6 ms·

Is there a word for this tendency to say, "it's someone else's job" as a justification for doing nothing at all to help or improve one's own circumstances? I se

Is there a word for this tendency to say, "it's someone else's job" as a justification for doing nothing at all to help or improve one's own circumstances? I see more and more of it in the public discourse over the last years and it kind of bothers me. I see it a lot in conversations related to poverty or climate change, but it is as we see here by no means exclusive to those topics. To the original replyer: you could wait for Google to do something, but if they were going to fix the listicle issue, and it were fixable on their end, they'd probably have done it by now. I'm disappointed in the situation too but if there is a workable solution on our end it would be silly to ignore it because fixing the problem is someone else's job. To the OP: I worry that the number of domains pumping out crap might be far greater than we know, and that might hamper the effectiveness of this. If the collaborative block list ever got big enough you might also have to deal with spam. But I think it would be a great thing to try. This is one of those issues that annoys me, but it's just below my action potential threshold. My biggest objection right now is the spammy recipe websites.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
- geofft 5y ago
  I think the question was specifically about declining to improve one's own circumstances because someone else could, not declining to help someone else. That's different from the bystander effect as usually conceived. The theoretical bystander effect is something like "Someone is being attacked, I could call 911 but someone else will;" this is perhaps something like "I am being attacked, I could scream for help but other people will notice anyway" - but really more like "I can't cross the street in front of my house because the storm drains by the crosswalk are clogged, I could rake them but the city is supposed to do that."
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    Fair enough, maybe Learned Helplessness is a better fit.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      I feel like the iterated prisoner's dilemma is part of it too -- if you let someone off the hook repeatedly for defecting, you just enable them to continue defecting. Or somewhat related, the "if you touch it you own it" problem. So to overcome this learned helplessness effect, we'd need a good strategy to prevent the deterioration of duty of whoever is "supposed" to be fixing a problem, and/or a way to cut out the derelicts entirely.
      - anigbrowl 5y ago
        You will also appreciate this: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    Skip the abstract and head straight to the caption for figure 3, then go back and read the whole thing. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
andyjohnson0 5y ago
> I worry that the number of domains pumping out crap might be far greater than we know, and that might hamper the effectiveness of this. I'm sure you're right about the number of spam domains, but Pareto suggests that blocking even a small percentage of them might provide a large gain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Thanks, that's a good thing to remember. The other concern is installing ublocklist -- I'm scared to give more extensions access to google.com. I wonder if I could fork it and restrict its permissions to the SERP.
sanketpatrikar 5y ago
I suggest this because there can only be so many websites that use SEO to game their way to the top and bury the good results beneath them. If we manage to block them, we might be able to get a results page with good sites upfront and the other meaningless content below it. I assume Google will also surface good content along with the bad, so our blacklist might enable the good stuff to reach the top. The spam problem, I'm sure of yet, but we might either be able to block enough of it to be satisfied or it won't pose a problem for most searches that are currently giving bad results.
sanketpatrikar 5y ago
I ended up creating a repo with blacklist.txt myself and will add to it for my own usage. I don't see anyone else who'd maintain this. Feel free to use it / contribute to it. https://github.com/sanketpatrikar/hn-search-blacklist https://github.com/sanketpatrikar/hn-search-blacklist
- tomhallett 5y ago
  I just added to your repo: * code-search-blacklist based on this jhchabran's repo [1] * pinterest.com based on SwiftOnSecurity's interesting seo analysis [2] Maybe your repo could be an opinionated list of things developers find annoying about google search results, where others might value sites like pinterest in their results. [1]: https://github.com/jhchabran/code-search-blacklist https://github.com/jhchabran/code-search-blacklist [2]: https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1258875333446717445 https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/12588753334467174...
germandiago 5y ago
> Is there a word for this tendency to say, "it's someone else's job" At the risk of sounding pretentious, I call it "socialist", since they spend their lives telling others what to do or what is good or not for the rest of us but they rarely do anything about it. Surprisingly, this is the group that is really worried about poverty and climate change and do as much as I do for it, with the difference that I do it by myself, the few times I do it, not requiring the rest to do it. It is always someone else who will do it. Though the other day I had a conversation with a non-socialist person that had that same attitude ("other should do it") towards what OTHERS should do. I really dislike that attitude, no matter where it comes from. Point at hand: when I want or promote something, I am the first one to do it no matter others do it or not. The rest, no matter the ideology, all b*llshit. As imperfect as I am, I try to do what I think is good (and sometimes my imperfection prevents me from doing it) but I do not spend my life telling other people why they are worse than me and telling them what they should do or not. The most I have for someone is good suggestions, never requirements.
- profunctor 5y ago
  This has nothing to do with socialism. Since it is a problem under capitalism why don't we call it "capitalist". Or maybe we could just say lazy.
  - germandiago 5y ago
    The irony here about socialism for me is that I find plenty of people that would fall in those ideals (not only in those, but most of the time) that tell you what is good or bad for everyone else but they seldom do what they say. That is why I said "everyone else's job" is an approximation of "socialism" in my view. I cannot see how that would be a vice of capitalism since capitalism is basically non-intervention and freedom.
    - mthoms 5y ago
      >That is why I said "everyone else's job" is an approximation of "socialism" in my view. I don't think socialism is the word you're looking for. If you're trying to say that the described behaviour ("it's everyone else's job") is common in, or a byproduct of, a socialist system then it would make more sense (though it could be argued). But that doesn't make it a correct "approximation" of socialism. Socialism is: >a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. https://www.lexico.com/definition/socialism https://www.lexico.com/definition/socialism
renewiltord 5y ago
Internal v External Loci of Control perhaps?
- bryguy32403 5y ago
  Exactly this. I've seen it around on this site a lot lately.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I like to think of it as solving the problem in the right place. It’s often possible to work around issues in lower layers, but it's usually at least worth raising it upstream to get it fixed 'properly'. It'll help me when I dont have a blocklist active, and it'll help new programmers who arent familiar. It'll reward good sites with extra traffic and discourage new spammers entering the market. In the worst case, if Google really can't or won't address tge issue, understanding the upstream problem more fully can help make a better workaround.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

