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He did the right thing by seeking her out to apologize. The rest doesn’t hold water. “There’s a small chance that the chaos and ruin I’ve visited upon others

He did the right thing by seeking her out to apologize. The rest doesn’t hold water. “There’s a small chance that the chaos and ruin I’ve visited upon others may not be as bad as as those people made me think. Thanks, I knew my negligence/malice wasn’t that big a deal.” The worst people that I’ve ever met would love for that to be true. They’ll stab people in the back or work to damage people’s careers and when you call them out on it it’s always something like “We’ll if I could damage their career anyone could have.” or “It’s been ten years, why don’t they just get over it?” Basically: “Yes, I stabbed them. But they didn’t/couldn’t stop me, so it’s their fault that they’re dead, really.” Negative equity is a real and it compounds over time. Most people who have been told that they’ve caused actual harm, probably did. Telling yourself that the facts of your story don’t matter or that the people you hurt may even be better off for it won’t mend the people you’ve broken. Just apologize (for real) and attempt to make amends.

corry 3y ago
Ehhh that seems a bit uncharitable and leading into a slippery-slope fallacy. "Well, because some misanthrope might misinterpret this as permission to be terrible means it's bad advice". Dealing with things directly, as close in time to the event as possible, is probably a great idea. But you'll never get a pure ground-truth on every event in your life... so learning that your narrative of the past can act as a tyrant in your life (if you let it) seems like a good insight to me.
- miiiiiike 3y ago
  Didn’t say it could be interpreted as giving people license. I’m talking about the people who already do the things — and not giving them a Tums and Tylenol for the indigestion and headaches it’s causing them. Stop doing the thing to stop suffering the consequences. The people also tend to be really brittle. Once someone points out that they’re running around stabbing people they’ll get all offended: “See! It’s not fair! Everyone I’ve stabbed is out to get me. I’m the victim!”
avgcorrection 3y ago
> “There’s a small chance that the chaos and ruin I’ve visited upon others may not be as bad as as those people made me think. Thanks, I knew my negligence/malice wasn’t that big a deal.” > The worst people that I’ve ever met would love for that to be true. It’s worse than that: > > She said “that little accident” helped her pay more attention to her fitness, lose weight, and since then has been in better health than ever.
metacritic12 3y ago
I think misanthropes aren't being enabled by articles like the above. Many of them honestly don't care deep down about the damage they do. Others like Mark Wahlberg just "forgive themselves" for blinding a neighbor as a teen, even if their actual victim doesn't forgive them, so they can feel better about themselves mentally. https://time.com/3623630/mark-wahlberg-pardon/ https://time.com/3623630/mark-wahlberg-pardon/
- amp108 3y ago
  I don't know what's inside Mark Wahlberg's heart, but let's suppose it's someone whom, for the sake of argument, we know truly regrets their actions: what are they supposed to do if another person doesn't forgive them?
  - miiiiiike 3y ago
    If they can’t or won’t forgive you: Try not to make the same mistake twice. You can’t control what other people do, only how you react to it.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    As the article says, they should be pushing for redemption opportunities for all convicted felons (based on a humanistic perspective), not just themselves (based on some confused notion of an “I have become successful enough to buy high-priced lawyers to retcon my rap sheet since I have redeemed myself” perspective)
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Accept that sometimes when you do a bad thing that permanently harms someone else you don't deserve forgiveness (not everyone is christian FFS) and it's not wrong for that to follow you around forever. If that makes you uncomfortable, too fucking bad, don't irreversibly blind someone.
    - norir 3y ago
      Judge not, lest ye be judged.
brudgers 3y ago
