No. Address the behavior, not the person. “Don’t hug people without asking” is not the same as “You are an evil person, begone with you.” Aspiring rationalists should be able to accept the request and update their beliefs regarding others’ preferences accordingly. Failure to update when others’ happiness is at stake, is bad rationality and morally wrong.
I don’t really understand attempts to solve creepiness problems with things like “don’t hug people without asking”. In my experience, the most socially adept people violate this rule in spades, it’s just that they more correctly guess who wants to hug them (which is easy when most want to hug them to begin with).
More generally, it bothers me when advice is of the form, “Don’t do X” when the real rule is “don’t do X with low status” and the advised’s problem is more the low status than the X, and the advisor has no intention of giving advice on status.
First: Skill (“socially adept”) and status are distinct; I’m not sure but it kinda sounds like you are conflating them.
Second: Formal “don’t hug without asking” rules are usually recommended for situations involving strangers, such as conventions and meetups — and for situations where a person might be discouraged by power imbalance from expressing their discomfort, such as workplaces. Much of the purpose of the rule is to assure people who don’t want to be hugged that they will not be. The goal isn’t to regulate intimacy but to deter unwanted intimacy and to assure people they won’t be subjected to it.
(I posted the relevant bit of the OpenSF polyamory conference’s code of conduct elsethread, but here’s the link.)
Third: Some of the times that you think you’ve seen someone correctly predict that someone wanted a hug, you may have actually witnessed someone who didn’t want a hug playing along to avoid making a scene, or to please the hugger, or the like — especially if the hugger is high-status. Pretending to enjoy something is a thing. Part of the point of the rule is to reduce the chance of putting anyone in that situation — and to remind people that saying no is respected.
I think you’re right about the socially adept overhugging situations. Nevertheless, I don’t think the non-hugging-without-asking advice is helpful to the intended audience.
For one thing, this socially-adept over-hugger, for all his flaws, is still much preferable and beneficial to the group than the archetypal, socially-inept creep under discussion. So, while the overhugger might be strictly better for the group to the follow the hugging advice, I would still say the most important thing (the low-hanging fruit here) is to teach the creep the things that the overhugger is doing right, not to tell him to avoid the things the overhugger is doing wrong.
Like I’ve tried to demonstrate here, it’s hard to form a model of the things you need to do in a group setting when a) you don’t know how to act, and b) all advice you get is in the negative. If it does anything, the negative advice just reinforces a mental model that says, “to be on the safe side, don’t even talk to anyone because you might hit one of the prohibited things”, which is not a step forward. And if my own experience is any guide, it just blends into the same old message of, “your desires are bad, how dare you act on them”—not a healthy mentality to encourage in the target audience, who probably already assimilated this message early on.
No, it is not don’t do X with low status. It is don’t do X when unwanted. Status may influence what is wanted, but it does not excuse unwanted physical contact. It is just as wrong for the alpha male to do this as the omega male. For instance, I know someone with OCD who really does not like being touched. Are you saying it would be ok for some high status person to leave her uncomfortable with an unwanted hug?
No, it is not don’t do X with low status. It is don’t do X when unwanted.
So the rule is to use a mind-reader?
Are you saying it would be ok for some high status person to leave her uncomfortable with an unwanted hug?
I’m saying that the rare failure of a heuristic does not make it wrong to employ the heuristic; it just means that the user of it should stop employing it after it is known for this (very unusual) case.
There exist people who are extremely allergic to peanuts, so much that taking them out would cause a negative reaction far worse than an unwanted hug. Does that mean you’re going to go around promoting a rule that “You should never bring peanuts with you”? Or would you recognize that this condition is rare enough to make it the obligation of the person with the condition to alert others, rather than demonizing those who fail to account for cases like this?
(Note: hug-unwanting is, of course, far more common than this peanut allergy, and thus carries different implications.)
Isn’t that kind of missing the point, though, since the people in question almost certainly don’t have mind-readers with such a capability? Sounds like yet another failure of insight on the part of the writers.
It reminds me of a certain LWer’s “helpful” advice that, “You have to dress right, and wear the right clothes, that look good, and wear it the right way.” Ah, thanks, man, how’d I miss that?
But even more importantly, I don’t think anyone has a mind reader capable of what these writers are expecting of it. Everyone has some margin of error and so can’t be categorically expected (or advised) to avoid “all” “unwanted” behavior—much more reasonable to ask that they not do a (person-invariant) category of generally disliked behavior, whether or not a particular person happens to like or not like it (and punish even if it happened to be liked, because of incentive effects).
Worse, “unwanted” behavior with respect to Jones might be for Smith not to make romantic overtures toward Doe (assuming Doe and Jones aren’t in a relationship). Or for Smith not to offer products for sale that are competitive with Jones’s. Or for Smith to keep his golden watch rather than give it away.
No reasonable social rule requires you to junk your life in order to be a perpetual font of charity, however wanted that might be.
