this isn’t what the complaints are about at all, but about how a particular segment of society demands we -revile- poorly socialized people.
No, even if unwittingly creepy folks were not reviled, most of the complaints about them would still stand. It’s not even clear that the people who complain about creepers are demanding anything, as opposed to simply expressing their own revulsion. Consider that many and perhaps most folks dislike rude people to some extent—and creeper behavior is unquestionably more obnoxious than many other kinds of social faux pas.
Sigh. I’m not talking about people complaining about creepy behavior. I’m talking about people who, for example, lump passive-aggressive sexual behavior in with “rape culture.”
Google “creep rape culture”. There are a lot of people who argue that creepiness should be clamped down on, hard, by society. Lost in the discussion is that “creepiness” is -really fucking vague-, and includes not only the examples of aggressive behavior listed in some of the links there, but also a lot of passive behavior which, as another commenter here pointed out, can be as simple as never acting on feelings that are apparent to other people.
“Creepy” is a spectrum, ranging from the harmless (and in some cases maybe even helpful—I’m not going to hit on a guy I know isn’t gay/bisexual, even if I’m attracted to him, and even if it might be painfully apparent that I’m attracted to him—for example, the really cute waiter with blue hair at my favorite restaurant who I probably look at a little too often) to the harmful (not going into examples here, I’m sure you can come up with something).
It’s not helpful, in the least, to address the entire spectrum as if only a subset of it were real.
Well, now you’re changing the subject. AIUI, nobody in this thread has been lumping mild forms of creepiness in with ‘rape culture’. However, it only takes listening to the latest gangsta hip hop rap “songs” to realize that some parts of popular culture do glorify predatory behavior (if not perhaps actual rape) to a disturbing extent. It’s not a stretch to assume that at least some people who consume such content might be unconciously influenced by it and perhaps become more creepy as a result.
The person I was responding to -was- lumping mild forms of creepiness in with rape culture with the “snot-gobber” example (as the aggressive behavior described pretty much fit that nomer). That wasn’t me changing the subject, that was me responding to somebody else changing the subject.
And now you’re changing the subject.
(Also, what the hell, Less Wrong? Of all my views, why do I get upvoted most consistently for my views on gender relations, of all things? I’m antisocial bordering on sociopathic. My idea of a good dating profile is one which frightens away as many people I deem unacceptable as possible, my idea of a good dating profile picture involves me holding a gun and a bottle of Jack Daniels. One of us is extremely poorly calibrated here.)
I don’t know why you were upvoted either, but that’s a perfectly good dating profile picture (if you look at it in terms of what the women are saying is creepy, rather than what the men are saying the women are saying is creepy, then it’s fairly clear)
I have no idea who the men and women in Less Wrong are. Even if I’m told I don’t care enough to remember. To the extent that I gender people, it’s based on usernames; your username comes across as male to me, which makes your comment come across as a little silly.
I’m making my judgment of what is called creepy based on what I’ve heard it used to describe in real life. In my family, it was exclusively used to describe people who come across as wrong; who have this unidentifiable aura of wrongness which wasn’t necessarily tied to behavior. One such individual, who we had long described as creepy, killed his daughter. (He deliberately got in a car wreck; it was an attempted murder-suicide.) Outside my family, I’ve heard it used to describe a pretty wide range of things. “Creep” is in fact a commonly-used word to describe men who fail miserably at legitimate attempts at socialization.
I’ve stopped using the word “creepy” to describe people. It didn’t fit common usage. I refer to these people now as “off,” or “not right.” I prefer the word creepy, but it doesn’t convey the meaning I intend it to convey, so I dropped it. I’m sympathetic to people who use it to refer to a feeling of wrongness in a fellow human being, but I’m not going to privilege their definition.
The person I was responding to -was- lumping mild forms of creepiness in with rape culture with the “snot-gobber” example (as the aggressive behavior described pretty much fit that nomer). That wasn’t me changing the subject, that was me responding to somebody else changing the subject.
But this only applies if you assume that snot-gobbers may be described as creepy not because of any particular behavior on their part, but because of their supposed desire to pick someone else’s nose. I don’t think that anyone would be willing to go that far, at least in this context[1]; even mwengler probably assumes that the “creeper” description is rooted in some kind of bad behavior. You suggest that “passive-aggressive” behaviors might be seen as just as creepy as actually aggressive ones, but you’re the one who’s making a catch-22 argument here.
