Great article! The laws you describe are definitely subject to many social behaviors.
One thing I found insufficiently covered in the article is how social prejudices shape the extent to which people act in “dark matter” behavioral patterns. The way it’s described in the article, it seems like either Person A has property X, or they do not have property X, independent of the existing social prejudices. I would like to challenge that assumption.
If I lived many years ago, I might’ve had slaves, and could be put in a bucket “people who enjoy having slaves”. But since social norms changed, nowadays there will for certain be fewer people who “enjoy having slaves” just because our model of empathic behavior has changed: many of us are now able to see that people tend to be born equal. This then shapes our natural inclinations.
For each of the items on the list of behaviors you shared, the size of the underlying group is also dependent on societal norms. For example, items surrounding sexual behavior: they would be much more prevalent if they were normalized. When they are not normalized, some people will hide their behaviors, but others might simply not bother at all, and thus not be in hiding.
It’s similar to the “keeping the cookie jar out of sight” principle. When the cookie jar was in sight, one could be categorized as a “cookie addict”. When it was out of sight, that inclination vanished.
Great article! The laws you describe are definitely subject to many social behaviors.
One thing I found insufficiently covered in the article is how social prejudices shape the extent to which people act in “dark matter” behavioral patterns. The way it’s described in the article, it seems like either Person A has property X, or they do not have property X, independent of the existing social prejudices. I would like to challenge that assumption.
If I lived many years ago, I might’ve had slaves, and could be put in a bucket “people who enjoy having slaves”. But since social norms changed, nowadays there will for certain be fewer people who “enjoy having slaves” just because our model of empathic behavior has changed: many of us are now able to see that people tend to be born equal. This then shapes our natural inclinations.
For each of the items on the list of behaviors you shared, the size of the underlying group is also dependent on societal norms. For example, items surrounding sexual behavior: they would be much more prevalent if they were normalized. When they are not normalized, some people will hide their behaviors, but others might simply not bother at all, and thus not be in hiding.
It’s similar to the “keeping the cookie jar out of sight” principle. When the cookie jar was in sight, one could be categorized as a “cookie addict”. When it was out of sight, that inclination vanished.