Plausible Deniability
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https://blenderdumbass.org/films/I'm_Not_Even_Human : 👁 1
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
Information or opinions might not be up to date.
"I think you may like it" - said Mendel to Sheiny one day as he was looking at his TV screen. He was just browsing the web in search of some interesting things to look about and found an old interview with Jacque Fresco who was talking about an idea for a language of the future. He claimed that the languages of today are to vague and allow for multiple interpretations of the same idea, which allows for things like religion to be so successful and for people like lawyers to have successful jobs. And that in the future people would develop a concrete scientific language which will not allow for misunderstandings. Which will make all people understand each other perfectly. And which will put an end to such things like Plausible Deniability. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: This is scary! ↩ Reply
Mendel: What? Why? You like mathematics. Aren't you? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Yeah, but making a general use language to be so mathematical might lead to a privacy catastrophe. ↩ Reply
Mendel: What do you mean? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Well, sometimes it is in your interest to say something without the other person understanding you fully. And if the language will be constructed in a such a way as to not allow it, we have a problem. ↩ Reply
Mendel: I don't understand. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Say you want to ask a girl for a date. And you and she work in the same place. So doing it straightforwardly would lead to accusations of sexual misconduct. ↩ Reply
Mendel: What? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Yes. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Are you serious? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Yes. Anyway... You have to be able to frame your message to her in such a way that if she does want to go on the date after-all, she would go with you. But if she doesn't want, you could deny meaning to ask her in the first place. ↩ Reply
Mendel thought about it. He frowned. He smiled. He raised his eyebrows. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Isn't that a problem with the rules themselves? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Well, yes. In this particular situation the rules are in violation of freedom of speech. And they should be abolished. ↩ Reply
Mendel: So then, what is the problem to say thing straightly? Given that the rules are abolished. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: We can not count on these rules being abolished forever, since rules always change. So having a mechanism to evade unjust rules should be present. And one of those mechanisms is called Plausible Deniability. ↩ Reply
Mendel thought about it even more. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Yeah, but it, then, allows criminals to get away with crimes. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Give me an example. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Well... How about a guy trying to bribe an officer by suggesting a bribe in a way that is not straightforward? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Like when showing documents having a half protruding dollar bill? ↩ Reply
Mendel: Something like that. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Well, yes, it is rather annoying. But I rather live in a world where this is possible than in the world where every-time I speak you know my intentions with 100% certainty. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Yeah, but think about it. We have to argue our views just because our language is not strict. If we could have the language be exact representation of our thoughts, we could understand each other much better and therefor there will be no need to argue at all. Like, right now, you could just tell me once why you think it's important to have this plausible deniability and I would just simply understand it and shut up. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: How about lying, or saying something without expertise? I don't think a strict language will stop you from composing a thought that you know to be untrue. Look at programming. Python is a strict language. The interpreter will interpret one string of code in the same exact manner every time you run it. But yet you can lie with python. ↩ Reply
Mendel: I don't understand. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: I'll show you. ↩ Reply
She showed him python code which went the following way: ↩ Reply
↩ Reply
Sheiny: Here in the first line
def Two_Plus_Two(): you have a claim that this is a function that gives you an answer to two plus two. And we know that it's 4. But the function in question returns 5. Which is a lie. A lie encoded in a very strict language. This is an obvious example. But people can use this same trick to lie about more complex topics. And it will be hard for other people, that do not have any reference, to verify anything.
