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I heard a thought recently that went something along the lines of "if any outcome requires 'everyone to just X' then it is not a realistic outcome because every

I heard a thought recently that went something along the lines of "if any outcome requires 'everyone to just X' then it is not a realistic outcome because everyone will not just X" I've started to apply this line of reasoning to things like this. "If everyone would just be nicer" sounds great, but we can't expect it to happen. It sounds defeatist but I think it can also be used to try and reframe things to find real possible solutions instead of wishful solutions For example: "We know that everyone will not just spontaneously start being kinder. Is there a way we can incentivize people to be kinder when using our platform?" Yes you can argue that people should just be kind, that we should not have to go out of our way incentivize good behaviour, but unfortunately everyone will not just, so we do have to give them a reason to Edit: to your "how is cyberbullying real" comment, this sort of thing is an observation that we cannot control other people, we cannot expect them to just, but we can control our own reactions to things. It's a good thing imo to point out to people that they do not have to take the ire of a random internet user very seriously Edit2 of course we should not expect people to just stop taking the ire of random internet users seriously either ...

drdeca 2y ago
The “everyone will not just X” issue is, I think, less of an obstacle when you don’t need the “everyone” part. If “Y% of people just did X, then things would be Y% • Z amount better” is a much better plan than “if everyone just did X, then the problem would be solved.” . Some proportion of people are likely to be convinced by an argument that they should do something because it would make things better if they did. You can’t practically expect to convince everyone, nor even almost everyone, to change their behavior with such an argument/plea. But, if a marginal change in how many people do X would produce a marginal change in goodness of outcome, it can be effective to make such an argument/plea. I claim that “how kind people are” is a situation where marginal improvements in what fraction of people are at least V kind, produces a commensurate improvement in outcomes. That’s not to say that improving incentives wouldn’t also be good.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  > Some proportion of people are likely to be convinced by an argument that they should do something because it would make things better if they did "it would make things better if they did" is an incentive. As incentives go, it's a fairly weak one that doesn't tend to convince people The problem with this sort of incentive in internet comment sections is that a lot of the nasty people don't tend to stick around long. They may just be doing a drive by nasty post. They may have even made a new burner account just to make one post. If people are transient, then they will never see the outcome of "it would make things better", so they never reap any benefit from it Anyways, my point was that argument is still trying to convince people of an incentive Edit: I suppose what this is highlighting is that the "people will not just X" is really more "people will not just (spontaneously) X". You need to give them reasons to X, if you want them to X.
  - drdeca 2y ago
    Well, is “responding to someone saying ‘if people (“just”) do X, then Z” really “spontaneous”? Like, presumably the person saying something like that at least thinks that the people listening would prefer Z to be the case. If they are right, then, if marginal increases in the doing of X results in marginal increases of Z, and the people listening want Z, then saying “the more you X, the more Z” seems like a sometimes reasonably effective way to cause more Z by causing people to do more X. You can call that “an incentive” if you want - that wouldn’t be incorrect - though I think that word often has connotations of “artificial external incentive”, and I don’t think that’s always so necessary.

drdeca 2y ago

The “everyone will not just X” issue is, I think, less of an obstacle when you don’t need the “everyone” part. If “Y% of people just did X, then things would be Y% • Z amount better” is a much better plan than “if everyone just did X, then the problem would be solved.” . Some proportion of people are likely to be convinced by an argument that they should do something because it would make things better if they did. You can’t practically expect to convince everyone, nor even almost everyone, to change their behavior with such an argument/plea. But, if a marginal change in how many people do X would produce a marginal change in goodness of outcome, it can be effective to make such an argument/plea. I claim that “how kind people are” is a situation where marginal improvements in what fraction of people are at least V kind, produces a commensurate improvement in outcomes. That’s not to say that improving incentives wouldn’t also be good.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
> Some proportion of people are likely to be convinced by an argument that they should do something because it would make things better if they did "it would make things better if they did" is an incentive. As incentives go, it's a fairly weak one that doesn't tend to convince people The problem with this sort of incentive in internet comment sections is that a lot of the nasty people don't tend to stick around long. They may just be doing a drive by nasty post. They may have even made a new burner account just to make one post. If people are transient, then they will never see the outcome of "it would make things better", so they never reap any benefit from it Anyways, my point was that argument is still trying to convince people of an incentive Edit: I suppose what this is highlighting is that the "people will not just X" is really more "people will not just (spontaneously) X". You need to give them reasons to X, if you want them to X.
- drdeca 2y ago
  Well, is “responding to someone saying ‘if people (“just”) do X, then Z” really “spontaneous”? Like, presumably the person saying something like that at least thinks that the people listening would prefer Z to be the case. If they are right, then, if marginal increases in the doing of X results in marginal increases of Z, and the people listening want Z, then saying “the more you X, the more Z” seems like a sometimes reasonably effective way to cause more Z by causing people to do more X. You can call that “an incentive” if you want - that wouldn’t be incorrect - though I think that word often has connotations of “artificial external incentive”, and I don’t think that’s always so necessary.