I was not under the impression that we were discussing reasonable, consistent social rules.
To someone with built-in social skills, it basically feels like the policy reduces to “do what other people want”. It takes a lot of effort to see that the reduction goes the other way (i.e. we’re trying to reduce “do what other people want” to actionable rules). Additionally, the writers are probably giving the first explanation that comes to mind for why people seem creepy (naturally, one that reflects favorably on them and, more importantly, unfavorably on the person they’re criticizing). If they dug deeper, they might (might) be able to come up with specific verbal and nonverbal behaviors that trigger the “creepy” association. This would be useful if they were interested in helping creepy people become less creepy, but for the most part the people writing about creepiness are writing because they’ve just been on the receiving end, and just want it to go away.
I suspect that at least some people have a mind-reader at least close to the specs of these writers, particularly people those from the writers’ social groups. The standard model onboard human emulator really is quite good, particularly when it’s been trained by large amounts of social contact (something most people labeled creepy (the low-status kind) don’t get much of). Which is why the most successful advice on how to become less creepy is to get out more. Being creepy isn’t something you can really think yourself out of, because it has a lot to do with posture, timing, intonation, and trained guesswork. I’m fairly sure that formal training for becoming less creepy would be effective (possibly more so than the “getting out more”), but it’s something that would require an outside, experienced party.
No, I am not saying that being a mind reader is required. Obviously we use physical and verbal cues. The point is that there is a goal to be achieved. The goal is not making people uncomfortable. It is not controlling the behavior of low status males.
The example was meant to provide a clear counterexample to “Don’t do X when low status.” That implies “X is acceptable when high status.” It isn’t. In fact, we often view high status creepers as much worse. It’s worse if the boss is touchy-feely at work than if a coworker is.
No, I am not saying that being a mind reader is required. Obviously we use physical and verbal cues.
Okay, but then why do you assume the problem is that the person doesn’t know X is wrong, rather than that the person misread the cues, and thus diagnose the problem with long expositions of “don’t do X” rather than “hey, here’s how to read cues better”?
More importantly, why do so many people respond as you did, despite it being about as helpful as “The problem is that you need to sell non-apples!”
Of course I do try to help people read cues better. However, the problem is behavior. Misreading cues can lead to bad behavior, but someone can know they are making someone else uncomfortable and still act that way. I make no assumption about why someone does something. I only ask that they stop.
My point were that accepting creepiness is not cool and that low status is not what makes the behavior wrong. They were not meant to help people avoid being creepy, and naturally are not helpful.
No. Address the behavior, not the person. “Don’t hug people without asking” is not the same as “You are an evil person, begone with you.” Aspiring rationalists should be able to accept the request and update their beliefs regarding others’ preferences accordingly. Failure to update when others’ happiness is at stake, is bad rationality and morally wrong.
I don’t really understand attempts to solve creepiness problems with things like “don’t hug people without asking”. In my experience, the most socially adept people violate this rule in spades, it’s just that they more correctly guess who wants to hug them (which is easy when most want to hug them to begin with).
More generally, it bothers me when advice is of the form, “Don’t do X” when the real rule is “don’t do X with low status” and the advised’s problem is more the low status than the X, and the advisor has no intention of giving advice on status.
First: Skill (“socially adept”) and status are distinct; I’m not sure but it kinda sounds like you are conflating them.
Second: Formal “don’t hug without asking” rules are usually recommended for situations involving strangers, such as conventions and meetups — and for situations where a person might be discouraged by power imbalance from expressing their discomfort, such as workplaces. Much of the purpose of the rule is to assure people who don’t want to be hugged that they will not be. The goal isn’t to regulate intimacy but to deter unwanted intimacy and to assure people they won’t be subjected to it.
(I posted the relevant bit of the OpenSF polyamory conference’s code of conduct elsethread, but here’s the link.)
Third: Some of the times that you think you’ve seen someone correctly predict that someone wanted a hug, you may have actually witnessed someone who didn’t want a hug playing along to avoid making a scene, or to please the hugger, or the like — especially if the hugger is high-status. Pretending to enjoy something is a thing. Part of the point of the rule is to reduce the chance of putting anyone in that situation — and to remind people that saying no is respected.
I think you’re right about the socially adept overhugging situations. Nevertheless, I don’t think the non-hugging-without-asking advice is helpful to the intended audience.
For one thing, this socially-adept over-hugger, for all his flaws, is still much preferable and beneficial to the group than the archetypal, socially-inept creep under discussion. So, while the overhugger might be strictly better for the group to the follow the hugging advice, I would still say the most important thing (the low-hanging fruit here) is to teach the creep the things that the overhugger is doing right, not to tell him to avoid the things the overhugger is doing wrong.
Like I’ve tried to demonstrate here, it’s hard to form a model of the things you need to do in a group setting when a) you don’t know how to act, and b) all advice you get is in the negative. If it does anything, the negative advice just reinforces a mental model that says, “to be on the safe side, don’t even talk to anyone because you might hit one of the prohibited things”, which is not a step forward. And if my own experience is any guide, it just blends into the same old message of, “your desires are bad, how dare you act on them”—not a healthy mentality to encourage in the target audience, who probably already assimilated this message early on.