↩ Reply
Mendel: So then we have to provide a verification. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Yes, and this could be done in English. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Wait the second. Doesn't it show that you can be vague with a strict language in a way? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: The only vagueness you can do with python is by generating random numbers. Which are not necessarily random at all. Unless you have a random-generating chip on the machine. Even random things are calculated strictly. But they use as an input a stream of data that is always changing. For example, you can use the current time to derive from it a random number, by applying some wild math to it. But the math you apply is concrete and not vague. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Okay, so you can't be vague but you can lie. Why you can't live with only lies? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Because how can you get anywhere? Imagine you are a gay rights activist in Saudi Arabia. You can say strictly that you are a gay rights activist and get executed. Or you can lie that you are not and not do any activism what so ever. You have to walk a very narrow path of plausible deniability to achieve something in that situation. You have to act and plan with people how to act. But then if one of those people is an agent of the government, you have to be able to say that you didn't really mean it. And that what you meant was something else entirely. And for this the language should allow for vagueness. ↩ Reply
Mendel: What if we have gay rights everywhere. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: There is other activism that could be and should be done to improve the world. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Perhaps we fixed every problem. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: I don't believe in utopias. ↩ Reply
Mendel: But what if? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: There are stories of emperors of ancient times that had slave young boys near them as a kind of sexual trophy. It was homosexuality. And it was totally okay back in the day. But the times changed since then. And 70 years ago in UK being a mere gay was totally illegal. Now it's back to legality. How long would it be till it will be illegal again? ↩ Reply
Mendel: So we always will need activists? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Exactly. ↩ Reply
Mendel: But wait a second! If it will be illegal again, it means that it was legal and some activists made it illegal. Maybe we can stop all activism just at the right moment by introducing a stricter language? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: And it will be illegal to speak English? ↩ Reply
Mendel: Ah... Well... Yes... ↩ Reply
Sheiny: So there is already a problem we need activists to solve, then. There should be freedom to use any language. Be it English, Spanish, Hebrew, ancient Greek, Python. If you can't, by law use one, somebody has to fix it immediately. ↩ Reply
Mendel: I see. So why the hell is he talking about that so passionately? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: I think he dislikes people that disagree with him. And he thinks that with more strictness his thoughts would be the right ones. But people do not work this way. What he proposes sounds an awful lot like the Newspeak language from 1984. A language that doesn't allow unorthodox thought. It is not a way to achieve truth, but a way to evade criticism. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Yeah, but this guy sounds like an engineer. He is smart and everything. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Am I smart? ↩ Reply
Mendel: Yes you are. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Can I be mistaken? ↩ Reply
Mendel: Ah... Maybe... ↩ Reply
Sheiny: I read about a research that looked into people's political biases. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Okay... ↩ Reply
Sheiny: They made up some numbers about statistics of a particular highly-debated political topic. I think it was gun control. They flipped the participants 50% / 50%. Half were shown statistics that say gun control helps reduce gun violence. And the other half that it doesn't. Are you following me? ↩ Reply
Mendel: They made up two different statistics? That prove opposite points of view? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Yes. But they went smart about it. Say we took the statistics from one side. If you would be smart about it and adjust the data of violence by the amount of people living in each city you would have a flipped view. Are you following me? ↩ Reply
Mendel: No, I lost you. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Ah... Imagine two cities. One has one hundred people and the other has one thousand people. One has gun control the other doesn't. The one that has gun control has only 1 case of gun violence a year. The one that doesn't have gun control has 10 cases of gun violence a year. The trick is that the one that has only one hundred people is the one that has only 1 case. So the other city not only has 10 times more gun violence, but also 10 times more people. Nullifying the whole premise to begin with. ↩ Reply
Mendel: So does gun control help or not? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: It's not about gun control. The statistics are made up. It's a test of people's biases. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Oh... I see. They made people answer what they think the data suggest. And if you are smart it would suggest something else? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Yes. And they made sets of opposing data for different types of participants. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Fascinating. Go on. ↩ Reply
Sheiny: Also, separately they tested the same people on a similar kind of data, but about not a political topic. Something about birds or flowers. They did the same exact trick there too. And they also checked ahead of the time participants political views and how good they are at math problems such as this. ↩ Reply
Mendel: And what did they find? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: They found that people that are not so good at math just didn't catch the problem to begin with. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Aha... ↩ Reply
Sheiny: But people good at math, caught the trick selectively. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Like how? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: If the data would support their own political views. They would go with it, not noticing the trick. Though they would notice the trick in the control test about flowers. But if the data disagrees with their views and noticing the trick would help them argue for their views, they would notice the trick. ↩ Reply
Mendel: Aha! And so what does is tell about humans? ↩ Reply
Sheiny: That people do not want truth if it's against their beliefs. But we have many people with different believes. And allowing them to debate each other might actually produce truths. Everything people who disagree don't disagree upon is rather truth-like. Unless somebody will find the courage to disagree with that too. Some people might disagree with gravity, or existence of planets. Flat-earthers... Perhaps we can call them ignorant or outright stupid. But who are we to take their right to disagree with us? And as you probably already know, everything stupid is easily debunk-able. But for this goodness we need freedom of speech. And it's not always available. We have some sort of free speech in many countries. And even in those police sometimes designs crimes for people they disagree with. Julian Assange... So other means of Free Speech should exist. Privacy. Good one. If they don't know who you are, they can't put you to prison. Plausible Deniability! That a good one too. You can show your face and speak freely if you have that. But if push comes to shove you can just deny that you have meant to say what you said. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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