Saying “fuck you” and waiting ten seconds? There’s a good chance they were trying to bait you into a reportable offense. That said, you should’ve used more courage in the moment, and your “friends” should’ve backed you up. If you find yourself in that situation again, try saying “no you” and improvise from there.
If you find yourself in that situation again, try saying “no you” and improvise from there.
Why take the risk of this escalating into a seriously negative sum outcome? I can imagine the risk being worth it for someone who needs to constantly show others that they can “handle themselves” and won’t easily back down from perceived threats and slights. But presumably habryka is not in that kind of social circumstances, so I don’t understand your reasoning here.
Why take the risk of this escalating into a seriously negative sum outcome?
Because if someone does that to you (walking up to you and insulting you to your face, apropos of nothing), then the value to them of the situation’s outcome no longer matters to you—or shouldn’t, anyway; this person does not deserve that, not by a long shot.
And so the “negative sum” consideration is irrelevant. There’s no “sum” to consider, only the value to you. And to you, the situation is already strongly negative.
Now, it is possible that you could make it more negative, for yourself. Possible… but not likely. And even if you do, if you simultaneously succeed at making it much more negative for your opponent, you have nonetheless improved your own outcome (for what I hope are obvious game-theoretic reasons).
Aren’t you, after all, simply asking “why retaliate against attacks, even when doing so is not required to stop that particular attack”? All I can say to that is “read Schelling”…
It would have very likely made it a lot more negative to myself. I expect that would have escalated the situation and would have prolonged the whole thing for at least twice as long.
Generally I am in favor of punishing things like this, but it seems much better for that punishment to not happen via conflict escalation, but via other more systematic ways of punishment.
Because if someone does that to you (walking up to you and insulting you to your face, apropos of nothing), then the value to them of the situation’s outcome no longer matters to you—or shouldn’t, anyway; this person does not deserve that, not by a long shot.
I disagree with the morality that is implied by this statement. (It’s a really small part of my moral parliament.)
And to you, the situation is already strongly negative.
There may be some value difference here between you and I, in that you may consider being insulted to have a strongly negative terminal value?
Now, it is possible that you could make it more negative, for yourself. Possible… but not likely.
If the situation escalated, I might get injured or arrested or be less likely to be invited to future parties, or that person might develop a vendetta against me and cause more substantial harm to me in the future, all of which seem potentially a lot more negative.
And even if you do, if you simultaneously succeed at making it much more negative for your opponent, you have nonetheless improved your own outcome (for what I hope are obvious game-theoretic reasons).
I already addressed this when I wrote “I can imagine the risk being worth it for someone who needs to constantly show others that they can “handle themselves” and won’t easily back down from perceived threats and slights. But presumably habryka is not in that kind of social circumstances, so I don’t understand your reasoning here.”
Aren’t you, after all, simply asking “why retaliate against attacks, even when doing so is not required to stop that particular attack”? All I can say to that is “read Schelling”…
No, I was saying that cost-benefit doesn’t seem to favor retaliating against that particular attack, in the particular way that cousin_it suggested. (Clearly it’s true that some attacks should not be retaliated against, right?)
>> Why take the risk of this escalating into a seriously negative sum outcome?
Because if someone does that to you (walking up to you and insulting you to your face, apropos of nothing), then the value to them of the situation’s outcome no longer matters to you—or shouldn’t, anyway; this person does not deserve that, not by a long shot.
I think I’m with Wei_Dai on this one—insulting me to my face, apropos of nothing, doesn’t change my valuation of them very much. I don’t know the reasons for such, but I presume it’s based on fear or pain and I deeply sympathize with those reasons for unpleasant, unreasoning actions. Part of my reaction is that it’s VERY DIFFICULT to insult me in any way that I won’t just laugh at the absurdity, unless you actually know me and are targeting my personal insecurities.
Only if it’s _NOT_ random and apropos of nothing am I likely to feel that there are strategic advantages to taking a risk now to prevent future occurrences (per your Schelling reference).