Everyone is not among the worst people you (or I) have ever met. Not needing to be told that they caused harm is one of the things that makes them not among the worst people you (or I) have ever met. Sivers' parable is about his (and our) interpretations of the past -- Sive.rs publishes parables not facts. Context is relevant, here. Yes, worst people gonna' worst people. Sociopaths are not Sive.rs audience. His point is that we can't change the past and only act in the present. What the worst people you (or I) ever met did can't be changed. How it affects are behavior can. Particularly when the worst person you (or I) have ever met is you (or I). Biss-ninny 101 stuff. Which Sive.rs (and I) study.
- miiiiiike 3y ago
  The people I’m referencing are normal people doing things that are accepted as a normal part of doing business. They do it because there are no consequences and may even been an advantage to engaging in light anti-social behavior. That lady just had a baby and needs to go home at 5:00 PM says one NPR reporter/podcaster/host early in their career? Sound like she’s not committed, I’ll take on her work as I, for one, am committed. True story. Told on a podcast. Or how about the kind of person who takes credit for another’s work because they can. I’m not talking about murderers here, I’m talking about normal people doing shitty things and making the world just a little bit worse for everyone (and a lot worse for some in particular) and use whatever to justify their behavior as part of their personal story.
  - brudgers 3y ago
    Those may be the worst people you ever met. I have met rather worse people.
    - miiiiiike 3y ago
      Me too, but they outliers.
confoundcofound 3y ago
This type of mentality is readily observed amongst abusive parents. "That was a long time ago, why can't you move on?" "You were a sensitive child." I will never understand people who seem to lack the ability to see that their actions may have a rippling effect throughout someone's life. One can meaningfully and negatively alter the trajectory of someone's life with one action. I'm not advocating that we live in neurotic paralysis wrecked with the fear of unknowingly hurting others, but we should accept that whatever hurt we do inflict can have long-lasting implications, and when others shed light on ways we may have hurt them, that we lean in, understand, and make amends if possible. We are all connected.
- vacuity 3y ago
  I think this gap in understanding is more of an underlying psychological phenomenon, that those people struggle to grasp the concept you're describing because they just don't get it. Like how people learn, say, math differently. If they had the capacity to understand then they might've already and this wouldn't apply. How to deal with this in a society is a complicated matter.
  - danparsonson 3y ago
    "The axe forgets, but the tree remembers"
jstummbillig 3y ago
> Most people who have been told that they’ve caused actual harm, probably did. I think you might be missing the point of the story. To my understanding it could have easily have turned from a rosy past to a grim presence and it would have worked all the same. The point of the story is that, supposedly, the difference in perception is the entire difference. Something is not true, just because it's in the past. The act of reinterpreting is the act of reshaping, what is true. Personally, I don't know how true that is :) But it's a somewhat interesting thought.
- miiiiiike 3y ago
  No I got it. Parables are supposed to be stories that teach us something about ourselves, the world, and how we engage with it. I fundamentally disagree with the moral of this story as written. Make it about something other than thinking that you paralyzed someone through negligence and it’s a different ballgame.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > I think you might be missing the point of the story. To my understanding it could have easily have turned from a rosy past to a grim presence and it would have worked all the same. I think _you_ might be missing the point of the story. It "could have" but it didn't: the story was about he'd been punishing himself for 18 years but Really It Wasn't My Fault. If it was about a situation where he found out 18 years ago a benign situation wasn't, that could teach a lesson about misunderstanding history. Here, everything else is overshadowed by the fact that "You can change history", where history is how he paralyzed a women by driving recklessly.
