I thought I didn’t get angry much in response to people making specific claims. I did some introspection about times in the recent past when I got angry, defensive, or withdrew from a conversation in response to claims that the other person made.
After some introspection, I think these are the mechanisms that made me feel that way:
They were very confident about their claim. Partly I felt annoyance because I didn’t feel like there was anything that would change their mind, partly I felt annoyance because it felt like they didn’t have enough status to make very confident claims like that. This is more linked to confidence in body language and tone rather than their confidence in their own claims though both matter.
Credentialism: them being unwilling to explain things and taking it as a given that they were correct because I didn’t have the specific experiences or credentials that they had without mentioning what specifically from gaining that experience would help me understand their argument.
Not letting me speak and interrupting quickly to take down the fuzzy strawman version of what I meant rather than letting me take my time to explain my argument.
Morality: I felt like one of my cherished values was being threatened.
The other person was relatively smart and powerful, at least within the specific situation. If they were dumb or not powerful, I would have just found the conversation amusing instead.
The other person assumed I was dumb or naive, perhaps because they had met other people with the same position as me and those people came across as not knowledgeable.
The other person getting worked up, for example, raising their voice or showing other signs of being irritated, offended, or angry while acting as if I was the emotional/offended one. This one particularly stings because of gender stereotypes. I think I’m more calm and reasonable and less easily offended than most people. I’ve had a few conversations with men where it felt like they were just really bad at noticing when they were getting angry or emotional themselves and kept pointing out that I was being emotional despite me remaining pretty calm (and perhaps even a little indifferent to the actual content of the conversation before the conversation moved to them being annoyed at me for being emotional).
The other person’s thinking is very black-and-white, thinking in terms of a very clear good and evil and not being open to nuance. Sort of a similar mechanism to the first thing.
Some examples of claims that recently triggered me. They’re not so important themselves so I’ll just point at the rough thing rather than list out actual claims.
AI killing all humans would be good because thermodynamics god/laws of physics good
Animals feel pain but this doesn’t mean we should care about them
We are quite far from getting AGI
Women as a whole are less rational than men are
Palestine/Israel stuff
Doing the above exercise was helpful because it helped me generate ideas for things to try if I’m in situations like that in the future. But it feels like the most important thing is to just get better at noticing what I’m feeling in the conversation and if I’m feeling bad and uncomfortable, to think about if the conversation is useful to me at all and if so, for what reason. And if not, make a conscious decision to leave the conversation.
Reasons the conversation could be useful to me:
I change their mind
I figure out what is true
I get a greater understanding of why they believe what they believe
Enjoyment of the social interaction itself
I want to impress the other person with my intelligence or knowledge
Things to try will differ depending on why I feel like having the conversation.
I thought I didn’t get angry much in response to people making specific claims. I did some introspection about times in the recent past when I got angry, defensive, or withdrew from a conversation in response to claims that the other person made.
After some introspection, I think these are the mechanisms that made me feel that way:
They were very confident about their claim. Partly I felt annoyance because I didn’t feel like there was anything that would change their mind, partly I felt annoyance because it felt like they didn’t have enough status to make very confident claims like that. This is more linked to confidence in body language and tone rather than their confidence in their own claims though both matter.
Credentialism: them being unwilling to explain things and taking it as a given that they were correct because I didn’t have the specific experiences or credentials that they had without mentioning what specifically from gaining that experience would help me understand their argument.
Not letting me speak and interrupting quickly to take down the fuzzy strawman version of what I meant rather than letting me take my time to explain my argument.
Morality: I felt like one of my cherished values was being threatened.
The other person was relatively smart and powerful, at least within the specific situation. If they were dumb or not powerful, I would have just found the conversation amusing instead.
The other person assumed I was dumb or naive, perhaps because they had met other people with the same position as me and those people came across as not knowledgeable.
The other person getting worked up, for example, raising their voice or showing other signs of being irritated, offended, or angry while acting as if I was the emotional/offended one. This one particularly stings because of gender stereotypes. I think I’m more calm and reasonable and less easily offended than most people. I’ve had a few conversations with men where it felt like they were just really bad at noticing when they were getting angry or emotional themselves and kept pointing out that I was being emotional despite me remaining pretty calm (and perhaps even a little indifferent to the actual content of the conversation before the conversation moved to them being annoyed at me for being emotional).
The other person’s thinking is very black-and-white, thinking in terms of a very clear good and evil and not being open to nuance. Sort of a similar mechanism to the first thing.
Some examples of claims that recently triggered me. They’re not so important themselves so I’ll just point at the rough thing rather than list out actual claims.
AI killing all humans would be good because thermodynamics god/laws of physics good
Animals feel pain but this doesn’t mean we should care about them
We are quite far from getting AGI
Women as a whole are less rational than men are
Palestine/Israel stuff
Doing the above exercise was helpful because it helped me generate ideas for things to try if I’m in situations like that in the future. But it feels like the most important thing is to just get better at noticing what I’m feeling in the conversation and if I’m feeling bad and uncomfortable, to think about if the conversation is useful to me at all and if so, for what reason. And if not, make a conscious decision to leave the conversation.
Reasons the conversation could be useful to me:
I change their mind
I figure out what is true
I get a greater understanding of why they believe what they believe
Enjoyment of the social interaction itself
I want to impress the other person with my intelligence or knowledge
Things to try will differ depending on why I feel like having the conversation.
Thanks for the post. I don’t know if you saw this one: “Thank you for triggering me”, but it might be of interest. Cheers!