Fun tends to be highly personal, for example some people find free soloing fun, and others find it terrifying. Some people enjoy strategy games and others much prefer action games. So it seems surprising that you’d give an unconditional “should have” criticism/advice based on what you think is fun. I mean, you wouldn’t say to someone, “you should not have used safety equipment during that climb.” At most you’d say, “you should try not using safety equipment next time and see if that’s more fun for you.”
It’s not just about thrill-seeking though. A bit of courage can improve quality of life by making you less scared of events that happen, like the event habryka described.
Free soloing is fun for some and not others in large part for reasons like “skill in climbing”, which cannot be expected to hold the same optimal value for different people. Courage, on the other hand, is pretty universally useful, and can help in ways that are not immediately obvious.
It’s not always obvious how things could be better through the exercise of courage for two reasons. First, the application of courage almost inevitably results in an increase of fear (how could it not, since you’re choosing to not flinch away from the fear). If you’re not exceedingly careful, it can be easy to conflate “things got scarier” with “things got objectively worse”. In situations like this, it can often escalate things into explicit threats of violence which are definitely more scary and it can be easy to read “he threatened to fight me” as a turn for the worse. It’s not at all obvious until you follow through that these threats are very very often empty — so often, in fact, that displaying willingness to let things escalate physically can be the safer thing to (at least in my experience it has been).
Secondly, it’s not always clear what one should do with courage. All the courage in the world wouldn’t get me to free solo climb for the same reason it wouldn’t get me to play Russian roulette; it’s just not worth the risk for me. In situations like this, cousin_it suggests responding with “no, you”, but I actually think that’s a mistake. I’d actually advocate doing exactly what habryka did. Say nothing. Don’t back down, of course, but you don’t have to respond and what do you get out of responding other than encouraging that kind of bad behavior? The jerk doesn’t deserve a response.
Of course, it’d be nice to do it with less fear. It’d be nice if instead of seeing fear he sees someone looking at him as if he’s irrelevant and just waiting for him to leave (which is a pretty big punishment, actually, since it makes the aggressor feel foolish for thinking their aggression would have any effect), but that’s an issue of “fear” not “courage”, and you kinda have to accept and run with whatever fear you have since you can’t really address it on the fly.
I wouldn’t say “you should have more courage” both because I don’t see any obvious failure of courage and because you can’t “should” people into courage or out of fear, but I do think courage is an underappreciated virtue to be cultivated, and that the application of courage in cases like these makes life as a whole much more pleasant and less (invisibly and visibly) controlled by fear. This means both holding fast in the moment despite the presence of fear, as well as taking the time to work through your fears in the down time such that you’re more prepared for the next time.
Saying “fuck you” and waiting ten seconds? There’s a good chance they were trying to bait you into a reportable offense. That said, you should’ve used more courage in the moment, and your “friends” should’ve backed you up. If you find yourself in that situation again, try saying “no you” and improvise from there.
Why take the risk of this escalating into a seriously negative sum outcome? I can imagine the risk being worth it for someone who needs to constantly show others that they can “handle themselves” and won’t easily back down from perceived threats and slights. But presumably habryka is not in that kind of social circumstances, so I don’t understand your reasoning here.
Because if someone does that to you (walking up to you and insulting you to your face, apropos of nothing), then the value to them of the situation’s outcome no longer matters to you—or shouldn’t, anyway; this person does not deserve that, not by a long shot.
And so the “negative sum” consideration is irrelevant. There’s no “sum” to consider, only the value to you. And to you, the situation is already strongly negative.
Now, it is possible that you could make it more negative, for yourself. Possible… but not likely. And even if you do, if you simultaneously succeed at making it much more negative for your opponent, you have nonetheless improved your own outcome (for what I hope are obvious game-theoretic reasons).
Aren’t you, after all, simply asking “why retaliate against attacks, even when doing so is not required to stop that particular attack”? All I can say to that is “read Schelling”…
It would have very likely made it a lot more negative to myself. I expect that would have escalated the situation and would have prolonged the whole thing for at least twice as long.
Generally I am in favor of punishing things like this, but it seems much better for that punishment to not happen via conflict escalation, but via other more systematic ways of punishment.
I disagree with the morality that is implied by this statement. (It’s a really small part of my moral parliament.)