miiiiiike 3y ago
More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36803982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36803982
gochi 3y ago
>They’ll stab people in the back or work to damage people’s careers Why didn't you stop them? I think your comment was well intended, but it actually comes from the same place that causes a lot of the hurt: a lack of reflection. Even right there, you are trying to qualify harm without recognizing it. "Actual harm" as somehow being far greater and more deserving of consequences than regular harm, but there isn't. This is another narrative we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better. So I hope you do take your own advice seriously. Most of the time, it's not the "worst people that I've ever met" - it's our own image.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Some people are generally good and end up living with Guilt. Most sad stories do NOT have a healing resolution like this. The few times it does happen, then good for them.
e40 3y ago
> Negative equity is a real and it compounds over time. I don't think this is always true. For me and you, yeah. For good people. But, there are a significant percentage of humans (I have no idea what the number is) where this is completely false. They can move forward in time without a scintilla of guilt or negative repercussions. I fact, for some people, it seems to be fuel for them. They enjoy it. The percentage of those folks is much smaller, I believe. Thankfully.
- miiiiiike 3y ago
  I see what you’re saying but I think we’re using the phrase “negative equity” slightly differently. When I say negative equity I’m talking about the compounding opportunity costs of something happening to you. One missed opportunity could lead to another and another.
m463 3y ago
I'm sort of reminded of some of those alcoholics anonymous folks who apologize to the people who they have wronged, and are dumbfounded to find they are met with anger, or even being arrested.
999900000999 3y ago
Agreed. This seems to almost rationalize being a sociopath. You can't change the past. The world has no shortage of extremely shitty people who have no regard for others.
benkitzelman 3y ago
Yeah... but also from the other perspective (the victim / target) - bitterness about the past is poison and for your own good, forgive. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/evolution-the-self/201501/don-t-let-your-anger-mature-bitterness#:~:text=The%20Cost%20of%20Bitterness&text=Prolong%20your%20mental%20and%20emotional,defeating%20cycle%20of%20getting%20even https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/evolution-the-self/2...
- DoctorOetker 3y ago
  I think millions of years of natural selection are a better advisor than a stranger on the internet, or teachings of the status quo. We have the innate capacity to love and hate, to feel attracted or repulsed etc. If the capacity to be bitter has survived millions of years of natural selection, perhaps it serves a function, however hard we tell each other to look down on it.
  - NoRelToEmber 3y ago
    > If the capacity to be bitter has survived millions of years of natural selection, perhaps it serves a function Deterrence being one obvious function.
  - robotresearcher 3y ago
    Evolution has also produced fatal cancer in infants, among other miserable horrors. The existence of a property in evolved creatures does not imply that it is adaptive.
    - DoctorOetker 3y ago
      Clearly everyone possesses the capacity for bitterness, as they are able to agree on its meaning. Otherwise they couldn't possibly know what the word means. Clearly natural selection has selected for this capacity. You pretend to disprove the adaptive nature of a trait by trotting forth "fatal cancer in infants" which clearly natural selection would not systematically select for without good reason. Perhaps artificial human doctrines have the capacity to selectively advantage "fatal cancer in infants" but brutal natural selection wouldn't. Natural selection is the abacus of the grim reaper. You may call it a dark calculation, but do you know whats worse than a "fatal infant cancer"? Two or more cases of this "fatal infant cancer"! I know almost no one who has "fatal infant cancer", yet I have never met a person without the capacity for bitterness. Your argument is devoid of logic.

