#1 grates for me. If a friend goes to me in tears more than a couple of times demanding that I fix their bicycle/grades/relationship/emotional problems, I will no longer consider them a friend. If you ask politely I’ll try to get you on the right track (here’s the tool you need and here’s how to use it/this is how to sign up for tutoring/whatever), but doing much more than that is treating the asker as less than an agent themself. Going to your friend in tears before even trying to come up with a solution yourself is not a good behavior to encourage (I’ve been on both sides of this, and it’s not good for anyone).
Don’t confuse reliability and responsibility with being a sucker.
There’s a specific failure-mode related to this that I’m sure a lot of LW has encountered: for some reason, most people lose 10 “agency points” around their computers. This chart could basically be summarized as “just try being an agent for a minute sheesh.”
I wonder if there’s something about the way people initially encounter computers that biases them against trying to apply their natural level of agency? Maybe, to coin an isomorphism, an “NPC death spiral”? It doesn’t quite seem to be learned helplessness, since they still know the problem can be solved, and work toward solving it; they just think solving the problem absolutely requires delegating it to a Real Agent.
Many people vastly overestimate the likelihood of results like “computer rendered unbootable” or “all your data is lost forever.” (My grandfather won’t let anyone else touch the TV or remote because he thinks we could break it by trying to change the channel in the wrong way.) If I thought those were likely results of clicking on random menu items I’d want to delegate too.
When I notice myself acting this way around computers, though, the thought process goes something like this:
I have a problem, likely because I did something that my social circle would consider stupid.
Past attempts to solve computer-related problems myself have a low (30% or so) success rate, so I am likely to have to explain the whole situation to someone who will judge me less intelligent as a result.
Any attempts at solving the problem myself will lengthen this explanation and raise the chance that it includes something truly idiotic (this also makes the explanation more stressful, which makes me worse at explaining everything I’ve done, which makes the problem harder for an expert to solve).
Meanwhile, if I succeed it is unimpressive. “Oh, you’re 25 and just figured out how to tie your own shoes?” Not exactly an accomplishment I can feel good about.
Just ask for help now before I make it any worse (or perhaps read for a while, try one or two methods based not on likelihood of working but on how easy they are to justify under stress, then ask for help).
1 grates for me. If a friend goes to me in tears more than a couple of times demanding that I fix their bicycle/grades/relationship/emotional problems, I will no longer consider them a friend.
I guess being a PC in that sense sucks.
Going to your friend in tears before even trying to come up with a solution yourself is not a good behavior to encourage (I’ve been on both sides of this, and it’s not good for anyone).
I try not to do this. When I go to my parents in tears, it’s because I’ve tried all the usual solutions and they aren’t working and I don’t know why, and/or because everything else possible is going wrong at the same time and I don’t have the mental energy to deal with my broken bike on top of disasters at work and my best friend having a meltdown.
Likewise, being the one who takes heroic responsibility for someone isn’t necessarily a healthy role to take, as I’ve realized.
To clarify, there’s a big difference between coming to me in tears asking for help and coming to me in tears asking for a complete solution handed to you on a platter, I’ve just seen enough of the latter that it really really irritates me.
Also, “solves my problem immediately when asked, regardless of whether it’s in his interest” seems to me like an attribute of an NPC and not that of a PC.
If you have a problem and don’t ask for a solution, then I’d try not to be annoyed with you if you’re annoyed at being offered one. Maybe you already know exactly what you’re going to do but just want to get some complaining in first. Nothing wrong with that.
#1 grates for me. If a friend goes to me in tears more than a couple of times demanding that I fix their bicycle/grades/relationship/emotional problems, I will no longer consider them a friend. If you ask politely I’ll try to get you on the right track (here’s the tool you need and here’s how to use it/this is how to sign up for tutoring/whatever), but doing much more than that is treating the asker as less than an agent themself. Going to your friend in tears before even trying to come up with a solution yourself is not a good behavior to encourage (I’ve been on both sides of this, and it’s not good for anyone).
Don’t confuse reliability and responsibility with being a sucker.
There’s a specific failure-mode related to this that I’m sure a lot of LW has encountered: for some reason, most people lose 10 “agency points” around their computers. This chart could basically be summarized as “just try being an agent for a minute sheesh.”
I wonder if there’s something about the way people initially encounter computers that biases them against trying to apply their natural level of agency? Maybe, to coin an isomorphism, an “NPC death spiral”? It doesn’t quite seem to be learned helplessness, since they still know the problem can be solved, and work toward solving it; they just think solving the problem absolutely requires delegating it to a Real Agent.
Many people vastly overestimate the likelihood of results like “computer rendered unbootable” or “all your data is lost forever.” (My grandfather won’t let anyone else touch the TV or remote because he thinks we could break it by trying to change the channel in the wrong way.) If I thought those were likely results of clicking on random menu items I’d want to delegate too.
When I notice myself acting this way around computers, though, the thought process goes something like this:
I have a problem, likely because I did something that my social circle would consider stupid.
Past attempts to solve computer-related problems myself have a low (30% or so) success rate, so I am likely to have to explain the whole situation to someone who will judge me less intelligent as a result.
Any attempts at solving the problem myself will lengthen this explanation and raise the chance that it includes something truly idiotic (this also makes the explanation more stressful, which makes me worse at explaining everything I’ve done, which makes the problem harder for an expert to solve).
Meanwhile, if I succeed it is unimpressive. “Oh, you’re 25 and just figured out how to tie your own shoes?” Not exactly an accomplishment I can feel good about.
Just ask for help now before I make it any worse (or perhaps read for a while, try one or two methods based not on likelihood of working but on how easy they are to justify under stress, then ask for help).
I guess being a PC in that sense sucks.
I try not to do this. When I go to my parents in tears, it’s because I’ve tried all the usual solutions and they aren’t working and I don’t know why, and/or because everything else possible is going wrong at the same time and I don’t have the mental energy to deal with my broken bike on top of disasters at work and my best friend having a meltdown.
Likewise, being the one who takes heroic responsibility for someone isn’t necessarily a healthy role to take, as I’ve realized.
Sometimes heroic responsibility requires metaphorically throwing a guide to fishing at someone.
Sometimes it requires the metametaphor (metwophor?) of telling them where the library is that contains that kind of book.
And sometimes it requires giving them a literal fish.
“Break down and cry” is a failure mode.
I’m reminded of the “spending too much time in airports” quote, but that’s likely because I’ve been in airports and aircraft for 15 hours.
To clarify, there’s a big difference between coming to me in tears asking for help and coming to me in tears asking for a complete solution handed to you on a platter, I’ve just seen enough of the latter that it really really irritates me.
Also, “solves my problem immediately when asked, regardless of whether it’s in his interest” seems to me like an attribute of an NPC and not that of a PC.
I don’t know, it’s less annoying then coming to you in tears and then getting annoyed when provided with a solution.
(Although that may depend on whether you consider your friends agents … hmm.)
If you have a problem and don’t ask for a solution, then I’d try not to be annoyed with you if you’re annoyed at being offered one. Maybe you already know exactly what you’re going to do but just want to get some complaining in first. Nothing wrong with that.
I suspect kalium would downgrade someone from friend status if that happened once, which does map on to the annoyance difference.
… I have no idea why I didn’t realise that. Thank you.