Personally I find it kind of invasive when people talk to me uninvited at all. But I can hardly hold other people responsible for not complying with my own, unknown-to-them social antipathies.
The issue is, should you let those folks know that you’d rather not be bothered? And if so, how to do so in a way that doesn’t look like an outright rejection, or ascribing low status to them, since some people might be antagonized by that.
The issue is, should you let those folks know that you’d rather not be bothered?
If I feel strongly about the matter, yes, I should. If it isn’t particularly important to me, it’s a judgment call.
And if so, how to do so in a way that doesn’t look like an outright rejection, or ascribing low status to them, since some people might be antagonized by that.
If somebody behaves in a manner that requires outright rejection, they must be willing to accept outright rejection. The sane principle is to make outright rejection socially acceptable, -not- to demand that people not engage in any behaviors which require outright rejection; the latter principle creates an incentive to defect from social norms, precisely because annulling the advantage conferred by defection requires a defection in turn from the recipient party.
It is utterly insane to let communication be entirely ruled by rules of social standing which reward antisocial behaviors. Such attitudes transform communication from a process of imparting and receiving information into status games where a large part of the goal is subverting, manipulating, and changing information. Social behaviors shouldn’t be informed and ruled by the dark arts of rationality.
The sane principle is to make outright rejection socially acceptable, -not- to demand that people not engage in any behaviors which require outright rejection;
To a third-party observer, rejecting someone overtly is almost indistinguishable from ascribing low status to them. This is a fact about how social interaction works in the real world (not about contingent social norms) and it largely explains why people dislike being publicly and overtly rejected. I actually think that there might be some ways around this, but saying that current social norms are “utterly insane” seems unwarranted.
I’m not suggesting current social norms are utterly insane, but rather those which are implicitly proposed by the submission author, enacting social prohibitions against any kind of behavior which requests overt rejection (such as asking for a phone number, which is currently a socially acceptable behavior).
Social standards shouldn’t be determined by the least socially acclimated people, which is essentially what is being proposed. “I’m afraid to say no, therefore you shouldn’t make requests that require me to do so.” You apparently believe the social cost of rejection is borne by the rejectee, so there’s no reason to add social costs to making requests subject to such rejection. (If somebody is unaware of the social costs of rejection, and so makes an uninformed request, they certainly aren’t going to be helped by more implicit rules punishing their behavior.)
Need a norm for blind (outsiders don’t know whether it’s a deliberate rejection or something circumstantial) polite rejections. Would still have forceful low status rejection for bigger problems.
Edit: Also, don’t think she even did reccomend no behavior at all which requires rejection.
Need a norm for blind (outsiders don’t know whether it’s a deliberate rejection or something circumstantial) polite rejections.
I thought about a mobile application for all participants. You could “block” a person; the other person would get that information, but no one else. You could send an “invitation to talk” to a person who is not blocking you, and the person would respond by “yes, now”, “try later”, or “block”. An invitation followed by “yes, now” would allow you to start a conversation.
This could work in a setting when there are many people walking in a room, making one-to-one conversations. Which would probably be too limiting, but not completely impossible. With a larger group of people, I can imagine upleasant situations difficult to solve algorithmically.
Imagine this: You have three friends F1, F2, F3 and one enemy E. (Suppose the enemy wants to talk with you; only you don’t want to talk with them.) Now all F1, F2, F3, E are sitting at one table, discussing some interesting topic, you walk around, and your friend F1 uses whatever protocol to invite you to the discussion. You would like to join, but only if E is not there. But the social norm is that you shouldn’t make this information publicly known (to F1, F2, F3). (EDIT: Also, E actively abuses this norm by staying with your friends F1, F2, F3 the whole evening, hoping that your preference for interacting with them will be greater than your preference for not interacting with him.) What should happen now?
The issue is, should you let those folks know that you’d rather not be bothered? And if so, how to do so in a way that doesn’t look like an outright rejection, or ascribing low status to them, since some people might be antagonized by that.
If I feel strongly about the matter, yes, I should. If it isn’t particularly important to me, it’s a judgment call.
If somebody behaves in a manner that requires outright rejection, they must be willing to accept outright rejection. The sane principle is to make outright rejection socially acceptable, -not- to demand that people not engage in any behaviors which require outright rejection; the latter principle creates an incentive to defect from social norms, precisely because annulling the advantage conferred by defection requires a defection in turn from the recipient party.
It is utterly insane to let communication be entirely ruled by rules of social standing which reward antisocial behaviors. Such attitudes transform communication from a process of imparting and receiving information into status games where a large part of the goal is subverting, manipulating, and changing information. Social behaviors shouldn’t be informed and ruled by the dark arts of rationality.
To a third-party observer, rejecting someone overtly is almost indistinguishable from ascribing low status to them. This is a fact about how social interaction works in the real world (not about contingent social norms) and it largely explains why people dislike being publicly and overtly rejected. I actually think that there might be some ways around this, but saying that current social norms are “utterly insane” seems unwarranted.
I’m not suggesting current social norms are utterly insane, but rather those which are implicitly proposed by the submission author, enacting social prohibitions against any kind of behavior which requests overt rejection (such as asking for a phone number, which is currently a socially acceptable behavior).
Social standards shouldn’t be determined by the least socially acclimated people, which is essentially what is being proposed. “I’m afraid to say no, therefore you shouldn’t make requests that require me to do so.” You apparently believe the social cost of rejection is borne by the rejectee, so there’s no reason to add social costs to making requests subject to such rejection. (If somebody is unaware of the social costs of rejection, and so makes an uninformed request, they certainly aren’t going to be helped by more implicit rules punishing their behavior.)
Need a norm for blind (outsiders don’t know whether it’s a deliberate rejection or something circumstantial) polite rejections. Would still have forceful low status rejection for bigger problems.
Edit: Also, don’t think she even did reccomend no behavior at all which requires rejection.
I thought about a mobile application for all participants. You could “block” a person; the other person would get that information, but no one else. You could send an “invitation to talk” to a person who is not blocking you, and the person would respond by “yes, now”, “try later”, or “block”. An invitation followed by “yes, now” would allow you to start a conversation.
This could work in a setting when there are many people walking in a room, making one-to-one conversations. Which would probably be too limiting, but not completely impossible. With a larger group of people, I can imagine upleasant situations difficult to solve algorithmically.
Imagine this: You have three friends F1, F2, F3 and one enemy E. (Suppose the enemy wants to talk with you; only you don’t want to talk with them.) Now all F1, F2, F3, E are sitting at one table, discussing some interesting topic, you walk around, and your friend F1 uses whatever protocol to invite you to the discussion. You would like to join, but only if E is not there. But the social norm is that you shouldn’t make this information publicly known (to F1, F2, F3). (EDIT: Also, E actively abuses this norm by staying with your friends F1, F2, F3 the whole evening, hoping that your preference for interacting with them will be greater than your preference for not interacting with him.) What should happen now?