corry 3y ago

Ehhh that seems a bit uncharitable and leading into a slippery-slope fallacy. "Well, because some misanthrope might misinterpret this as permission to be terrible means it's bad advice". Dealing with things directly, as close in time to the event as possible, is probably a great idea. But you'll never get a pure ground-truth on every event in your life... so learning that your narrative of the past can act as a tyrant in your life (if you let it) seems like a good insight to me.

miiiiiike 3y ago
Didn’t say it could be interpreted as giving people license. I’m talking about the people who already do the things — and not giving them a Tums and Tylenol for the indigestion and headaches it’s causing them. Stop doing the thing to stop suffering the consequences. The people also tend to be really brittle. Once someone points out that they’re running around stabbing people they’ll get all offended: “See! It’s not fair! Everyone I’ve stabbed is out to get me. I’m the victim!”

avgcorrection 3y ago

> “There’s a small chance that the chaos and ruin I’ve visited upon others may not be as bad as as those people made me think. Thanks, I knew my negligence/malice wasn’t that big a deal.” > The worst people that I’ve ever met would love for that to be true. It’s worse than that: > > She said “that little accident” helped her pay more attention to her fitness, lose weight, and since then has been in better health than ever.

metacritic12 3y ago

I think misanthropes aren't being enabled by articles like the above. Many of them honestly don't care deep down about the damage they do. Others like Mark Wahlberg just "forgive themselves" for blinding a neighbor as a teen, even if their actual victim doesn't forgive them, so they can feel better about themselves mentally. https://time.com/3623630/mark-wahlberg-pardon/ https://time.com/3623630/mark-wahlberg-pardon/

amp108 3y ago
I don't know what's inside Mark Wahlberg's heart, but let's suppose it's someone whom, for the sake of argument, we know truly regrets their actions: what are they supposed to do if another person doesn't forgive them?
- miiiiiike 3y ago
  If they can’t or won’t forgive you: Try not to make the same mistake twice. You can’t control what other people do, only how you react to it.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  As the article says, they should be pushing for redemption opportunities for all convicted felons (based on a humanistic perspective), not just themselves (based on some confused notion of an “I have become successful enough to buy high-priced lawyers to retcon my rap sheet since I have redeemed myself” perspective)
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Accept that sometimes when you do a bad thing that permanently harms someone else you don't deserve forgiveness (not everyone is christian FFS) and it's not wrong for that to follow you around forever. If that makes you uncomfortable, too fucking bad, don't irreversibly blind someone.
  - norir 3y ago
    Judge not, lest ye be judged.

brudgers 3y ago

Everyone is not among the worst people you (or I) have ever met. Not needing to be told that they caused harm is one of the things that makes them not among the worst people you (or I) have ever met. Sivers' parable is about his (and our) interpretations of the past -- Sive.rs publishes parables not facts. Context is relevant, here. Yes, worst people gonna' worst people. Sociopaths are not Sive.rs audience. His point is that we can't change the past and only act in the present. What the worst people you (or I) ever met did can't be changed. How it affects are behavior can. Particularly when the worst person you (or I) have ever met is you (or I). Biss-ninny 101 stuff. Which Sive.rs (and I) study.

miiiiiike 3y ago
The people I’m referencing are normal people doing things that are accepted as a normal part of doing business. They do it because there are no consequences and may even been an advantage to engaging in light anti-social behavior. That lady just had a baby and needs to go home at 5:00 PM says one NPR reporter/podcaster/host early in their career? Sound like she’s not committed, I’ll take on her work as I, for one, am committed. True story. Told on a podcast. Or how about the kind of person who takes credit for another’s work because they can. I’m not talking about murderers here, I’m talking about normal people doing shitty things and making the world just a little bit worse for everyone (and a lot worse for some in particular) and use whatever to justify their behavior as part of their personal story.
- brudgers 3y ago
  Those may be the worst people you ever met. I have met rather worse people.
  - miiiiiike 3y ago
    Me too, but they outliers.

confoundcofound 3y ago

This type of mentality is readily observed amongst abusive parents. "That was a long time ago, why can't you move on?" "You were a sensitive child." I will never understand people who seem to lack the ability to see that their actions may have a rippling effect throughout someone's life. One can meaningfully and negatively alter the trajectory of someone's life with one action. I'm not advocating that we live in neurotic paralysis wrecked with the fear of unknowingly hurting others, but we should accept that whatever hurt we do inflict can have long-lasting implications, and when others shed light on ways we may have hurt them, that we lean in, understand, and make amends if possible. We are all connected.

vacuity 3y ago
I think this gap in understanding is more of an underlying psychological phenomenon, that those people struggle to grasp the concept you're describing because they just don't get it. Like how people learn, say, math differently. If they had the capacity to understand then they might've already and this wouldn't apply. How to deal with this in a society is a complicated matter.
- danparsonson 3y ago
  "The axe forgets, but the tree remembers"

jstummbillig 3y ago

> Most people who have been told that they’ve caused actual harm, probably did. I think you might be missing the point of the story. To my understanding it could have easily have turned from a rosy past to a grim presence and it would have worked all the same. The point of the story is that, supposedly, the difference in perception is the entire difference. Something is not true, just because it's in the past. The act of reinterpreting is the act of reshaping, what is true. Personally, I don't know how true that is :) But it's a somewhat interesting thought.

