6 ms·

Ode to a world-saving idea: attribution error and cognitive empathy (2021)

81 points by fanf2 2y ago

visarga 2y ago
I realized a long time ago that "personality" is a function dependent on context. Each situation brings out specific aspects of your personality, and as situations change, personality seems to change. The most clear is in relationships - you can never know how a relationship will go from the outset, even if you knew that person for a long time, it takes being in a relationship (actually be in that situation) to see how your personalities adapt.
- ganzuul 2y ago
  Semantics, but might be important. As far as I am aware what you are describing is identity, while personality is something more robust. You identify with things in a relative manner and you do things in a personal way.
  - blueflow 2y ago
    I'm not sure if identity and personality are substantially different.
    - phoe-krk 2y ago
      Identity is a collection of beliefs (I identify as X, often context-free/in all contexts), whereas personality is a collection of functions (I behave like X, usually in a given context).
      - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        Identity is a collection of beliefs that are considered a fundamental part of who you are. It is quite possible for one person to have certain beliefs, and have those beliefs be part of their identity, while another has the same beliefs but does not have them as part of their identity.
      - fluoridation 2y ago
        I thought identity is who a person is, while personality is what a person is like.
        WalterSear 2y ago
        Identity is who a person sees themselves to be.
        fluoridation 2y ago
        So what's an identity card? ;)
        WalterSear 2y ago
        A malapropism. The term identity card is usually used to refer to an identification card.
        fluoridation 2y ago
        How is it incorrect, when "identification" means "the act of establishing something's identity"?
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
        > Identity is a collection of beliefs Why would anyone over the age of 7 or so have beliefs? Are you all so good at life that you play it with a handicap, like some expert golfer slumming it with us losers?
        anon7725 2y ago
        I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying here, but I will note that even if you think you’re the world’s greatest Spock-like rationalist, you still have beliefs.
      - carapace 2y ago
        One interesting and useful model is Dilts': behaviour capabilities beliefs values identity Each level structures the level before it.
    - shakna 2y ago
      To put it in tech terms, identity is the class - the set of values and fundamentals, and personality is the object - the circumstantial behaviours that result.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - groestl 2y ago
        This is confusing to say the least, especially with the "identity" concept in programming being overloaded.
      - Swizec 2y ago
        Personality is the factory of identity. My personality enjoys the meditative aspect of long distance sports. People who observe these behaviors call me a runner (identity). I don’t consider myself a runner but cant argue that when you see me running for 2 hours, saying “hey look a runner” is a reasonable thing to say.
- carapace 2y ago
  I think it was Richard Bandler who said that we all have "multiple personalities" it's just that they have the same name and incomplete amnesia (for each other.)
swayvil 2y ago
This sounds like that old pith : "we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are"
petersonv 2y ago
It is true that a situation will mostly determine what a person will do. But it is also true that different people will act differently in very close situations. So how do we separate and weight how much the situation and the personality influence on the outcome? Not having a way of doing this and just saying 'our tendency in most situations to downplay the role of circumstance' seems oddly shallow and irresponsible
- tpmoney 2y ago
  I would ask how often making that distinction actually matters. I grew up in a rather conservative household, so went into the world with a pre-disposition to be against welfare programs and the like, stemming from an attribution error that most people on said programs would if not at first, then later on behave in ways intentionally designed to retain the benefits. In this way I was ascribing motivational intent to what could almost always be a circumstantial behavior. As a result felt that such programs or ignoring that potential when building such programs would be irresponsible. Yet over the years I have had encounters with many people on such programs in many different places and walks of life. And some of those people have indeed confirmed that belief that people would act in that way. But many more have not, and even those that have in many circumstances have done so in response to the nature of the benefit programs that encourage such behavior by implementing policies that ironically are intended to discourage that behavior. By overweighting the necessity to distinguish the “good” intentions from the “bad” intentions, we’ve designed programs that not only encourage more bad behavior, but equally do harm to those that need the help of those programs. If instead such programs were designed to assume good intent / circumstantial behavior rather than nefarious intent, yes we might waste some money and effort on people we otherwise shouldn’t. But is that irresponsible or just the cost of doing maximal good with the resources we have?
- mistermann 2y ago
  > Not having a way of doing this and just saying 'our tendency in most situations to downplay the role of circumstance' seems oddly shallow and irresponsible Epistemic soundness tends to be rather boring and unattractive. Maybe that's why people are so susceptible to facts that lack proof, or are unknowable (as is the case here).
mistermann 2y ago
My theory: this is a textbook case of System 1 vs System 2 thinking, involving a problem space that forces System 1 (intuition, hallucination) due to the excessive number of variables in play. The problem space in this case is metaphysical causality. A second layer of it is that it involves the unknown, which also forces System 1 processing. So it's like a double whammy in this case (at least...there are surely many others in play). War is particularly scary because people's minds have been filled with skilfully written but untrue stories, and this is what System 1 uses to generate "the reality" of the situation and what should be done about it (what they have been told in stories should be done about it). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion If you think about it, it's kind of funny how much understanding humans have of themselves, but for the most part all they ever do with this knowledge is talk about it. We seem to be fundamentally motivated by short-term pleasure, with some exceptions like the possibility of financial reward (thinking about which likely invokes pleasure?). War is interesting. Like COVID, it involves preventable death. Unlike COVID though, people don't consider these deaths to be something we must(!) do something about. I wonder what the (actual) cause(s) of this inconsistency is. I also wonder why people don't find paradoxes like this to be interesting.
