This is a forum for discussing ideas, it’s not a forum for playing social games. (I’m saying this as someone who is extremely reluctant about white lies and who hates the idea that they are socially expected to lie. Asking a question when one doesn’t want an honest answer is just silly.)
Except when acting offended and/or hurt signals solidarity and prompts your allies to attack the alien who got the shibboleth wrong. (You can argue that that’s evil, of course, but then you’re trying to break away from some very, very deeply ingrained instincts for coalition politics.)
I think that’s covered by “alternatively, evil”. ;) More seriously, though: how is “knowing what the preferred answer is and either agreeing with it or being willing to lie” a reasonable criterion by which to filter your group?
how is “knowing what the preferred answer is and either agreeing with it or being willing to lie” a reasonable criterion by which to filter your group?
It proves that you value loyalty to your group more than you value your own capacity to reason, which means that authoritarian leaders don’t have to consider you a threat (and thus destroy you and everything you hold dear) if they order you to do something against your self-interest. Thus, perversely, when you’re in an environment where power has already concentrated, it can be in your self-interest to signal that you’re willing to disregard your self-interest, even to the point of disregarding your capacity to determine your self-interest.
Once ingrained, this pattern can continue even if those authoritarian leaders lose their capacity to destroy you—and perversely, the pattern itself can remain as the sole threat capable of destroying you if you dissent.
(Put a few layers of genteel classism over the authoritarian leadership, and it doesn’t even have to look autocratic in the first place.)
Definitely covered by “alternatively, evil”. Especially when considering a two-person relationship!
My problem with calling these behaviors “evil” is that they don’t have to be consciously decided upon—they’re just ways that happened to keep our ancestors alive in brutal political environments. Cognitive biases and natural political tendencies may be tragic, but calling them “evil” implies a level of culpability that I think isn’t really warranted.
The choice of words was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but enforcing your power over others in this way is definitely not a nice thing to do. And holding people responsible for such disingenuous behaviour only when they consciously deliberate and decide on it doesn’t seem to be very useful to me. People rarely consciously deliberate and decide upon being assholes. (And if someone does what you described in a two-person relationship, I am very inclined to call them an asshole, at least in my head.)
I wonder if people who have a disadvantaged native social circuitry are more likely to judge other people because their success in social situations requires more conscious deliberation and thus they’re expecting more of it from others.
I don’t know; I’m something of a counterexample to that, and I tend to not associate with other socially disadvantaged people, so I don’t have a good reference class to build examples from.
Who gets to decide what’s a social game? Attacking people when they’re perceived to be playing social games seems like a social game to me. It’s the nature of many social games that they employ plausible deniability, which leads to a lot of false positives and hostility if you attack all of the potential threats.
This is a forum for discussing ideas, it’s not a forum for playing social games. (I’m saying this as someone who is extremely reluctant about white lies and who hates the idea that they are socially expected to lie. Asking a question when one doesn’t want an honest answer is just silly.)
Except when you’re looking for the social / mental equivalent of a shibboleth.
Okay. Asking as question and then being offended and/or hurt when one gets an honest answer is just silly (alternatively, evil).
Except when acting offended and/or hurt signals solidarity and prompts your allies to attack the alien who got the shibboleth wrong. (You can argue that that’s evil, of course, but then you’re trying to break away from some very, very deeply ingrained instincts for coalition politics.)
I think that’s covered by “alternatively, evil”. ;) More seriously, though: how is “knowing what the preferred answer is and either agreeing with it or being willing to lie” a reasonable criterion by which to filter your group?
It proves that you value loyalty to your group more than you value your own capacity to reason, which means that authoritarian leaders don’t have to consider you a threat (and thus destroy you and everything you hold dear) if they order you to do something against your self-interest. Thus, perversely, when you’re in an environment where power has already concentrated, it can be in your self-interest to signal that you’re willing to disregard your self-interest, even to the point of disregarding your capacity to determine your self-interest.
Once ingrained, this pattern can continue even if those authoritarian leaders lose their capacity to destroy you—and perversely, the pattern itself can remain as the sole threat capable of destroying you if you dissent.
(Put a few layers of genteel classism over the authoritarian leadership, and it doesn’t even have to look autocratic in the first place.)
Definitely covered by “alternatively, evil”. Especially when considering a two-person relationship!
My problem with calling these behaviors “evil” is that they don’t have to be consciously decided upon—they’re just ways that happened to keep our ancestors alive in brutal political environments. Cognitive biases and natural political tendencies may be tragic, but calling them “evil” implies a level of culpability that I think isn’t really warranted.
The choice of words was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but enforcing your power over others in this way is definitely not a nice thing to do. And holding people responsible for such disingenuous behaviour only when they consciously deliberate and decide on it doesn’t seem to be very useful to me. People rarely consciously deliberate and decide upon being assholes. (And if someone does what you described in a two-person relationship, I am very inclined to call them an asshole, at least in my head.)
I wonder if people who have a disadvantaged native social circuitry are more likely to judge other people because their success in social situations requires more conscious deliberation and thus they’re expecting more of it from others.
I don’t know; I’m something of a counterexample to that, and I tend to not associate with other socially disadvantaged people, so I don’t have a good reference class to build examples from.
If you are just want to discus ideas, keep out words like I.
Don’t say: “But I will implore you to do one thing: accept other people’s right to lie to you.”
Say: “Here are reasons why you might profit from accept other people’s right to lie to you.”
Maybe even: “Here are reasons why a person might profit from accept other people’s right to lie to them”
You have a point there.
Who gets to decide what’s a social game? Attacking people when they’re perceived to be playing social games seems like a social game to me. It’s the nature of many social games that they employ plausible deniability, which leads to a lot of false positives and hostility if you attack all of the potential threats.