miiiiiike 3y ago
No I got it. Parables are supposed to be stories that teach us something about ourselves, the world, and how we engage with it. I fundamentally disagree with the moral of this story as written. Make it about something other than thinking that you paralyzed someone through negligence and it’s a different ballgame.
brightlancer 3y ago
> I think you might be missing the point of the story. To my understanding it could have easily have turned from a rosy past to a grim presence and it would have worked all the same. I think _you_ might be missing the point of the story. It "could have" but it didn't: the story was about he'd been punishing himself for 18 years but Really It Wasn't My Fault. If it was about a situation where he found out 18 years ago a benign situation wasn't, that could teach a lesson about misunderstanding history. Here, everything else is overshadowed by the fact that "You can change history", where history is how he paralyzed a women by driving recklessly.

miiiiiike 3y ago

More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36803982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36803982

gochi 3y ago

>They’ll stab people in the back or work to damage people’s careers Why didn't you stop them? I think your comment was well intended, but it actually comes from the same place that causes a lot of the hurt: a lack of reflection. Even right there, you are trying to qualify harm without recognizing it. "Actual harm" as somehow being far greater and more deserving of consequences than regular harm, but there isn't. This is another narrative we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better. So I hope you do take your own advice seriously. Most of the time, it's not the "worst people that I've ever met" - it's our own image.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Some people are generally good and end up living with Guilt. Most sad stories do NOT have a healing resolution like this. The few times it does happen, then good for them.

e40 3y ago

> Negative equity is a real and it compounds over time. I don't think this is always true. For me and you, yeah. For good people. But, there are a significant percentage of humans (I have no idea what the number is) where this is completely false. They can move forward in time without a scintilla of guilt or negative repercussions. I fact, for some people, it seems to be fuel for them. They enjoy it. The percentage of those folks is much smaller, I believe. Thankfully.

miiiiiike 3y ago
I see what you’re saying but I think we’re using the phrase “negative equity” slightly differently. When I say negative equity I’m talking about the compounding opportunity costs of something happening to you. One missed opportunity could lead to another and another.

m463 3y ago

I'm sort of reminded of some of those alcoholics anonymous folks who apologize to the people who they have wronged, and are dumbfounded to find they are met with anger, or even being arrested.

999900000999 3y ago

Agreed. This seems to almost rationalize being a sociopath. You can't change the past. The world has no shortage of extremely shitty people who have no regard for others.

benkitzelman 3y ago

Yeah... but also from the other perspective (the victim / target) - bitterness about the past is poison and for your own good, forgive. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/evolution-the-self/201501/don-t-let-your-anger-mature-bitterness#:~:text=The%20Cost%20of%20Bitterness&text=Prolong%20your%20mental%20and%20emotional,defeating%20cycle%20of%20getting%20even https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/evolution-the-self/2...

DoctorOetker 3y ago
I think millions of years of natural selection are a better advisor than a stranger on the internet, or teachings of the status quo. We have the innate capacity to love and hate, to feel attracted or repulsed etc. If the capacity to be bitter has survived millions of years of natural selection, perhaps it serves a function, however hard we tell each other to look down on it.
- NoRelToEmber 3y ago
  > If the capacity to be bitter has survived millions of years of natural selection, perhaps it serves a function Deterrence being one obvious function.
- robotresearcher 3y ago
  Evolution has also produced fatal cancer in infants, among other miserable horrors. The existence of a property in evolved creatures does not imply that it is adaptive.
  - DoctorOetker 3y ago
    Clearly everyone possesses the capacity for bitterness, as they are able to agree on its meaning. Otherwise they couldn't possibly know what the word means. Clearly natural selection has selected for this capacity. You pretend to disprove the adaptive nature of a trait by trotting forth "fatal cancer in infants" which clearly natural selection would not systematically select for without good reason. Perhaps artificial human doctrines have the capacity to selectively advantage "fatal cancer in infants" but brutal natural selection wouldn't. Natural selection is the abacus of the grim reaper. You may call it a dark calculation, but do you know whats worse than a "fatal infant cancer"? Two or more cases of this "fatal infant cancer"! I know almost no one who has "fatal infant cancer", yet I have never met a person without the capacity for bitterness. Your argument is devoid of logic.