scotty79 2y ago
It also goes for successful people. They are usually awarded way too much attribution for outcomes of the things they do especially after they became successful.
- petersonv 2y ago
  Why do you say 'too much'?
  - anonym29 2y ago
    I'll get downvoted for this because it's a bitter medicine, rather than a sweet poison, but since it affects human lives, it's worth sacrifing internet points. The poster you are replying to is fundamentally anti-meritocratic, against equality of opportunity, and supportive of equality of outcome. Any amount of reward doled out to the competent as a function of their competence is 'too much' when the incompetent aren't being rewarded identically, in the world view of these types. There is no way to appease them besides nobody receiving any distinct recognition, effectiveness and efficiency of solutions be damned. I say this with such confidence because there's only one type of mindset that accuses the successful and competent of being 'rewarded too much', it is the mindset of those who have never really emotionally accepted that life is unfair, and that some human beings are simply more useful than other human beings. The poster is coming from a place of empathy for the less useful human beings. Good intentions, sure, but implementing their preferred solutions will inevitably result in a broad degradation of the quality of goods and services (and thus quality of life) across the board wherever their ideas are implemented. This is because some humans are more useful than other humans, and meritocratic systems are efficient at grouping people based on how useful they are. Removing the meritocratic systems that lead to unequal reward will simply allow the incompetent to flourish in environments where a lack of competence is fatal. Feelings saved, lives lost. See: Boeing today vs Boeing 30 years ago.
    - jameshart 2y ago
      That is a very poor faith reading of the OP’s comment. They didn’t argue for ‘equality of outcome’, just for a fairer distribution of reward. To use your formulation, let’s say as true meritocrats, we want to reward ‘competency’. Well then surely we would like equal competency to receive equal reward (but assuming competency is not evenly distributed, this will necessarily lead to unequal outcomes - but justly so, for us meritocrats) But OP is decrying a world where we reward ‘success’, and sadly ‘competence’ doesn’t guarantee success (nor vice versa). Success is a function of circumstance and competence (and indeed in some circumstances success can manifest even for the utterly incompetent) so our current ‘success’ system rewards some people ‘too much’.
golly_ned 2y ago
Attribution error seems to me like it has less to do with a lack of empathy (cognitive or otherwise) and more to do with simple epistemology. We have knowledge of our own circumstances, or the circumstances of our friends, to explain their actions with attribution to their circumstances, but we do not know about the circumstances of strangers to which we could attribute their actions.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > We have knowledge of our own circumstances... This depends on whether one is using normative/colloquial or strict/"pedantic" epistemology. The latter tends to be inaccessible / disallowed except in a few disciplines like math and physics, where it is revered, otherwise it is condemned (if you push it after an initial warning to stop). I often wonder if this unfair advantage is a big part of the reason why the hard sciences are so much more successful than the soft sciences.
  - throwanem 2y ago
    It would be easier to know what you mean if you had defined the novel terms you introduced to describe it. What are "normative" and "strict" epistemology? If the latter is the kind that involves formal proofs, how do you account for the difficulty in applying those methods to normative considerations? Others have tried and failed. Does your theory equip you to explain how?
    - mistermann 2y ago
      normative: establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or norm, especially of behavior (ie: what is(!) true/proper/etc is what seems to be (or is said to be) true). strict: following rules exactly knowledge: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJustTrueBeli https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJ... (Justified True Belief) Simply: it is the difference between one's opinion of what is true, and what is actually true. But, it is even further complicated by the "truth" (colloquial) of the unknown being evaluated (by the mind, according to cultural/ideological conditioning, generating "is") as equal to the "consensus" opinion/theory (of the dominant metaphysical ideology of the era or geographical region one exists in), ie: "the reality is". > If the latter is the kind that involves formal proofs, how do you account for the difficulty in applying those methods to normative considerations? Others have tried and failed. Does your theory equip you to explain how? Yes: acknowledge that which is unknown. But this is very taboo in the culture we live in, people (once properly conditioned) get extremely emotionally worked up if one points out that certain(!) cultural "truths" are actually unknown (despite that being the explicit technical standard of the ideology's scriptures, and an argument in favour of its superiority). This can be difficult to realize, but comparing the effect ideas have on adults compared to on children in various stages of development makes it quite easy to see the phenomenon[1]. Or another approach: by default the mind thinks in binary (true /false), and according to its training set - forcefully override this intuition and think in more complex forms of logic, and forcefully re-resolve all truths (recalculate reality). tl;dr: "Row row row your boat, gently down the stream...." Full disclosure: this topic is far too complicated to do justice in casual comments on a text message board, not to mention I am in no way qualified to explain it. I am just doing my best. [1] Which you'd think would set off some ideas related to the topic of discussion in people's heads....but alas, we are stuck in a bootstrap paradox.