There may be some value difference here between you and I, in that you may consider being insulted to have a strongly negative terminal value?
If the situation escalated, I might get injured or arrested or be less likely to be invited to future parties, or that person might develop a vendetta against me and cause more substantial harm to me in the future, all of which seem potentially a lot more negative.
I already addressed this when I wrote “I can imagine the risk being worth it for someone who needs to constantly show others that they can “handle themselves” and won’t easily back down from perceived threats and slights. But presumably habryka is not in that kind of social circumstances, so I don’t understand your reasoning here.”
No, I was saying that cost-benefit doesn’t seem to favor retaliating against that particular attack, in the particular way that cousin_it suggested. (Clearly it’s true that some attacks should not be retaliated against, right?)
>> Why take the risk of this escalating into a seriously negative sum outcome?
I think I’m with Wei_Dai on this one—insulting me to my face, apropos of nothing, doesn’t change my valuation of them very much. I don’t know the reasons for such, but I presume it’s based on fear or pain and I deeply sympathize with those reasons for unpleasant, unreasoning actions. Part of my reaction is that it’s VERY DIFFICULT to insult me in any way that I won’t just laugh at the absurdity, unless you actually know me and are targeting my personal insecurities.
Only if it’s _NOT_ random and apropos of nothing am I likely to feel that there are strategic advantages to taking a risk now to prevent future occurrences (per your Schelling reference).
I think living with courage and dignity is more fun in any social circumstances.
Fun tends to be highly personal, for example some people find free soloing fun, and others find it terrifying. Some people enjoy strategy games and others much prefer action games. So it seems surprising that you’d give an unconditional “should have” criticism/advice based on what you think is fun. I mean, you wouldn’t say to someone, “you should not have used safety equipment during that climb.” At most you’d say, “you should try not using safety equipment next time and see if that’s more fun for you.”
It’s not just about thrill-seeking though. A bit of courage can improve quality of life by making you less scared of events that happen, like the event habryka described.
Free soloing is fun for some and not others in large part for reasons like “skill in climbing”, which cannot be expected to hold the same optimal value for different people. Courage, on the other hand, is pretty universally useful, and can help in ways that are not immediately obvious.
It’s not always obvious how things could be better through the exercise of courage for two reasons. First, the application of courage almost inevitably results in an increase of fear (how could it not, since you’re choosing to not flinch away from the fear). If you’re not exceedingly careful, it can be easy to conflate “things got scarier” with “things got objectively worse”. In situations like this, it can often escalate things into explicit threats of violence which are definitely more scary and it can be easy to read “he threatened to fight me” as a turn for the worse. It’s not at all obvious until you follow through that these threats are very very often empty — so often, in fact, that displaying willingness to let things escalate physically can be the safer thing to (at least in my experience it has been).
Secondly, it’s not always clear what one should do with courage. All the courage in the world wouldn’t get me to free solo climb for the same reason it wouldn’t get me to play Russian roulette; it’s just not worth the risk for me. In situations like this, cousin_it suggests responding with “no, you”, but I actually think that’s a mistake. I’d actually advocate doing exactly what habryka did. Say nothing. Don’t back down, of course, but you don’t have to respond and what do you get out of responding other than encouraging that kind of bad behavior? The jerk doesn’t deserve a response.
Of course, it’d be nice to do it with less fear. It’d be nice if instead of seeing fear he sees someone looking at him as if he’s irrelevant and just waiting for him to leave (which is a pretty big punishment, actually, since it makes the aggressor feel foolish for thinking their aggression would have any effect), but that’s an issue of “fear” not “courage”, and you kinda have to accept and run with whatever fear you have since you can’t really address it on the fly.
I wouldn’t say “you should have more courage” both because I don’t see any obvious failure of courage and because you can’t “should” people into courage or out of fear, but I do think courage is an underappreciated virtue to be cultivated, and that the application of courage in cases like these makes life as a whole much more pleasant and less (invisibly and visibly) controlled by fear. This means both holding fast in the moment despite the presence of fear, as well as taking the time to work through your fears in the down time such that you’re more prepared for the next time.