8 ms·

You can yell about it, concoct vindictive policies to punish people whose behavior you don't like, dress up these policies by describing them in purportedly sci

by ohazi 6y ago

You can yell about it, concoct vindictive policies to punish people whose behavior you don't like, dress up these policies by describing them in purportedly scientific economic terms like "subsidizing," "externality," "free rider," etc., but ultimately, this is a futile position to take. People are going to do what they want. If the effect of peoples' real aggregate behavior creates a negative effect that you might suffer from in the future, e.g. breeding antibiotic resistant bacteria, then the more effective position is to STFU with all of the moralizing and support policies that actually work, even if you have to pony up a bit to pay for them. It's cheaper for you in the long run -- you're not just paying to support risky behavior, you're paying so that behavior that is going to happen anyway doesn't put you at risk in the future. Your options are to be angry today and sick or dead tomorrow, or to let it go, support effective policies today, and get a better shot at a successful tomorrow. Yelling at people doesn't work.

tryonenow 6y ago
>STFU with all of the moralizing and support policies that actually work, even if you have to pony up a bit to pay for them. It's cheaper for you in the long run >Your options are to be angry today and sick or dead tomorrow, or to let it go, support effective policies today, You're asking for one portion of the populous to take on the burden cause by lack of restraint by another. There is legitimate reason for "moralizing" here. This is the point where what "two people do in the privacy of their bedroom" spills over into affecting everyone else. It's ironic that "yelling at people doesn't work" yet we see just as much yelling and moralizing by the people who want the freedom to do whatever they want even when their actions DO negatively affect others.
Natsu 6y ago
This is always the hard part with public health policy, you can barely make any demands before people say screw this and ignore you, as we've learned from asking people to wear masks :/
haberman 6y ago
> STFU with all of the moralizing Parent is responding to accusations of "conservative prejudice." That is its own moralizing. You can make the pragmatic argument that it's pointless to try to control the risky behaviors of others, or to expect the people engaged in those risky behaviors to bear the cost of them. But it's pretty insulting to then disparage others as "prejudiced" for not liking this deal, while having no criticism of the behavior itself. "People are going to do what they want" -- well maybe some people want to be upset about subsidizing behavior they don't approve of.
- ohazi 6y ago
  The snippet just before your quote was: > then the more effective position is to (emphasis added) I agree with you that people have the right to be upset, to moralize, etc. My insinuation was that it isn't effective as public policy, which is the extra step that moralizing conservatives seem eager to take. I'm fine if they want to sit in the corner and whine, but if they're going to use this whining to enact policies that don't work, and that haven't worked despite decades of trying, then I'm going to push back, and yes, I'm going to be a little insulting, especially seeing as they have no problem berating the people that they don't approve of. People who insist on maintaining a delusion despite evidence that it doesn't work, and despite examples of other policies in other places that produce better results annoy me. Why should I have to pay for the externalities of their stupid opinions when I'm not the one the one having them? (See, it sounds just as ridiculous from the other side)
  - haberman 6y ago
    How much evidence is there that insulting others is an effective way to get them to change their opinions and support the policies you favor? If the basis of your annoyance is ineffectiveness, then I would expect you to feel a lot of annoyance at people who insult others and call them stupid as a strategy for changing their behavior.
    - jfengel 6y ago
      Turning that question around: do you have any evidence that it's not effective? Do you have evidence of another argumentation style that's more effective? I'm hard pressed to design a good, reproducible experiment on the question one way or the other.
      - haberman 6y ago
        I won't pretend to be familiar with the academic literature, but here is one paper I found: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022103167900017 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002210... > The field situation consisted of a park-bench discussion of a topical social issue, arranged by a public-opinion interviewer. Prepared experimental variations were introduced by one of the discussion partners, a confederate of the interviewer. In the critical variation, the confederate insulted the subject during discussion. In other variations, he tried to persuade but did not insult, or else simply gave certain arguments without intent to persuade. Attitude-change results supported the hypothesis of negative change in the insult condition. Eleanor Gordon-Smith spent two years interviewing people who changed their minds, and suggests this: > The strategy is this: Ask where people’s beliefs come from as well as what they actually believe. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-difficult-secret-to-getting-people-to-change-their-minds-2019-10-22 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-difficult-secr...
nec4b 6y ago