anytime5704 2y ago
I don't love the first example used: > A 2014 article in Psychology Today titled ‘Why We Don’t Give Each Other a Break’ used the example of someone who cuts into a line in front of you. You might think, “What a jerk,” when in reality this person has never skipped ahead in a line before and is doing so now only because he would otherwise miss a flight to see a dying relative. That’s certainly possible, but extremely unlikely. The most likely explanation is that they’re in a hurry and selfish enough to ignore the other people in line. As a side note, I firmly believe that cutting in line (or late merging into a turn lane) is the worst, most selfish thing that people do all the time.
- _wire_ 2y ago
  > As a side note, I firmly believe that cutting in line (or late merging into a turn lane) is the worst, most selfish thing that people do all the time. Skipping this quip's obliviousness of imagination to what constitutes the worst selfishness, cutting in line amidst a standing queue is only marginally comparable to late merging in vehicular traffic. The situational awareness, shared state, temporality, and protocol dynamics are distinct. A standing queue is a holding pattern for a next available resource. It is centrally mediated via a global awareness of position for access to a singular threshold. Merging traffic is autonomously mediated flow across and between variously overlapping thresholds. The late merge is a rational and fair approach to not joining a queue unless you have to, and joining it as reluctantly as possible. Late merging is a fair approach for everyone in zones of contention-- assuming all other strictures (rules) are being obeyed (and accepting the hazard of human volition, because people should not be expected to behave like sheep). To comprehend the truth of this observation, step back from the pet peeve about what superficially seems like greed to examine what makes for effective driving: it's the efficient use of space on the road. Efficiency from an individual driver's perspective is taking only space that's needed as soon as it becomes available and freeing that space as opportunistically as possible. The inverse observation is: do not take space you don't need, keep space only for as long as you need it, and occupy space fluidly. You accomplish this first by avoiding zones of contention, and second by minimizing disruption within zones of contention. The best way to deal with contention is to not be there. Formal politeness is as hindering to flow as oafishness. Malingering in flow is harmful to everyone behind you. The opportunities for formal politeness in flow are naturally limited to conditions where you are stopped, because it's absurd to conduct an exchange of etiquette in moving automobile traffic. The best approximation of polite deferral is smooth egress from zones of congestion and observing a proper round-robin in situations of full contention. It may seem paradoxical, but heading into zones of contention and alternating is effective both for you and for the group, and should be preferred to queueing early because it maximizes your egress potential at no cost in fairness to those around you; your can't avoid occupying your share of turf in the flow, but you can minimize the time and disruption of occupation. The early merge to a zone of contention is at best self-sacrificial and at worst a collective hindrance. Regarding opportunistic changing of position within a flow, you have to feel your way through. With experience, you learn to trade off minimizing disruption and maximizing opportunity according to the design parameters of the thoroughfare. As to peeves about greediness, if you prize generosity above your own progress, pull over, get out of the way and let others move on. Do not assume others have the same situational awareness. Polite deferral is only meaningful among those who share an encounter, with the recognition that every encounter is shared with yourself and you must reckon your own standards of propriety. When traffic becomes gridlocked, self responsibility dictates escaping the blockage. In severe circumstances of gridlock, formal rules of the road are rendered meaningless. This is a matter of design failure and in the worst cases death may be consequent. You can't begrudge a fellow traveler from trying to survive, even though you may disdain his lack of honor in his thrashing. This is a personal matter between a man and God.
whimsicalism 2y ago
> A 2014 article in Psychology Today titled ‘Why We Don’t Give Each Other a Break’ used the example of someone who cuts into a line in front of you. You might think, “What a jerk,” when in reality this person has never skipped ahead in a line before and is doing so now only because he would otherwise miss a flight to see a dying relative. Perhaps I am falling victim to “attribution error”, but I would bet considerable money that most cases I have witnessed of someone skipping a queue have nothing remotely like a dying relative behind it. This seems like a nice kumbaya sort of explanation that misdiagnoses reality.
- taeric 2y ago
  I'd be interested in seeing the numbers, but I think the point is it doesn't really matter? In particular, I think the point is that one is an escalation path of thinking. If you think someone in front of you is being a jerk because they are being a bad actor, you are more likely to get upset about it than if you took an alternative view.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    i am not a fan of this style of ends-motivated reasoning. i think it is easy to laugh it off even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks, i don’t have to pretend that they were somehow in the right just to not get upset
    - the_sleaze_ 2y ago
      > even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks This is the cynical negative worldview that a therapist would attempt to steer a patient away from. The more time a person spends in a negative headspace the more easily that person will find themselves in a negative headspace - just like a muscle the brain will build neural pathways to find that negative pattern faster and more efficiently. And the longer that person spends there the stronger that pattern building will get. Of course the person cutting in line's mother didn't die, more than likely they were lost in thought about their bills piling up, or feeling incredibly self-conscious about their weight, their husband's difficulty in finding a job or not ever being able to buy a home in these market conditions. If you had touched them gently on the shoulder and reminded them of the line they'd apologize profusely and move to the back.

