Do you mean that this is true of how people interact with other people in general, or specifically how men interact with women?
I explicitly mean both at once.
it’s self-evident that I am a human being?
But it is not self-evident that they are required to treat you as one, or even that they will gain a net benefit from doing so. Perhaps I should have avoided the rhetorical device “like a human being” and used the more precise “like a person”, instead. Let me reframe in that way:
It is obvious that you are a human being—that is, a member of the species Homo sapiens.
It is less obvious that you are a person—that is, a being that they must treat with the same level of rights and respect with which they expected to be treated.
This statement:
(especially women, with whom the whole point of interaction usually isn’t information-related but purely emotional anyway)
indicates that you are a tool / resource for achieving specific instrumental goals, and that those instrumental goals are different when they involve you than when they involve men. Your own preferences of which instrumental goals you would like to be utilized for is irrelevant; your average heterosexual male cares exactly as much for your preferences as your average Congressman or your average corporate marketing team: your preferences are useful for determining how to manipulate you towards instrumental ends, but other than that they don’t really enter into the equation.
Perhaps you want to be treated as an equal—seen as a terminal value rather than as an instrumental tool or resource? That’s an admirable goal, and one you will find that most people share. And thus, a good deal of social manipulation involves providing the appearance that we care about each other as terminal values, while behaving very clearly as if we really only see each other instrumentally. It is ironic that in this specific case, a significant portion of the motivation for unlocking your puzzle-box is so that the male can believe that you see him as a terminal value. Our cultural narrative strongly reinforces to men that the only way they will ever get someone to see them as a terminal value is by finding a woman and unlocking her puzzle-box—for many men (especially the so-called “Nice Guys”), this is actually a more powerful motivation even than sex.
Anyone who wants ownership of me as a prize for their interesting conversation is going to be disappointed, because that prize is not on the table.
That is irrelevant. The fact that you are in front of them, and they can imagine you fulfilling the role, means (from their perspective) that that prize is on the table. The fact that you do not wish to reward it will not disuade them; at most it just means (again, from their perspective) that they need to give the puzzle-box one or two more twists before it opens.
(EDIT: Re-reading this post, the picture I was painting of human nature is perhaps unnecessarily bleak. I think it is more accurate to say that people do not naturally treat each other as terminal values unless they are given explicit reason to, and that family, friendship etc. are all the normal reasons that they are given explicit reason to. Humans CAN be taught to treat all other humans as terminal values by default, but this is not particularly common. Unfortunately, it is far more common for people to learn to PRETEND to treat all other humans as terminal values—and to pretend to themselves just as much as they pretend to each other. Breaking through that to teach people how to truly love each other is something that mystics and visionaries strive towards every generation; you can look around you to get a rough estimate of their success rates.)
Perhaps you want to be treated as an equal—seen as a terminal value rather than as an instrumental tool or resource?
This may be a little on the pedantic side, but people are not values. They may factor into values, terminal or otherwise, in some way—you might for example want to maximize their happiness or their preference satisfaction—but if you say “Alice is a terminal value to me” or “Bob is an instrumental value”, you haven’t actually said anything well-defined about how to optimize your behavior. You haven’t even said anything about how they relate to other people in your value system: you can weight values differently, and it’s entirely consistent to treat Alice and Bob’s happiness as (separate) terminal values while weighting Alice’s needs over Bob’s in every situation where they come into conflict.
I explicitly mean both at once.
But it is not self-evident that they are required to treat you as one, or even that they will gain a net benefit from doing so. Perhaps I should have avoided the rhetorical device “like a human being” and used the more precise “like a person”, instead. Let me reframe in that way:
It is obvious that you are a human being—that is, a member of the species Homo sapiens.
It is less obvious that you are a person—that is, a being that they must treat with the same level of rights and respect with which they expected to be treated.
This statement:
indicates that you are a tool / resource for achieving specific instrumental goals, and that those instrumental goals are different when they involve you than when they involve men. Your own preferences of which instrumental goals you would like to be utilized for is irrelevant; your average heterosexual male cares exactly as much for your preferences as your average Congressman or your average corporate marketing team: your preferences are useful for determining how to manipulate you towards instrumental ends, but other than that they don’t really enter into the equation.
Perhaps you want to be treated as an equal—seen as a terminal value rather than as an instrumental tool or resource? That’s an admirable goal, and one you will find that most people share. And thus, a good deal of social manipulation involves providing the appearance that we care about each other as terminal values, while behaving very clearly as if we really only see each other instrumentally. It is ironic that in this specific case, a significant portion of the motivation for unlocking your puzzle-box is so that the male can believe that you see him as a terminal value. Our cultural narrative strongly reinforces to men that the only way they will ever get someone to see them as a terminal value is by finding a woman and unlocking her puzzle-box—for many men (especially the so-called “Nice Guys”), this is actually a more powerful motivation even than sex.
That is irrelevant. The fact that you are in front of them, and they can imagine you fulfilling the role, means (from their perspective) that that prize is on the table. The fact that you do not wish to reward it will not disuade them; at most it just means (again, from their perspective) that they need to give the puzzle-box one or two more twists before it opens.
(EDIT: Re-reading this post, the picture I was painting of human nature is perhaps unnecessarily bleak. I think it is more accurate to say that people do not naturally treat each other as terminal values unless they are given explicit reason to, and that family, friendship etc. are all the normal reasons that they are given explicit reason to. Humans CAN be taught to treat all other humans as terminal values by default, but this is not particularly common. Unfortunately, it is far more common for people to learn to PRETEND to treat all other humans as terminal values—and to pretend to themselves just as much as they pretend to each other. Breaking through that to teach people how to truly love each other is something that mystics and visionaries strive towards every generation; you can look around you to get a rough estimate of their success rates.)
This may be a little on the pedantic side, but people are not values. They may factor into values, terminal or otherwise, in some way—you might for example want to maximize their happiness or their preference satisfaction—but if you say “Alice is a terminal value to me” or “Bob is an instrumental value”, you haven’t actually said anything well-defined about how to optimize your behavior. You haven’t even said anything about how they relate to other people in your value system: you can weight values differently, and it’s entirely consistent to treat Alice and Bob’s happiness as (separate) terminal values while weighting Alice’s needs over Bob’s in every situation where they come into conflict.