You are suggesting something like how mafia works. STFU and pay for your protection or else.
- emodendroket 6y ago
  Do you think people are having unprotected sex to punish you?
  - nec4b 6y ago
    No. Did you read the post I was replying to?
    - emodendroket 6y ago
      I did. But unless you think the act is vindictive and specifically intended to punish, the analogy to a protection racket doesn’t make a lot of sense.
      - nec4b 6y ago
        The person I was replying to implied that if we don't do things the way he thinks it should be done, we might end sick or dead. And to say STFU and except my wisdom as pure gold is also ill mannered and unkind.
        emodendroket 6y ago
        Lots of things are ill mannered or unkind yet have little in common with a protection racket. His point is that people are going to engage in risky behavior regardless and we have the choice to attempt to mitigate the consequences or just stick our hands in the sand.
        nec4b 6y ago
        That is a false choice. Prevention is better than cure. Supporting safe sex or sex in steady relationships seems to work much better so far than his ideas that nothing can be done we should all just chip in.
umvi 6y ago
I reject the thinking that "people are going to do what they want" and we are helpless to influence their behavior so we should just accept whatever they are doing no questions asked and work around it with public policy if it causes a problem. The reason I reject it is because I would argue "what people want to do" does not spontaneously arise in their minds, but rather is influenced by popular culture, marketing, and more. Take alcohol for example. You might say "you can't prevent people from drinking, look at Prohibition, it was a complete failure, don't even try", and in a certain sense you are right. You can't prevent all people from drinking. However, you can prevent many people from drinking (or at least, reduce the total amount of drinking to more moderate levels) by: - Not glorifying alcohol via pop culture and movies (especially American binge drinking at age 21) - Restrict/regulate alcohol advertisements and marketing to reduce the influence of "drinking = happiness" messaging - etc. Or, stated in other terms, you can exacerbate your country's alcohol-related issues by glorifying alcohol and enshrining it in popular culture. In the same vein, maybe we wouldn't have as big of a problem if we didn't glorify casual sex encounters so much in our media. If popular media/culture instead glorified things like self-restraint, commitment, etc, I'm sure some % of people would be influenced.
- emodendroket 6y ago
  So what do you actually want to do? Create a board of censors? Bring back the Hayes Code?
- fao_ 6y ago
  > I reject the thinking that "people are going to do what they want" and we are helpless to influence their behavior so we should just accept whatever they are doing no questions asked and work around it with public policy if it causes a problem. The reason I reject it is because I would argue what people want to do does not spontaneously arise in their minds, but rather is influenced by popular culture, marketing, and more. Hmm, let's see how well that worked with sexually active teenagers in the bible belt, shall we? https://www.healthline.com/health-news/abstinence-programs-ineffectual-and-stigmatizing-study-finds https://www.healthline.com/health-news/abstinence-programs-i... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/23/545289168/abstinence-education-is-ineffective-and-unethical-report-argues?t=1618416915152 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/23/5452891... https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/abstinence-only-education-failure https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news...
nec4b 6y ago
Btw. I have a friend who likes fast reckless driving. Now we could yell about it or just except that some people like to drive with no regards to theirs and others safety and not punish them for it and maybe even pay fines for them?
castlecrasher2 6y ago
>STFU with all of the moralizing Why subsidize an activity that puts health at risk? Sure, people will do what they want, but this just incentivizes people to put themselves at risk and makes everyone else pay for it.
- teachrdan 6y ago
  You have it completely backwards. This policy isn't subsidizing risky sex. It's the opposite--subsidizing STD testing to make casual sex less risky.
lobotryas 6y ago
> People are going to do what they want Sure, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to influence people in other areas, so why should it stop us here. By this argument we should abolish all laws because what’s the point of telling someone “don’t murder” when “people are going to do what they want”? Your post makes it sound like you are also against taxing cigarettes or taxing cars with big engines or banning guns since we should not (or it would be pointless) to influence behavior in such ways.
rayiner 6y ago
> People are going to do what they want. That’s obviously not true. Asian countries for example have far lower rates of drug use, sex outside of marriage, etc. than western countries. For example Bangladesh, the country where I’m from, has virtually no prevalence of HIV. (And it actually has quite a good system of health reporting so it’s not just failure to collect data.) Societies can in fact shame and coerce people into avoiding harmful behaviors.
- bluecurtains 6y ago
  Bangladesh, which you've used as an example of good conservative marriage values, forces most young girls into marriage and has some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. Excellent example!

