Not long ago a couple across the aisle from me in a Quiet Car talked all the way from New York City to Boston, after two people had asked them to stop. After each reproach they would lower their voices for a while, but like a grade-school cafeteria after the lunch monitor has yelled for silence, the volume crept inexorably up again. It was soft but incessant, and against the background silence, as maddening as a dripping faucet at 3 a.m. All the way to Boston I debated whether it was bothering me enough to say something. As we approached our destination a professorial-looking man who’d spoken to them twice got up, walked back and stood over them. He turned out to be quite tall. He told them that they’d been extremely inconsiderate, and he’d had a much harder time getting his work done because of them.
“Sir,” the girl said, “I really don’t think we were bothering anyone else.”
“No,” I said, “you were really annoying.”
“Yes,” said the woman behind them.
“See,” the man explained gently, “this is how it works. I’m the one person who says something. But for everyone like me, there’s a whole car full of people who feel the same way.”
Perhaps because at that point, one is not faced with the prospect of spending several hours in close proximity to people with whom one has had an unpleasant social interaction.
No one wants to appear rude, of course. As this was almost the end of the ride, the person who rebuked them minimized the time he’d have to endure in the company of people who might consider him rude because of his admonishment, whether or not they agree with him. I wonder if this is partly a cultural thing.
I don’t know the circumstances, but I would have tried to make eye contact and just blatantly stare at them for minutes straight, maybe even hamming it up with a look of slight unhinged interest. They would have become more uncomfortable and might have started being anxious that a stranger is eavesdropping on them, causing them to want to be more discrete, depending on their disposition. I’ve actually tried this before, and it seems to sometimes work if they can see you staring at them. Give a subtle, slight grin, like you might be sexually turned on. If you won’t see them again then it’s worth a try.
Sometimes, but you need to take into account what P(voices criticism | has criticism) is. Otherwise you’ll constantly cave to vocal minorities (situations where the above probability is relatively large).
I’d say it comes under the ‘instrumental rationality’ heading. The chatter was clearly bothering the writer, but—irrationally—neither he nor the others (bar one) actually got up and said anything.
-- Tim Kreider, The Quiet Ones
“This is how it sometimes works”, I would have said. Anything more starts to sound uncomfortably close to “the lurkers support me in email.”
...but why wait until they’d almost gotten to Boston?
Perhaps because at that point, one is not faced with the prospect of spending several hours in close proximity to people with whom one has had an unpleasant social interaction.
No one wants to appear rude, of course. As this was almost the end of the ride, the person who rebuked them minimized the time he’d have to endure in the company of people who might consider him rude because of his admonishment, whether or not they agree with him. I wonder if this is partly a cultural thing.
The passage states that he’d already spoken to them twice.
I don’t know the circumstances, but I would have tried to make eye contact and just blatantly stare at them for minutes straight, maybe even hamming it up with a look of slight unhinged interest. They would have become more uncomfortable and might have started being anxious that a stranger is eavesdropping on them, causing them to want to be more discrete, depending on their disposition. I’ve actually tried this before, and it seems to sometimes work if they can see you staring at them. Give a subtle, slight grin, like you might be sexually turned on. If you won’t see them again then it’s worth a try.
Since this has got 22 upvotes I must ask: What makes this a rationality quote?
Every actual criticism of an idea/behaviour is likely to imply a much larger quantity of silent doubt/disapproval.
Sometimes, but you need to take into account what P(voices criticism | has criticism) is. Otherwise you’ll constantly cave to vocal minorities (situations where the above probability is relatively large).
I’d say it comes under the ‘instrumental rationality’ heading. The chatter was clearly bothering the writer, but—irrationally—neither he nor the others (bar one) actually got up and said anything.
You could argue that the silence of the author and the woman behind the couple is an example of the bystander effect.