geofft 5y ago
I think the question was specifically about declining to improve one's own circumstances because someone else could, not declining to help someone else. That's different from the bystander effect as usually conceived. The theoretical bystander effect is something like "Someone is being attacked, I could call 911 but someone else will;" this is perhaps something like "I am being attacked, I could scream for help but other people will notice anyway" - but really more like "I can't cross the street in front of my house because the storm drains by the crosswalk are clogged, I could rake them but the city is supposed to do that."
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  Fair enough, maybe Learned Helplessness is a better fit.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    I feel like the iterated prisoner's dilemma is part of it too -- if you let someone off the hook repeatedly for defecting, you just enable them to continue defecting. Or somewhat related, the "if you touch it you own it" problem. So to overcome this learned helplessness effect, we'd need a good strategy to prevent the deterioration of duty of whoever is "supposed" to be fixing a problem, and/or a way to cut out the derelicts entirely.
    - anigbrowl 5y ago
      You will also appreciate this: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  Skip the abstract and head straight to the caption for figure 3, then go back and read the whole thing. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451

andyjohnson0 5y ago

> I worry that the number of domains pumping out crap might be far greater than we know, and that might hamper the effectiveness of this. I'm sure you're right about the number of spam domains, but Pareto suggests that blocking even a small percentage of them might provide a large gain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Thanks, that's a good thing to remember. The other concern is installing ublocklist -- I'm scared to give more extensions access to google.com. I wonder if I could fork it and restrict its permissions to the SERP.

sanketpatrikar 5y ago

I suggest this because there can only be so many websites that use SEO to game their way to the top and bury the good results beneath them. If we manage to block them, we might be able to get a results page with good sites upfront and the other meaningless content below it. I assume Google will also surface good content along with the bad, so our blacklist might enable the good stuff to reach the top. The spam problem, I'm sure of yet, but we might either be able to block enough of it to be satisfied or it won't pose a problem for most searches that are currently giving bad results.

sanketpatrikar 5y ago

I ended up creating a repo with blacklist.txt myself and will add to it for my own usage. I don't see anyone else who'd maintain this. Feel free to use it / contribute to it. https://github.com/sanketpatrikar/hn-search-blacklist https://github.com/sanketpatrikar/hn-search-blacklist

tomhallett 5y ago
I just added to your repo: * code-search-blacklist based on this jhchabran's repo [1] * pinterest.com based on SwiftOnSecurity's interesting seo analysis [2] Maybe your repo could be an opinionated list of things developers find annoying about google search results, where others might value sites like pinterest in their results. [1]: https://github.com/jhchabran/code-search-blacklist https://github.com/jhchabran/code-search-blacklist [2]: https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1258875333446717445 https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/12588753334467174...

germandiago 5y ago

> Is there a word for this tendency to say, "it's someone else's job" At the risk of sounding pretentious, I call it "socialist", since they spend their lives telling others what to do or what is good or not for the rest of us but they rarely do anything about it. Surprisingly, this is the group that is really worried about poverty and climate change and do as much as I do for it, with the difference that I do it by myself, the few times I do it, not requiring the rest to do it. It is always someone else who will do it. Though the other day I had a conversation with a non-socialist person that had that same attitude ("other should do it") towards what OTHERS should do. I really dislike that attitude, no matter where it comes from. Point at hand: when I want or promote something, I am the first one to do it no matter others do it or not. The rest, no matter the ideology, all b*llshit. As imperfect as I am, I try to do what I think is good (and sometimes my imperfection prevents me from doing it) but I do not spend my life telling other people why they are worse than me and telling them what they should do or not. The most I have for someone is good suggestions, never requirements.

profunctor 5y ago
This has nothing to do with socialism. Since it is a problem under capitalism why don't we call it "capitalist". Or maybe we could just say lazy.
- germandiago 5y ago
  The irony here about socialism for me is that I find plenty of people that would fall in those ideals (not only in those, but most of the time) that tell you what is good or bad for everyone else but they seldom do what they say. That is why I said "everyone else's job" is an approximation of "socialism" in my view. I cannot see how that would be a vice of capitalism since capitalism is basically non-intervention and freedom.
  - mthoms 5y ago
    >That is why I said "everyone else's job" is an approximation of "socialism" in my view. I don't think socialism is the word you're looking for. If you're trying to say that the described behaviour ("it's everyone else's job") is common in, or a byproduct of, a socialist system then it would make more sense (though it could be argued). But that doesn't make it a correct "approximation" of socialism. Socialism is: >a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. https://www.lexico.com/definition/socialism https://www.lexico.com/definition/socialism

renewiltord 5y ago

Internal v External Loci of Control perhaps?

bryguy32403 5y ago
Exactly this. I've seen it around on this site a lot lately.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

I like to think of it as solving the problem in the right place. It’s often possible to work around issues in lower layers, but it's usually at least worth raising it upstream to get it fixed 'properly'. It'll help me when I dont have a blocklist active, and it'll help new programmers who arent familiar. It'll reward good sites with extra traffic and discourage new spammers entering the market. In the worst case, if Google really can't or won't address tge issue, understanding the upstream problem more fully can help make a better workaround.