by ohazi 6y ago

tryonenow 6y ago

>STFU with all of the moralizing and support policies that actually work, even if you have to pony up a bit to pay for them. It's cheaper for you in the long run >Your options are to be angry today and sick or dead tomorrow, or to let it go, support effective policies today, You're asking for one portion of the populous to take on the burden cause by lack of restraint by another. There is legitimate reason for "moralizing" here. This is the point where what "two people do in the privacy of their bedroom" spills over into affecting everyone else. It's ironic that "yelling at people doesn't work" yet we see just as much yelling and moralizing by the people who want the freedom to do whatever they want even when their actions DO negatively affect others.

Natsu 6y ago

This is always the hard part with public health policy, you can barely make any demands before people say screw this and ignore you, as we've learned from asking people to wear masks :/

haberman 6y ago

> STFU with all of the moralizing Parent is responding to accusations of "conservative prejudice." That is its own moralizing. You can make the pragmatic argument that it's pointless to try to control the risky behaviors of others, or to expect the people engaged in those risky behaviors to bear the cost of them. But it's pretty insulting to then disparage others as "prejudiced" for not liking this deal, while having no criticism of the behavior itself. "People are going to do what they want" -- well maybe some people want to be upset about subsidizing behavior they don't approve of.

ohazi 6y ago
The snippet just before your quote was: > then the more effective position is to (emphasis added) I agree with you that people have the right to be upset, to moralize, etc. My insinuation was that it isn't effective as public policy, which is the extra step that moralizing conservatives seem eager to take. I'm fine if they want to sit in the corner and whine, but if they're going to use this whining to enact policies that don't work, and that haven't worked despite decades of trying, then I'm going to push back, and yes, I'm going to be a little insulting, especially seeing as they have no problem berating the people that they don't approve of. People who insist on maintaining a delusion despite evidence that it doesn't work, and despite examples of other policies in other places that produce better results annoy me. Why should I have to pay for the externalities of their stupid opinions when I'm not the one the one having them? (See, it sounds just as ridiculous from the other side)
- haberman 6y ago
  How much evidence is there that insulting others is an effective way to get them to change their opinions and support the policies you favor? If the basis of your annoyance is ineffectiveness, then I would expect you to feel a lot of annoyance at people who insult others and call them stupid as a strategy for changing their behavior.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    Turning that question around: do you have any evidence that it's not effective? Do you have evidence of another argumentation style that's more effective? I'm hard pressed to design a good, reproducible experiment on the question one way or the other.
    - haberman 6y ago
      I won't pretend to be familiar with the academic literature, but here is one paper I found: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022103167900017 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002210... > The field situation consisted of a park-bench discussion of a topical social issue, arranged by a public-opinion interviewer. Prepared experimental variations were introduced by one of the discussion partners, a confederate of the interviewer. In the critical variation, the confederate insulted the subject during discussion. In other variations, he tried to persuade but did not insult, or else simply gave certain arguments without intent to persuade. Attitude-change results supported the hypothesis of negative change in the insult condition. Eleanor Gordon-Smith spent two years interviewing people who changed their minds, and suggests this: > The strategy is this: Ask where people’s beliefs come from as well as what they actually believe. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-difficult-secret-to-getting-people-to-change-their-minds-2019-10-22 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-the-difficult-secr...

nec4b 6y ago

You are suggesting something like how mafia works. STFU and pay for your protection or else.

