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I feel like the author just breezed past the most important line his ex-friend said: “Mostly everyone just backs down, but if I think they’re going to kill me,

by isk517 4y ago

I feel like the author just breezed past the most important line his ex-friend said: “Mostly everyone just backs down, but if I think they’re going to kill me, yeah, I’ll probably let them go first.” Ultimately these types of jerks only exist because they were lucky enough to be born into a society civilized enough to tolerate them but not yet advanced enough to do anything about them. Not much earlier in history you needed to behave this way you would need to have some sort of physical or social power to back this up. A person can get away with just cutting in line because we (rightfully so) abhor violence more than we do the breaking of minor social norms so the chance that someone will just bop them on the nose are extremely low, and as a civilization we still have a plethora of bigger issues to address than mild cases of jerkish behavior. The way I see it, the fact the people can act feel like they can get away with acting like this is a sign that we are becoming more civilized. From here we either advance to eventually we reach the point were the police and the courts have nothing better to do than issue fines cutting in line without permission, or we regress and jerks need to live with the reality that anytime someone may decided to just shank them and pay the wergild.

eternityforest 4y ago
This is why I hate the whole idea of "Not being a stick in the mud". Most of these jerks could be stopped with a simple "there's a line", the more egregious cases might need a snapshot and a post to r/iamatotalpieceofshit or similar.
eldritch_4ier 4y ago
What is civilized except the ability to create a civilization that is most perfect and worth living in? Civilized doesn't mean "meek" or "long-suffering", consequently it isn't civilized to tolerate behavior unbecoming to living in a good civilization (aka uncivilized behavior). A more civilized society doesn't suffer people who impose on others, or who put themselves first at the cost of others. A more civilized society is one where people don't cut others in line in the first place, either because they have the decency not to, or because they know they'll pay consequences if they do.
- isk517 4y ago
  Exactly, but at our current point of civilization we don't really have many options to deal with people that break minor social norms. The person the author of the article was speaking of has realized that if they hold their ground until for anything allow physical violence they can get away with a lot because civilized people realize getting into fist fights over mild offenses is detrimental in the long run. If a politician ran on a campaign to change laws and setup law enforcement to deal with these people any sane individual would wonder why focus on this instead any number of more important issues. If civilization continues to progress I feel like eventually we will get to the point where 'jerks being jerks' is the biggest thing effecting our quality of life.
  - isk517 4y ago
    The other issue of course, is how do you de-jerkify your civilization without accidentally turning it into a dystopia.
  - eternityforest 4y ago
    It works both ways, the jerks also know it's not worth making a scene in public and maybe even getting kicked full strength in the balls if they escalate too much. They'll go to the back of the line with a simple "The line starts over there", as long as you're willing to fight in the small number of cases they're so insane they would in fact have a full on brawl at Target over a line.
illiac786 4y ago
So you think there was less cutting the line in the wild west or in the European middle age because they were more prone to violence? I think being more prone to violence in general as a society doesn't change anything about the jerks. Being a jerk is relative to the rest of the society. They were simply more violent than the average individual in the wild west, but they existed too.
anotheruser13 4y ago
"The No Asshole Rule" should be required reading for many. We shouldn't tolerate jerks.

by isk517 4y ago

eternityforest 4y ago

This is why I hate the whole idea of "Not being a stick in the mud". Most of these jerks could be stopped with a simple "there's a line", the more egregious cases might need a snapshot and a post to r/iamatotalpieceofshit or similar.

eldritch_4ier 4y ago

What is civilized except the ability to create a civilization that is most perfect and worth living in? Civilized doesn't mean "meek" or "long-suffering", consequently it isn't civilized to tolerate behavior unbecoming to living in a good civilization (aka uncivilized behavior). A more civilized society doesn't suffer people who impose on others, or who put themselves first at the cost of others. A more civilized society is one where people don't cut others in line in the first place, either because they have the decency not to, or because they know they'll pay consequences if they do.

isk517 4y ago
Exactly, but at our current point of civilization we don't really have many options to deal with people that break minor social norms. The person the author of the article was speaking of has realized that if they hold their ground until for anything allow physical violence they can get away with a lot because civilized people realize getting into fist fights over mild offenses is detrimental in the long run. If a politician ran on a campaign to change laws and setup law enforcement to deal with these people any sane individual would wonder why focus on this instead any number of more important issues. If civilization continues to progress I feel like eventually we will get to the point where 'jerks being jerks' is the biggest thing effecting our quality of life.
- isk517 4y ago
  The other issue of course, is how do you de-jerkify your civilization without accidentally turning it into a dystopia.
- eternityforest 4y ago
  It works both ways, the jerks also know it's not worth making a scene in public and maybe even getting kicked full strength in the balls if they escalate too much. They'll go to the back of the line with a simple "The line starts over there", as long as you're willing to fight in the small number of cases they're so insane they would in fact have a full on brawl at Target over a line.

illiac786 4y ago

So you think there was less cutting the line in the wild west or in the European middle age because they were more prone to violence? I think being more prone to violence in general as a society doesn't change anything about the jerks. Being a jerk is relative to the rest of the society. They were simply more violent than the average individual in the wild west, but they existed too.

anotheruser13 4y ago

"The No Asshole Rule" should be required reading for many. We shouldn't tolerate jerks.