[1] As you say in a related comment, some people may simply appear “wrong” or “not right” to us, for some unidentifiable reason. But it makes no sense to refer to this kind of creepy if the issue is whether “creepiness should be clamped down on, hard, by society”.
The author expected me to find them creepy -without any particular behavior on their part-. That’s the bit you’re missing. The behaviors were added later to try to make me feel like they were creepy, but the author -already- found them creepy, without any of those behaviors added in (or at least expected me to, which I take as good evidence).
Look, I’m more than happy to completely start over, with a completely new context, and argue with you about behavior—but don’t drop the context of the argument I was already having in order to try to score a point against me. Yes, I think there should be social prohibitions against certain behaviors; I’d prefer both well-defined and gray areas. No, I don’t find “creepy’ to be a useful way of describing those behaviors, because it’s used to describe a lot of gray areas as well. No, I don’t think complaints about these behaviors should be eradicated.
However, and it’s a really big however, all the valid criticisms that can be raised against gray-area creepiness -also- apply to COMPLAINTS about non-specific creepiness. Creepiness makes people feel uncomfortable because they aren’t certain of your intent and lowers their utilons? Well, complaints about creepiness make people feel uncomfortable because they aren’t certain what you’re describing, and lowers their utilons.
When you communicate about creepiness, be socially well adjusted enough to consider the possibility that what you’re communicating isn’t what you’re intending to communicate. Audience matters, interpretation matters. What’s in your brain isn’t what’s in your mouth and in their ear isn’t what’s in their brain.
And maybe it’s a good idea to just drop the “creepy” label and use a more specific description.
The author expected me to find them creepy -without any particular behavior on their part-.
Taboo “find them creepy”. He was certainly trying to empathize with others’ emotional reaction, but that’s not the same as actively reviling them or finding them horrible. Adding in behaviors after the fact was probably not a wholly kosher argument, but fubarobfusco only insisted on that after you equated unpleasant emotional feelings with deliberate social shunning. So there were multiple sources of confusion in your argument. I suppose I should apologize for not trying to clarify these before—I honestly am not trying to score logical points against you, but I can’t really fault you for thinking that.
regarding them in a manner more appropriate to something crawling up your shoe which I don’t think your comment is really acknowledging
That wasn’t complete—it was modified by this statement:
Treating people as people would be an improvement.
My comment wasn’t just about the -attitude-, but the behavior that arises out of that attitude. Wanting to punch somebody is not the same as actually punching somebody. I didn’t mean to imply that visceral reactions were thoughtcrime.
No, even if unwittingly creepy folks were not reviled, most of the complaints about them would still stand. It’s not even clear that the people who complain about creepers are demanding anything, as opposed to simply expressing their own revulsion. Consider that many and perhaps most folks dislike rude people to some extent—and creeper behavior is unquestionably more obnoxious than many other kinds of social faux pas.
Sigh. I’m not talking about people complaining about creepy behavior. I’m talking about people who, for example, lump passive-aggressive sexual behavior in with “rape culture.”
Google “creep rape culture”. There are a lot of people who argue that creepiness should be clamped down on, hard, by society. Lost in the discussion is that “creepiness” is -really fucking vague-, and includes not only the examples of aggressive behavior listed in some of the links there, but also a lot of passive behavior which, as another commenter here pointed out, can be as simple as never acting on feelings that are apparent to other people.
“Creepy” is a spectrum, ranging from the harmless (and in some cases maybe even helpful—I’m not going to hit on a guy I know isn’t gay/bisexual, even if I’m attracted to him, and even if it might be painfully apparent that I’m attracted to him—for example, the really cute waiter with blue hair at my favorite restaurant who I probably look at a little too often) to the harmful (not going into examples here, I’m sure you can come up with something).
It’s not helpful, in the least, to address the entire spectrum as if only a subset of it were real.
Well, now you’re changing the subject. AIUI, nobody in this thread has been lumping mild forms of creepiness in with ‘rape culture’. However, it only takes listening to the latest gangsta hip hop rap “songs” to realize that some parts of popular culture do glorify predatory behavior (if not perhaps actual rape) to a disturbing extent. It’s not a stretch to assume that at least some people who consume such content might be unconciously influenced by it and perhaps become more creepy as a result.
The person I was responding to -was- lumping mild forms of creepiness in with rape culture with the “snot-gobber” example (as the aggressive behavior described pretty much fit that nomer). That wasn’t me changing the subject, that was me responding to somebody else changing the subject.
And now you’re changing the subject.