81 points by fanf2 2y ago

I realized a long time ago that "personality" is a function dependent on context. Each situation brings out specific aspects of your personality, and as situations change, personality seems to change. The most clear is in relationships - you can never know how a relationship will go from the outset, even if you knew that person for a long time, it takes being in a relationship (actually be in that situation) to see how your personalities adapt.

ganzuul 2y ago
Semantics, but might be important. As far as I am aware what you are describing is identity, while personality is something more robust. You identify with things in a relative manner and you do things in a personal way.
- blueflow 2y ago
  I'm not sure if identity and personality are substantially different.
  - phoe-krk 2y ago
    Identity is a collection of beliefs (I identify as X, often context-free/in all contexts), whereas personality is a collection of functions (I behave like X, usually in a given context).
    - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
      Identity is a collection of beliefs that are considered a fundamental part of who you are. It is quite possible for one person to have certain beliefs, and have those beliefs be part of their identity, while another has the same beliefs but does not have them as part of their identity.
    - fluoridation 2y ago
      I thought identity is who a person is, while personality is what a person is like.
      - WalterSear 2y ago
        Identity is who a person sees themselves to be.
        fluoridation 2y ago
        So what's an identity card? ;)
        WalterSear 2y ago
        A malapropism. The term identity card is usually used to refer to an identification card.
        fluoridation 2y ago
        How is it incorrect, when "identification" means "the act of establishing something's identity"?
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      > Identity is a collection of beliefs Why would anyone over the age of 7 or so have beliefs? Are you all so good at life that you play it with a handicap, like some expert golfer slumming it with us losers?
      - anon7725 2y ago
        I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying here, but I will note that even if you think you’re the world’s greatest Spock-like rationalist, you still have beliefs.
    - carapace 2y ago
      One interesting and useful model is Dilts': behaviour capabilities beliefs values identity Each level structures the level before it.
  - shakna 2y ago
    To put it in tech terms, identity is the class - the set of values and fundamentals, and personality is the object - the circumstantial behaviours that result.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - groestl 2y ago
      This is confusing to say the least, especially with the "identity" concept in programming being overloaded.
    - Swizec 2y ago
      Personality is the factory of identity. My personality enjoys the meditative aspect of long distance sports. People who observe these behaviors call me a runner (identity). I don’t consider myself a runner but cant argue that when you see me running for 2 hours, saying “hey look a runner” is a reasonable thing to say.
carapace 2y ago
I think it was Richard Bandler who said that we all have "multiple personalities" it's just that they have the same name and incomplete amnesia (for each other.)

