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?)
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?)