Well, first of all, as I had predicted, and no matter how many jokes my soul friend wanted to make, no one has paid any attention to a post like this one, which is quite long and has a certain intellectual density.
But well, let's leave my soul friend alone, as I see that there has been enough of a shitshow here lately.
The problem is, my thoughts on the trust system are scattered across more than a few posts (and probably even more PMs), and it's not really practical for me to try to share my complete perspective on it each time I write something concerning it.
Perhaps it would have been better to have started a thread titled “My thoughts on the merit system” and placed this post there, but I will reply to you
as played (as we say in poker), .
A lot of my perspective on the trust system can be understood as an argument formed in terms of expected value. Judging by your handle, I'm guessing that you already understand that principle well, but, as a refresher for the people that don't understand it, let's ask ourselves whether or not it makes mathematical sense to accept a gambling offer like the following:
...
I've run into my fair share of people who aren't convinced by the concept of expected value, and think that it's some kind of neat idea that doesn't correlate with reality...
Well, as you say that's not my case, I've been using Expected Value for a long time to make money and I don't use it only with poker. The difference between the example you give and poker is that in the example you give we know the expected value beforehand while in poker in most cases we mix intuition: if I am 50% sure that your raise on the river is a bluff and paying $100 to see your cards I will take the total pot which is $400 I have a clear call. The problem is that the probability I assign is somewhat subjective.
Then you make a whole argument based on your example, which in a way I understand because in my daily life I also spend the day assigning probabilities (I don't think that X person is not going to come to the dinner with friends, I think that there is an 80% chance that he/she will not come) but I doubt if it is mathematically overcomplicating the matter for something that is of daily life.
My perspective is that even when you do get things right, you're producing a much smaller effect on other people's decision-making than you think you are (that is, you're not actually sparing other users pain and suffering on any non-negligible scale, you just like to believe that you are, or, even worse, you already suspect that you're not really helping anything or anyone, but your sense-of-justice compels you to do something, even if it makes little sense to do so). In my view, the upside when you're right is much, much smaller than the downside when you're wrong. When you're right, you think that your feedback will correctly help some other user to make a better/safer decision than they would have been able to make without you taking the action that you took (and in my view, that's mostly just wishful thinking that everyone wants to believe is true [1]). But when you're wrong, you're almost certainly causing definite harm (as in, tagging some innocent user and contributing to them losing their enthusiasm for the forum, for example).
Here I think you are wrong on the downside. Red tagging someone and deleting them after a short time has negligible consequences, and I see that losing enthusiasm is an intuitive assumption on your part and not at all mathematical within the whole argument you are making.
Look, I don't expect many will support my view (because of how counterintuitive and difficult-to-accept the conclusion is), but I hope that most people can at least appreciate the shape of my argument,
This is what happens to me. I respect and thank you enormously for your argument but you do not convince me unless you clarify it in a later answer: your mathematical argumentation is impeccable but the premise of what happens in the downside is far from being evidence and I think it is rather an assumption of yours based on your intuition but that has little to do with reality.
Imagine Bitcointalk implemented a policy of dissolving DT for the first three months of every year. What do you predict the consequences of that would be? Personally, I find the "doomsday" prediction that during the first quarter of each year Bitcointalk would temporarily devolve into some kind of shitshow with people getting scammed left and right to be an extremely silly one.
Probably, but that does not mean that we should not stop tagging people. Let me put it another way: imagine that you find randomly surfing the net a site with videos of child abuse with torture and death, snuff videos. Now suppose also that as the hosts of the site have taken their security measures the probability that even if you report it they will be caught is extremely low. Would you not report it because of that? I wouldn't. Some things have to be done because you have a moral obligation regardless of the expected outcome.