swayvil 2y ago

This sounds like that old pith : "we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are"

petersonv 2y ago

It is true that a situation will mostly determine what a person will do. But it is also true that different people will act differently in very close situations. So how do we separate and weight how much the situation and the personality influence on the outcome? Not having a way of doing this and just saying 'our tendency in most situations to downplay the role of circumstance' seems oddly shallow and irresponsible

tpmoney 2y ago
I would ask how often making that distinction actually matters. I grew up in a rather conservative household, so went into the world with a pre-disposition to be against welfare programs and the like, stemming from an attribution error that most people on said programs would if not at first, then later on behave in ways intentionally designed to retain the benefits. In this way I was ascribing motivational intent to what could almost always be a circumstantial behavior. As a result felt that such programs or ignoring that potential when building such programs would be irresponsible. Yet over the years I have had encounters with many people on such programs in many different places and walks of life. And some of those people have indeed confirmed that belief that people would act in that way. But many more have not, and even those that have in many circumstances have done so in response to the nature of the benefit programs that encourage such behavior by implementing policies that ironically are intended to discourage that behavior. By overweighting the necessity to distinguish the “good” intentions from the “bad” intentions, we’ve designed programs that not only encourage more bad behavior, but equally do harm to those that need the help of those programs. If instead such programs were designed to assume good intent / circumstantial behavior rather than nefarious intent, yes we might waste some money and effort on people we otherwise shouldn’t. But is that irresponsible or just the cost of doing maximal good with the resources we have?
mistermann 2y ago
> Not having a way of doing this and just saying 'our tendency in most situations to downplay the role of circumstance' seems oddly shallow and irresponsible Epistemic soundness tends to be rather boring and unattractive. Maybe that's why people are so susceptible to facts that lack proof, or are unknowable (as is the case here).

mistermann 2y ago

My theory: this is a textbook case of System 1 vs System 2 thinking, involving a problem space that forces System 1 (intuition, hallucination) due to the excessive number of variables in play. The problem space in this case is metaphysical causality. A second layer of it is that it involves the unknown, which also forces System 1 processing. So it's like a double whammy in this case (at least...there are surely many others in play). War is particularly scary because people's minds have been filled with skilfully written but untrue stories, and this is what System 1 uses to generate "the reality" of the situation and what should be done about it (what they have been told in stories should be done about it). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion If you think about it, it's kind of funny how much understanding humans have of themselves, but for the most part all they ever do with this knowledge is talk about it. We seem to be fundamentally motivated by short-term pleasure, with some exceptions like the possibility of financial reward (thinking about which likely invokes pleasure?). War is interesting. Like COVID, it involves preventable death. Unlike COVID though, people don't consider these deaths to be something we must(!) do something about. I wonder what the (actual) cause(s) of this inconsistency is. I also wonder why people don't find paradoxes like this to be interesting.

scotty79 2y ago

It also goes for successful people. They are usually awarded way too much attribution for outcomes of the things they do especially after they became successful.

