets all ethical standards I can think of, starting
with a positive survival balance, through maximization of freedom, all the
way to maintenance of moral symmetry.
Rafal


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