And let’s say I live in an apartment with six other people, one of whom is noisy. Five people are considerate and respectful of their neighbors, one is an inconsiderate asshole. I pay the asshole $100/month to do what everyone else does because they’re a decent person. End result: being an inconsiderate asshole earns you $100/month. If you value fairness, this is already a bad outcome.
You do realize, though, that this is potentially symmetrical, right? I mean, five people aren’t complaining about one, but there’s one inconsiderate asshole who complains constantly, so why shouldn’t that guy have to pay to change the behavior of the one he complains about? Different people have different norms about which behavior is asinine, and there’s no objectively right answer, but the economic solution works without requiring one answer to be right, only that an answer is picked and then the parties involved are allowed to settle it personally.
But there’s also a critical asymmetry: If the six others give Yvain a heaping dose of silence, he’ll quite enjoy it. But if Yvain and five others team up and inflict the sixth’s level of noise back onto him, he’d suddenly discover his love of quiet time.
Not surprisingly, that’s roughly how I dealt with the situation when it happened to me—minus the accomplices. (Everybody has a love of quiet, you just have to lure it out.)
If you suddenly find that you really hate when other people treat you the way you treat them, You’re Doing It Wrong.
But there’s also a critical asymmetry: If the six others give Yvain a heaping dose of silence, he’ll quite enjoy it. But if Yvain and five others team up and inflict the sixth’s level of noise back onto him, he’d suddenly discover his love of quiet time.
While I understand that that was your experience, it isn’t universal. Some people really are more comfortable with constant noise and a loud party atmosphere, all the time. While I prefer quiet most of the time, I’ve had roommates who became nervous and uncomfortable without a nearly-full-volume TV going in the room, if by themselves (or just around me; I’m a pretty quiet person). There’s no guarantee that Yvain’s problem roommate wouldn’t be ecstatic to have all these accepting party animals around him all the time.
Masochists don’t enjoy every whipping. (You can quote me on that.)
While people often do enjoy noisy environments, they actually enjoy a tiny subset out of all possibly noisy environments. The people you describe may like the TV on, but I doubt they run chainsaws next to their desks or play the sound of rivets being installed.
Technically, yes, I didn’t fight music with music; I fought it with wall banging. But there will always be a kind of noise that will get on their nerves. When they understand that other people can be just as inconsiderate along just the same dimension, they tend to “get it” … at least in the sense of understanding what they just put you through.
You do realize, though, that this is potentially symmetrical, right? I mean, five people aren’t complaining about one, but there’s one inconsiderate asshole who complains constantly, so why shouldn’t that guy have to pay to change the behavior of the one he complains about? Different people have different norms about which behavior is asinine, and there’s no objectively right answer, but the economic solution works without requiring one answer to be right, only that an answer is picked and then the parties involved are allowed to settle it personally.
But there’s also a critical asymmetry: If the six others give Yvain a heaping dose of silence, he’ll quite enjoy it. But if Yvain and five others team up and inflict the sixth’s level of noise back onto him, he’d suddenly discover his love of quiet time.
Not surprisingly, that’s roughly how I dealt with the situation when it happened to me—minus the accomplices. (Everybody has a love of quiet, you just have to lure it out.)
If you suddenly find that you really hate when other people treat you the way you treat them, You’re Doing It Wrong.
While I understand that that was your experience, it isn’t universal. Some people really are more comfortable with constant noise and a loud party atmosphere, all the time. While I prefer quiet most of the time, I’ve had roommates who became nervous and uncomfortable without a nearly-full-volume TV going in the room, if by themselves (or just around me; I’m a pretty quiet person). There’s no guarantee that Yvain’s problem roommate wouldn’t be ecstatic to have all these accepting party animals around him all the time.
Masochists don’t enjoy every whipping. (You can quote me on that.)
While people often do enjoy noisy environments, they actually enjoy a tiny subset out of all possibly noisy environments. The people you describe may like the TV on, but I doubt they run chainsaws next to their desks or play the sound of rivets being installed.
Technically, yes, I didn’t fight music with music; I fought it with wall banging. But there will always be a kind of noise that will get on their nerves. When they understand that other people can be just as inconsiderate along just the same dimension, they tend to “get it” … at least in the sense of understanding what they just put you through.