petersonv 2y ago
Why do you say 'too much'?
- anonym29 2y ago
  I'll get downvoted for this because it's a bitter medicine, rather than a sweet poison, but since it affects human lives, it's worth sacrifing internet points. The poster you are replying to is fundamentally anti-meritocratic, against equality of opportunity, and supportive of equality of outcome. Any amount of reward doled out to the competent as a function of their competence is 'too much' when the incompetent aren't being rewarded identically, in the world view of these types. There is no way to appease them besides nobody receiving any distinct recognition, effectiveness and efficiency of solutions be damned. I say this with such confidence because there's only one type of mindset that accuses the successful and competent of being 'rewarded too much', it is the mindset of those who have never really emotionally accepted that life is unfair, and that some human beings are simply more useful than other human beings. The poster is coming from a place of empathy for the less useful human beings. Good intentions, sure, but implementing their preferred solutions will inevitably result in a broad degradation of the quality of goods and services (and thus quality of life) across the board wherever their ideas are implemented. This is because some humans are more useful than other humans, and meritocratic systems are efficient at grouping people based on how useful they are. Removing the meritocratic systems that lead to unequal reward will simply allow the incompetent to flourish in environments where a lack of competence is fatal. Feelings saved, lives lost. See: Boeing today vs Boeing 30 years ago.
  - jameshart 2y ago
    That is a very poor faith reading of the OP’s comment. They didn’t argue for ‘equality of outcome’, just for a fairer distribution of reward. To use your formulation, let’s say as true meritocrats, we want to reward ‘competency’. Well then surely we would like equal competency to receive equal reward (but assuming competency is not evenly distributed, this will necessarily lead to unequal outcomes - but justly so, for us meritocrats) But OP is decrying a world where we reward ‘success’, and sadly ‘competence’ doesn’t guarantee success (nor vice versa). Success is a function of circumstance and competence (and indeed in some circumstances success can manifest even for the utterly incompetent) so our current ‘success’ system rewards some people ‘too much’.

golly_ned 2y ago

Attribution error seems to me like it has less to do with a lack of empathy (cognitive or otherwise) and more to do with simple epistemology. We have knowledge of our own circumstances, or the circumstances of our friends, to explain their actions with attribution to their circumstances, but we do not know about the circumstances of strangers to which we could attribute their actions.

mistermann 2y ago
> We have knowledge of our own circumstances... This depends on whether one is using normative/colloquial or strict/"pedantic" epistemology. The latter tends to be inaccessible / disallowed except in a few disciplines like math and physics, where it is revered, otherwise it is condemned (if you push it after an initial warning to stop). I often wonder if this unfair advantage is a big part of the reason why the hard sciences are so much more successful than the soft sciences.
- throwanem 2y ago
  It would be easier to know what you mean if you had defined the novel terms you introduced to describe it. What are "normative" and "strict" epistemology? If the latter is the kind that involves formal proofs, how do you account for the difficulty in applying those methods to normative considerations? Others have tried and failed. Does your theory equip you to explain how?
  - mistermann 2y ago
    normative: establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or norm, especially of behavior (ie: what is(!) true/proper/etc is what seems to be (or is said to be) true). strict: following rules exactly knowledge: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJustTrueBeli https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJ... (Justified True Belief) Simply: it is the difference between one's opinion of what is true, and what is actually true. But, it is even further complicated by the "truth" (colloquial) of the unknown being evaluated (by the mind, according to cultural/ideological conditioning, generating "is") as equal to the "consensus" opinion/theory (of the dominant metaphysical ideology of the era or geographical region one exists in), ie: "the reality is". > If the latter is the kind that involves formal proofs, how do you account for the difficulty in applying those methods to normative considerations? Others have tried and failed. Does your theory equip you to explain how? Yes: acknowledge that which is unknown. But this is very taboo in the culture we live in, people (once properly conditioned) get extremely emotionally worked up if one points out that certain(!) cultural "truths" are actually unknown (despite that being the explicit technical standard of the ideology's scriptures, and an argument in favour of its superiority). This can be difficult to realize, but comparing the effect ideas have on adults compared to on children in various stages of development makes it quite easy to see the phenomenon[1]. Or another approach: by default the mind thinks in binary (true /false), and according to its training set - forcefully override this intuition and think in more complex forms of logic, and forcefully re-resolve all truths (recalculate reality). tl;dr: "Row row row your boat, gently down the stream...." Full disclosure: this topic is far too complicated to do justice in casual comments on a text message board, not to mention I am in no way qualified to explain it. I am just doing my best. [1] Which you'd think would set off some ideas related to the topic of discussion in people's heads....but alas, we are stuck in a bootstrap paradox.

anytime5704 2y ago

I don't love the first example used: > A 2014 article in Psychology Today titled ‘Why We Don’t Give Each Other a Break’ used the example of someone who cuts into a line in front of you. You might think, “What a jerk,” when in reality this person has never skipped ahead in a line before and is doing so now only because he would otherwise miss a flight to see a dying relative. That’s certainly possible, but extremely unlikely. The most likely explanation is that they’re in a hurry and selfish enough to ignore the other people in line. As a side note, I firmly believe that cutting in line (or late merging into a turn lane) is the worst, most selfish thing that people do all the time.