emodendroket 6y ago
Do you think people are having unprotected sex to punish you?
- nec4b 6y ago
  No. Did you read the post I was replying to?
  - emodendroket 6y ago
    I did. But unless you think the act is vindictive and specifically intended to punish, the analogy to a protection racket doesn’t make a lot of sense.
    - nec4b 6y ago
      The person I was replying to implied that if we don't do things the way he thinks it should be done, we might end sick or dead. And to say STFU and except my wisdom as pure gold is also ill mannered and unkind.
      - emodendroket 6y ago
        Lots of things are ill mannered or unkind yet have little in common with a protection racket. His point is that people are going to engage in risky behavior regardless and we have the choice to attempt to mitigate the consequences or just stick our hands in the sand.
        nec4b 6y ago
        That is a false choice. Prevention is better than cure. Supporting safe sex or sex in steady relationships seems to work much better so far than his ideas that nothing can be done we should all just chip in.

umvi 6y ago

I reject the thinking that "people are going to do what they want" and we are helpless to influence their behavior so we should just accept whatever they are doing no questions asked and work around it with public policy if it causes a problem. The reason I reject it is because I would argue "what people want to do" does not spontaneously arise in their minds, but rather is influenced by popular culture, marketing, and more. Take alcohol for example. You might say "you can't prevent people from drinking, look at Prohibition, it was a complete failure, don't even try", and in a certain sense you are right. You can't prevent all people from drinking. However, you can prevent many people from drinking (or at least, reduce the total amount of drinking to more moderate levels) by: - Not glorifying alcohol via pop culture and movies (especially American binge drinking at age 21) - Restrict/regulate alcohol advertisements and marketing to reduce the influence of "drinking = happiness" messaging - etc. Or, stated in other terms, you can exacerbate your country's alcohol-related issues by glorifying alcohol and enshrining it in popular culture. In the same vein, maybe we wouldn't have as big of a problem if we didn't glorify casual sex encounters so much in our media. If popular media/culture instead glorified things like self-restraint, commitment, etc, I'm sure some % of people would be influenced.

emodendroket 6y ago
So what do you actually want to do? Create a board of censors? Bring back the Hayes Code?
fao_ 6y ago
> I reject the thinking that "people are going to do what they want" and we are helpless to influence their behavior so we should just accept whatever they are doing no questions asked and work around it with public policy if it causes a problem. The reason I reject it is because I would argue what people want to do does not spontaneously arise in their minds, but rather is influenced by popular culture, marketing, and more. Hmm, let's see how well that worked with sexually active teenagers in the bible belt, shall we? https://www.healthline.com/health-news/abstinence-programs-ineffectual-and-stigmatizing-study-finds https://www.healthline.com/health-news/abstinence-programs-i... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/23/545289168/abstinence-education-is-ineffective-and-unethical-report-argues?t=1618416915152 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/23/5452891... https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/abstinence-only-education-failure https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news...

nec4b 6y ago

Btw. I have a friend who likes fast reckless driving. Now we could yell about it or just except that some people like to drive with no regards to theirs and others safety and not punish them for it and maybe even pay fines for them?

castlecrasher2 6y ago

>STFU with all of the moralizing Why subsidize an activity that puts health at risk? Sure, people will do what they want, but this just incentivizes people to put themselves at risk and makes everyone else pay for it.

teachrdan 6y ago
You have it completely backwards. This policy isn't subsidizing risky sex. It's the opposite--subsidizing STD testing to make casual sex less risky.

lobotryas 6y ago

> People are going to do what they want Sure, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to influence people in other areas, so why should it stop us here. By this argument we should abolish all laws because what’s the point of telling someone “don’t murder” when “people are going to do what they want”? Your post makes it sound like you are also against taxing cigarettes or taxing cars with big engines or banning guns since we should not (or it would be pointless) to influence behavior in such ways.

rayiner 6y ago

> People are going to do what they want. That’s obviously not true. Asian countries for example have far lower rates of drug use, sex outside of marriage, etc. than western countries. For example Bangladesh, the country where I’m from, has virtually no prevalence of HIV. (And it actually has quite a good system of health reporting so it’s not just failure to collect data.) Societies can in fact shame and coerce people into avoiding harmful behaviors.

bluecurtains 6y ago
Bangladesh, which you've used as an example of good conservative marriage values, forces most young girls into marriage and has some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. Excellent example!