(Also, what the hell, Less Wrong? Of all my views, why do I get upvoted most consistently for my views on gender relations, of all things? I’m antisocial bordering on sociopathic. My idea of a good dating profile is one which frightens away as many people I deem unacceptable as possible, my idea of a good dating profile picture involves me holding a gun and a bottle of Jack Daniels. One of us is extremely poorly calibrated here.)
I don’t know why you were upvoted either, but that’s a perfectly good dating profile picture (if you look at it in terms of what the women are saying is creepy, rather than what the men are saying the women are saying is creepy, then it’s fairly clear)
I have no idea who the men and women in Less Wrong are. Even if I’m told I don’t care enough to remember. To the extent that I gender people, it’s based on usernames; your username comes across as male to me, which makes your comment come across as a little silly.
I’m making my judgment of what is called creepy based on what I’ve heard it used to describe in real life. In my family, it was exclusively used to describe people who come across as wrong; who have this unidentifiable aura of wrongness which wasn’t necessarily tied to behavior. One such individual, who we had long described as creepy, killed his daughter. (He deliberately got in a car wreck; it was an attempted murder-suicide.) Outside my family, I’ve heard it used to describe a pretty wide range of things. “Creep” is in fact a commonly-used word to describe men who fail miserably at legitimate attempts at socialization.
I’ve stopped using the word “creepy” to describe people. It didn’t fit common usage. I refer to these people now as “off,” or “not right.” I prefer the word creepy, but it doesn’t convey the meaning I intend it to convey, so I dropped it. I’m sympathetic to people who use it to refer to a feeling of wrongness in a fellow human being, but I’m not going to privilege their definition.
But this only applies if you assume that snot-gobbers may be described as creepy not because of any particular behavior on their part, but because of their supposed desire to pick someone else’s nose. I don’t think that anyone would be willing to go that far, at least in this context[1]; even mwengler probably assumes that the “creeper” description is rooted in some kind of bad behavior. You suggest that “passive-aggressive” behaviors might be seen as just as creepy as actually aggressive ones, but you’re the one who’s making a catch-22 argument here.
[1] As you say in a related comment, some people may simply appear “wrong” or “not right” to us, for some unidentifiable reason. But it makes no sense to refer to this kind of creepy if the issue is whether “creepiness should be clamped down on, hard, by society”.
The author expected me to find them creepy -without any particular behavior on their part-. That’s the bit you’re missing. The behaviors were added later to try to make me feel like they were creepy, but the author -already- found them creepy, without any of those behaviors added in (or at least expected me to, which I take as good evidence).
Look, I’m more than happy to completely start over, with a completely new context, and argue with you about behavior—but don’t drop the context of the argument I was already having in order to try to score a point against me. Yes, I think there should be social prohibitions against certain behaviors; I’d prefer both well-defined and gray areas. No, I don’t find “creepy’ to be a useful way of describing those behaviors, because it’s used to describe a lot of gray areas as well. No, I don’t think complaints about these behaviors should be eradicated.
However, and it’s a really big however, all the valid criticisms that can be raised against gray-area creepiness -also- apply to COMPLAINTS about non-specific creepiness. Creepiness makes people feel uncomfortable because they aren’t certain of your intent and lowers their utilons? Well, complaints about creepiness make people feel uncomfortable because they aren’t certain what you’re describing, and lowers their utilons.
When you communicate about creepiness, be socially well adjusted enough to consider the possibility that what you’re communicating isn’t what you’re intending to communicate. Audience matters, interpretation matters. What’s in your brain isn’t what’s in your mouth and in their ear isn’t what’s in their brain.
And maybe it’s a good idea to just drop the “creepy” label and use a more specific description.
Taboo “find them creepy”. He was certainly trying to empathize with others’ emotional reaction, but that’s not the same as actively reviling them or finding them horrible. Adding in behaviors after the fact was probably not a wholly kosher argument, but fubarobfusco only insisted on that after you equated unpleasant emotional feelings with deliberate social shunning. So there were multiple sources of confusion in your argument. I suppose I should apologize for not trying to clarify these before—I honestly am not trying to score logical points against you, but I can’t really fault you for thinking that.
Ah. I see where the disengagement happened.
From my original comment:
That wasn’t complete—it was modified by this statement:
My comment wasn’t just about the -attitude-, but the behavior that arises out of that attitude. Wanting to punch somebody is not the same as actually punching somebody. I didn’t mean to imply that visceral reactions were thoughtcrime.