_wire_ 2y ago
> As a side note, I firmly believe that cutting in line (or late merging into a turn lane) is the worst, most selfish thing that people do all the time. Skipping this quip's obliviousness of imagination to what constitutes the worst selfishness, cutting in line amidst a standing queue is only marginally comparable to late merging in vehicular traffic. The situational awareness, shared state, temporality, and protocol dynamics are distinct. A standing queue is a holding pattern for a next available resource. It is centrally mediated via a global awareness of position for access to a singular threshold. Merging traffic is autonomously mediated flow across and between variously overlapping thresholds. The late merge is a rational and fair approach to not joining a queue unless you have to, and joining it as reluctantly as possible. Late merging is a fair approach for everyone in zones of contention-- assuming all other strictures (rules) are being obeyed (and accepting the hazard of human volition, because people should not be expected to behave like sheep). To comprehend the truth of this observation, step back from the pet peeve about what superficially seems like greed to examine what makes for effective driving: it's the efficient use of space on the road. Efficiency from an individual driver's perspective is taking only space that's needed as soon as it becomes available and freeing that space as opportunistically as possible. The inverse observation is: do not take space you don't need, keep space only for as long as you need it, and occupy space fluidly. You accomplish this first by avoiding zones of contention, and second by minimizing disruption within zones of contention. The best way to deal with contention is to not be there. Formal politeness is as hindering to flow as oafishness. Malingering in flow is harmful to everyone behind you. The opportunities for formal politeness in flow are naturally limited to conditions where you are stopped, because it's absurd to conduct an exchange of etiquette in moving automobile traffic. The best approximation of polite deferral is smooth egress from zones of congestion and observing a proper round-robin in situations of full contention. It may seem paradoxical, but heading into zones of contention and alternating is effective both for you and for the group, and should be preferred to queueing early because it maximizes your egress potential at no cost in fairness to those around you; your can't avoid occupying your share of turf in the flow, but you can minimize the time and disruption of occupation. The early merge to a zone of contention is at best self-sacrificial and at worst a collective hindrance. Regarding opportunistic changing of position within a flow, you have to feel your way through. With experience, you learn to trade off minimizing disruption and maximizing opportunity according to the design parameters of the thoroughfare. As to peeves about greediness, if you prize generosity above your own progress, pull over, get out of the way and let others move on. Do not assume others have the same situational awareness. Polite deferral is only meaningful among those who share an encounter, with the recognition that every encounter is shared with yourself and you must reckon your own standards of propriety. When traffic becomes gridlocked, self responsibility dictates escaping the blockage. In severe circumstances of gridlock, formal rules of the road are rendered meaningless. This is a matter of design failure and in the worst cases death may be consequent. You can't begrudge a fellow traveler from trying to survive, even though you may disdain his lack of honor in his thrashing. This is a personal matter between a man and God.

whimsicalism 2y ago

> A 2014 article in Psychology Today titled ‘Why We Don’t Give Each Other a Break’ used the example of someone who cuts into a line in front of you. You might think, “What a jerk,” when in reality this person has never skipped ahead in a line before and is doing so now only because he would otherwise miss a flight to see a dying relative. Perhaps I am falling victim to “attribution error”, but I would bet considerable money that most cases I have witnessed of someone skipping a queue have nothing remotely like a dying relative behind it. This seems like a nice kumbaya sort of explanation that misdiagnoses reality.

taeric 2y ago
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers, but I think the point is it doesn't really matter? In particular, I think the point is that one is an escalation path of thinking. If you think someone in front of you is being a jerk because they are being a bad actor, you are more likely to get upset about it than if you took an alternative view.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  i am not a fan of this style of ends-motivated reasoning. i think it is easy to laugh it off even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks, i don’t have to pretend that they were somehow in the right just to not get upset
  - the_sleaze_ 2y ago
    > even in a world full of inconsiderate jerks This is the cynical negative worldview that a therapist would attempt to steer a patient away from. The more time a person spends in a negative headspace the more easily that person will find themselves in a negative headspace - just like a muscle the brain will build neural pathways to find that negative pattern faster and more efficiently. And the longer that person spends there the stronger that pattern building will get. Of course the person cutting in line's mother didn't die, more than likely they were lost in thought about their bills piling up, or feeling incredibly self-conscious about their weight, their husband's difficulty in finding a job or not ever being able to buy a home in these market conditions. If you had touched them gently on the shoulder and reminded them of the line they'd apologize profusely and move to the back.