(Mostly unrelated to your point)
Things become even more complicated when that rule means that doing X can work as a status signal (like a way of “acting confident”).
No, it is not don’t do X with low status. It is don’t do X when unwanted. Status may influence what is wanted, but it does not excuse unwanted physical contact. It is just as wrong for the alpha male to do this as the omega male. For instance, I know someone with OCD who really does not like being touched. Are you saying it would be ok for some high status person to leave her uncomfortable with an unwanted hug?
So the rule is to use a mind-reader?
I’m saying that the rare failure of a heuristic does not make it wrong to employ the heuristic; it just means that the user of it should stop employing it after it is known for this (very unusual) case.
There exist people who are extremely allergic to peanuts, so much that taking them out would cause a negative reaction far worse than an unwanted hug. Does that mean you’re going to go around promoting a rule that “You should never bring peanuts with you”? Or would you recognize that this condition is rare enough to make it the obligation of the person with the condition to alert others, rather than demonizing those who fail to account for cases like this?
(Note: hug-unwanting is, of course, far more common than this peanut allergy, and thus carries different implications.)
Roughly, yes. Standard-model humans come with mind-reader included. So the average person writing these is effectively saying to use it.
Isn’t that kind of missing the point, though, since the people in question almost certainly don’t have mind-readers with such a capability? Sounds like yet another failure of insight on the part of the writers.
It reminds me of a certain LWer’s “helpful” advice that, “You have to dress right, and wear the right clothes, that look good, and wear it the right way.” Ah, thanks, man, how’d I miss that?
But even more importantly, I don’t think anyone has a mind reader capable of what these writers are expecting of it. Everyone has some margin of error and so can’t be categorically expected (or advised) to avoid “all” “unwanted” behavior—much more reasonable to ask that they not do a (person-invariant) category of generally disliked behavior, whether or not a particular person happens to like or not like it (and punish even if it happened to be liked, because of incentive effects).
Worse, “unwanted” behavior with respect to Jones might be for Smith not to make romantic overtures toward Doe (assuming Doe and Jones aren’t in a relationship). Or for Smith not to offer products for sale that are competitive with Jones’s. Or for Smith to keep his golden watch rather than give it away.
No reasonable social rule requires you to junk your life in order to be a perpetual font of charity, however wanted that might be.
I was not under the impression that we were discussing reasonable, consistent social rules.
To someone with built-in social skills, it basically feels like the policy reduces to “do what other people want”. It takes a lot of effort to see that the reduction goes the other way (i.e. we’re trying to reduce “do what other people want” to actionable rules). Additionally, the writers are probably giving the first explanation that comes to mind for why people seem creepy (naturally, one that reflects favorably on them and, more importantly, unfavorably on the person they’re criticizing). If they dug deeper, they might (might) be able to come up with specific verbal and nonverbal behaviors that trigger the “creepy” association. This would be useful if they were interested in helping creepy people become less creepy, but for the most part the people writing about creepiness are writing because they’ve just been on the receiving end, and just want it to go away.
I suspect that at least some people have a mind-reader at least close to the specs of these writers, particularly people those from the writers’ social groups. The standard model onboard human emulator really is quite good, particularly when it’s been trained by large amounts of social contact (something most people labeled creepy (the low-status kind) don’t get much of). Which is why the most successful advice on how to become less creepy is to get out more. Being creepy isn’t something you can really think yourself out of, because it has a lot to do with posture, timing, intonation, and trained guesswork. I’m fairly sure that formal training for becoming less creepy would be effective (possibly more so than the “getting out more”), but it’s something that would require an outside, experienced party.
No, I am not saying that being a mind reader is required. Obviously we use physical and verbal cues. The point is that there is a goal to be achieved. The goal is not making people uncomfortable. It is not controlling the behavior of low status males.
The example was meant to provide a clear counterexample to “Don’t do X when low status.” That implies “X is acceptable when high status.” It isn’t. In fact, we often view high status creepers as much worse. It’s worse if the boss is touchy-feely at work than if a coworker is.
Okay, but then why do you assume the problem is that the person doesn’t know X is wrong, rather than that the person misread the cues, and thus diagnose the problem with long expositions of “don’t do X” rather than “hey, here’s how to read cues better”?
More importantly, why do so many people respond as you did, despite it being about as helpful as “The problem is that you need to sell non-apples!”
Of course I do try to help people read cues better. However, the problem is behavior. Misreading cues can lead to bad behavior, but someone can know they are making someone else uncomfortable and still act that way. I make no assumption about why someone does something. I only ask that they stop.
My point were that accepting creepiness is not cool and that low status is not what makes the behavior wrong. They were not meant to help people avoid being creepy, and naturally are not helpful.