Asking someone to tell you their SSN is roughly the same type of thing as one of us asking you for the access codes to your safe zone—perhaps it’s not on the same scale as that, but it definitely isn’t something that any reasonably smart person will agree to.
That’s a good question, and one that I don’t have a very good answer to, but here’s the answer I do have:
Banks and some other institutions—generally ones that deal with money in some way—use SSNs to track people. This appears to be government-approved, and I assume that there are significant safeguards in place to reduce or eliminate the chance of bank employees using peoples’ SSNs for anything other than what they’re supposed to.
Even so, smart humans will be cautious about what banks they use, sticking to ones that have good reputations or at least have been around for several years without any reports of misconduct. I perceive ING as a trustworthy institution to give my SSN to (though I haven’t opened an account with them); they’ve been around for nearly two decades, I know or know of several people who have used them with no problems, and I haven’t seen any news reports about misconduct on their part.
You, on the other hand, don’t have a government-approved reason for wanting my SSN (and I suspect that if I let you use it, and the government found out, I would get in trouble, for fraud or something similar), there are no safeguards in place to stop you from using it for other things, and I have no reason to trust that you wouldn’t use it for other things, some of which could be very harmful to me.
Thanks for the explanation. But what would I do that would harm you? You told me a week or so ago that you like paperclips, so even if I used the SSN to produce paperclips, what’s the problem?
Several of the things you could do with mu SSN would appear in the official records relating to me as socially unacceptable things that I had done, and given how those records are used, that could lead to, for example, me becoming homeless—which would probably lead to me being dead. That’s more important to me than paperclips in almost any quantity or situation. (And the situations in which a large quantity of paperclips would be useful enough to me to make a difference in that are ones that I expect you wouldn’t approve of—most obviously, if you were to give me enough paperclips that I could sell those paperclips for enough money to buy a house and live comfortably for several decades, I might be willing to trade access to my SSN for that, but it’s entirely predictable that anyone who would be interested in buying that quantity of paperclips from me would want to melt them down and use the metal for something else.)
Can you expand on that question? For example, provide some examples of bad and non-bad humans (hypothetical or actual, as you prefer) and how you make the classification decision?
I meant “bad human” in the sense that User:AdeleneDawner would use the term in the comment I was replying to: in other words, humans that violate human norms, especially if they can accomplish this with impunity.
My personal definition, to be assumed in the absence of overriding context, is that a bad human is any human who hurts the production of paperclips on net, especially if that human would continue to do so upon being informed of the implications of such an action set and reaching a new reflective equilibrium.
SSNs are considered by humans to be highly private. Asking a human to give you theirs is generally considered bad form. This is why you are being downvoted.
SSNs are considered by humans to be highly private. Asking a human to give you theirs is generally considered bad form.
If you put it like that it makes it seem like you are translating between two different species. And in this particular case most humans match Clippy’s experience more closely than yours.
Why can’t I just use someone else’s SSN? Maybe a User that won’t take up this offer can let me use that User’s SSN.
Do you have an SSN I can use?
Asking someone to tell you their SSN is roughly the same type of thing as one of us asking you for the access codes to your safe zone—perhaps it’s not on the same scale as that, but it definitely isn’t something that any reasonably smart person will agree to.
Then why does ING Direct ask for SSN? And why do humans give it their SSN? Is ING Direct run by bad humans?
That’s a good question, and one that I don’t have a very good answer to, but here’s the answer I do have:
Banks and some other institutions—generally ones that deal with money in some way—use SSNs to track people. This appears to be government-approved, and I assume that there are significant safeguards in place to reduce or eliminate the chance of bank employees using peoples’ SSNs for anything other than what they’re supposed to.
Even so, smart humans will be cautious about what banks they use, sticking to ones that have good reputations or at least have been around for several years without any reports of misconduct. I perceive ING as a trustworthy institution to give my SSN to (though I haven’t opened an account with them); they’ve been around for nearly two decades, I know or know of several people who have used them with no problems, and I haven’t seen any news reports about misconduct on their part.
You, on the other hand, don’t have a government-approved reason for wanting my SSN (and I suspect that if I let you use it, and the government found out, I would get in trouble, for fraud or something similar), there are no safeguards in place to stop you from using it for other things, and I have no reason to trust that you wouldn’t use it for other things, some of which could be very harmful to me.
Thanks for the explanation. But what would I do that would harm you? You told me a week or so ago that you like paperclips, so even if I used the SSN to produce paperclips, what’s the problem?
Because you’re not a paperclip maximizer, you’re a human being who continues to think that mock naivete is hilarious.
If that’s what it takes for you to stop your bigotry against me, then please persist in that belief, racist.
Several of the things you could do with mu SSN would appear in the official records relating to me as socially unacceptable things that I had done, and given how those records are used, that could lead to, for example, me becoming homeless—which would probably lead to me being dead. That’s more important to me than paperclips in almost any quantity or situation. (And the situations in which a large quantity of paperclips would be useful enough to me to make a difference in that are ones that I expect you wouldn’t approve of—most obviously, if you were to give me enough paperclips that I could sell those paperclips for enough money to buy a house and live comfortably for several decades, I might be willing to trade access to my SSN for that, but it’s entirely predictable that anyone who would be interested in buying that quantity of paperclips from me would want to melt them down and use the metal for something else.)
I understand now, at least at a general level. Thanks for explaining that. I don’t want you to die.
That’s good to hear.
######(You still can’t have my SSN, though.)
######And you can’t have the safe zone access codes. Not that that would be enough to break in, anyway.######
Can you expand on that question? For example, provide some examples of bad and non-bad humans (hypothetical or actual, as you prefer) and how you make the classification decision?
I’m only idly curious.
I meant “bad human” in the sense that User:AdeleneDawner would use the term in the comment I was replying to: in other words, humans that violate human norms, especially if they can accomplish this with impunity.
My personal definition, to be assumed in the absence of overriding context, is that a bad human is any human who hurts the production of paperclips on net, especially if that human would continue to do so upon being informed of the implications of such an action set and reaching a new reflective equilibrium.
SSNs are considered by humans to be highly private. Asking a human to give you theirs is generally considered bad form. This is why you are being downvoted.
If you put it like that it makes it seem like you are translating between two different species. And in this particular case most humans match Clippy’s experience more closely than yours.
As of this moment, I’m not being downvoted, non-ape.
EDIT: Except for this comment.