Int'l. Education Mobility [Invitation]

It's OK Ted. You just go to googleimages and upload a photo of someone else and then use that photo in your profile. No one will ever know.
(BTW, if you don't think that people will do this then you don't read the newspaper).

 

True, but degreeinfo.com has also provided a safe haven for anonymous, scoundrel shills for schools in very dry places to pretend they are religious and students, while dispensing nonsense about their schools and leveling personal attacks against others.

Of course, we all welcome discussions with real students...

Dave

 

Hi Steve - I have some uncomfortability with your response as it seems to me that it comes dangerously close to the gneral concept of cultural/moral relativity. "Your OK, I'm OK." is a dangerous game. There are some things that are right and some things that are wrong regardless of circumstance. If you like something and I don't, it's not necessarily a draw. In my world there ARE absolutes and it's not enough to say "Well, I like it and so that means it's OK" The worlds prisons are full of people who would love to make that argument. Are you placing your foot on that slippery slope?

I'm sorry for being so dramatic. I am not trying to equate the moderator of that other site with some felon. However, principles exist. He (and his bosses) want to believe that by requiring additional information such as "realnamerealaddressplaceofemploymentphotoid" they are somehow guaranteeing "professionalism." This is delusional. Anyone who cared to do so (I might just do it myself) could easily falsify 100% of the required information and become an active member in good standing. They would profess (and maybe even believe) that there membership requirements somehow set them apart. However, if that kind Moderator from the referenced site would use the memory he has referenced (a member since 2001?) he would know that there have been numerous fakes and charlatans on all these boards in that time. They are here now. On all these boards.

They are not faught by requiring photos or "real" names. (Please help me by describing the process by which you determine that the "real name" of a registrant is actually the REAL NAME of the registrant.) They are faught by argument. Show evidence. Prove to me in some manner that what you say is what is true. Show me and everyone else. Subject your opinion to scutiny. That is the way.

If I register as Anne Smith of Fort Lauderdale, working as an Analyst at the Bank of America, and then I upload a photo from some site on the internet then I'm all set in. I could be a total fake but because I've satisfied that superficial criteria then I'm a solid member. That Moderator is supporting that system and so this means that he believes it's good. That's OK with me, it just means that I get to play the starring role in "The Emperors New Clothes."

I hope he has fun with that site. I'll check it in a month or two. I'll bet you it IS boring.

 

On the other hands, brazenly allowing people to use fake names with no other identifying information is an open invitation for trolls who just want to say the most defamatory, libellous, and slanderous things about others.

 

I'm a common-sense realist with regards to things like the Moon really existing whatever human beings happen to think about the matter. But when it comes to values, I think that they are all subjective human constructs to some extent. As far as I know there's no scientific instrument that can measure beauty/ugliness, good/evil or even truth/falsity. Even worse, nobody even seems to be able to define those things. We just call-em the way we see'em.

But most of our value judgements aren't just descriptions of our feelings about something. They are prescriptive as well. Ethics is fundamentally prescriptive. When I say something is wrong, I'm saying not only that I think so, but that you should think it's wrong too. Society is a mass of competing value prescribers.

I guess that an assortment of things keep most of us on the same page. There's human social instinct, our innate sense of fairness and reciprocity. There's common experience that convinces people that they can't just blithely walk through walls. There's our upbringing and childhood conditioning. There's social sanction (we all want to be accepted by the group). There's the police, courts and legal sanctions as a last resort.

One of the reasons why we are occasionally uncomfortable with people from other cultures is that some of these factors can vary quite a bit. Think of stoning girls to death for having premarital sex. It's appalling to us, but a clear matter of honor to others. That doesn't mean for an instant that we can't or shouldn't judge them harshly. Ethical judgement is prescriptive. It does mean that they are unlikely to be moved by our judgement.

Which brings up persuasion. I suppose that axiological persuasion usually works by reducing problem-cases to clear applications of things that everyone already agrees on. We try to lead people towards exercising their own intuitions as we wish them to by emphasizing selective aspects of a situation. We might expose the fairness angle or demonstrate incompatibility with a more fundamental principle we hold in common.

But these things are rarely if ever absolute, that's my point. Our value judgements aren't slam-dunks, they are more kin to hypotheses, suggestions and proposals. Even our clearest and simplest judgements of truth and falsity (there are socks in my drawer) might be mistaken (maybe what I thought I saw weren't really socks). That even goes for Descartes' 'clear and distinct' ideas. We just call'em the way we see'em in life and then make midcourse corrections depending on how things play out.

 

Photo of Missing Florida Woman Turns Up on Dating Web Sites for Seniors, Lesbians

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292615,00.html

 

Obviously the Xing people can set whatever rules they want to set. However, their premise is flawed because people can easily falsify the information they provide. They know this. They stick to their rules (again, it's their right) but they can not convince me that their rules will actually achieve the stated objective. People lie on the internet. People lie on their resumes. People lie on a daily basis about all sorts of things yet Mr. _Expo thinks that no one will lie to him as they register for his site. To me this is pure foolishness. They are completely unable to detect when someone has lied to them. If I had chosen to register on that site as Ann Smith we would not be having this conversation. I would be happily posting to that site. As you stated, they are factually incorrect but I am contending that they are morally incorrect in that they are saying this practice will guarantee a certain result when they know damn well that it will not (necessarily). They are suggesting" that something is true when it is not necessarily so. I don't mind being excluded, I just don't buy their reasoning.

As for the piece about absolute morality, I am not a philosopher. I just live in the world. In order for people to live together there needs to be rules (please don't bore me with any anarchist crap) . You may not steal from me. Ever. For any reason. Ever. I promise not to steal from you. Ever. If you steal from me, for any reason, I will slap you. Hard. We could all come up with scenarios where stealing might be understandable or even morally correct. But we also understand that these scenarios are hypothetically constructed to be exceptions to the rule. We understand why they are exceptions AND THEN WE RETURN TO THE RULE. We also understand that sometimes a rule is found to be morally wrong and agree that it should be changed. There is a process for doing so. We know about civil disobedience but we also know that people who choose to exercise civil disobedience accept, implicitly, the consequences for doing so. They break the law as a way of bringing attention to it's injustice. If they break the law and run away they are simply criminals (some might say "revolutionaries).

I think we need rules in order to live together in groups. We all know that rules change through time and that's OK with me. However, we all have some common sense of right and wrong. That is a substantial aspect of what defines any society. If I steal your car you are likely to be unswayed by my later explanation that I subscribe to the concepts of common property and so, in my mind, I was only taking something to which I was entitled. Philosophy stopped being about the real world a long time ago. Most people wouldn't even understand a philosophy text if you handed it to them. It may have some value but it doen't often seem to be about me or my life. How about you?

 

As an afterthought I'd like to say that I'm thankful that no one (not even Mr. _Expo) has tried to condemn me for my small attempted deception. I also appreciate that I've had an opportunity to describe the thoughts that lead to my actions. I am not unhappy with the current state of affairs and I am not particularly interested in pushing this issue further. Thanks again. K

 

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