Fiona Zimmer Right. I saw a thing last night that rubbed me the wrong way, and I'm trying to pull apart what did it.
I am pretty sure that intentionally and consciously being "over trusting", and saying that when you are ripped off is entirely the fault of the scammer is inconsistent. And probably a vice.
That is: if you consciously make yourself a target -- consciously lower your guard, do not act paranoid when around Badness, etc -- then to what extent are you morally liable for harm that comes to you?
My concern, of course, is that this sounds equivalent to saying that women in shirt skirts deserve it. Which they don't.
Yeah. I was being short. An easier statement may be: is there a healthy limit on the truth that we give to others? If we give more trust than that, to what extent, if any, are we morally culpable for harm caused?
The flaw of the 'short skirt' assessment is that no one's making the other party target you. Assault is not the product of vast, impersonal forces that just so happen to combine into violence with the right catalyst.
It is entirely possible to assess a risk correctly (as low) and have it happen anyway. This does not make you bad at risk assessment, and it does not excuse the other parties from culpability.
For those who don't want to watch a video: Hank was ripped off by a taxi driver. This sends him into a spiral of paranoia, until he decides to be over trusting despite knowing that some people are jerks. He then suggests that the only reason we cannot be over trusting is jerks like this, and that he should be able to be over trusting without harm.
That is: Hank suggests that while he is over trusting, he still has a right to expect the world to be as he wishes it to be, and to suffer no ill affect due to holding beliefs regarding the world that are inconsistent with the world as he knows it to be.
And, well, that seems like complete and utter garbage. Hank can choose to be ripped off sometimes and suffer that tax, or he can develop a more paranoid mindset and pay that mental tax. That is, you either pay the mental tax (which hank rejects), or pay a monetary tax from being ripped off from time to time.
I don't think this show's you're crazed (though I always recognize the possibility). I do worry that the structure of the argument has a lot in common with (e.g.) the argument that women who want to play video games or RPGs should "have a thick skin" about misogyny and abuse, because that's how the world is.
To what extent is "that's the way the world is" evidence for a claim of "that's what you ought to accept as normal and proper"? How much room is there for looking at the world and saying "This isn't how it ought to be"?
(1) Acting as if the world is a way that it is not. (2) Working to make the world the world we want it to be.
In general, hank does a lot of (2). Nerd Fighteria works against world suck. But, in this case, he's saying he is going to do (1) and expect no repercussions.
And that's what seems like bullshit. Pelosi didn't get to be Speaker by pretending Strom Thurmond was a good guy. And I bet she wouldn't be in an elevator alone with him, because he was a sleazy motherfucker.
Speaking as someone who performs risk assessment on virtually everyone I meet all the time, I can see his viewpoint. The Reason We Can't have Nice Things is because of con artists and other unpleasant persons presuming on the social contract of humankind. Again, no one's making them do that. It's a conscious decision on the con artist's part to prey on other humans. They assess the risks of doing so just as much as their marks.
I'll also point out that 'overtrusting' itself is a form of social engineering. You can use trust as an assessment of other people, especially people you need to interact with often. If you suspect Person A might be an opportunistic asshole, but you don't know for sure, you can a) never, ever, ever allow them the opening they need to prey on you, or b) give them an opportunity under controlled conditions and see what they do.
Turning your back on a belligerent drunk in a bar (for example) is as much a test of them as it is of you. If they throw a punch, you may get a bruise, but you'll also know a lot more about him. And his friends.
I wanted to largely avoid the male privilege of display by Hank: he can afford not to do risk assessment, because he only fears his wallet.
That being said: I'm going to make one pretty big disagreement: Due to how we have structured taxi cabs, there is an expectation that they will rip you off. In order to survive in that profession, you basically have to rip off rubes.
that is, the system is rigged against them. They must rip off people to make enough money. So, did the cabbie have a choice?
Sure, he could have not ripped off the rich, white guy with a youtube platform. And, instead, ripped off someone less able to absorb the loss. Because the taxi drive must rip people off.
And that sucks. But, it means you ought to expect a taxi driver to be looking for an opportunity to rip you off.
I think that Hank's argument stems from the concept that if you treat a person with a specific expectation they are more likely to follow that expectation. For instance, if I treat a person as if I expect them to handle my valuables without doing harm, they are more likely not to harm my valuables even if that is not normal. It doesn't garuntee they won't do harm, but it does encourage it. This can also have a negative effect, if a person is treated with mistrust they are more likely to seek a way to break that trust than they normally would. This isn't one of the biggest motivators of behavior, but it is noticable especially with strangers.
Hrm. I may have to see the video now, because I'm not sure I agree that taxis have to rip people off, or that overcharging a fare necessarily is ripping someone off.
Cabs provide a necessary, hazardous, underpaid service on demand. I rarely use cabs, but when I do I make sure I have room in my budget for more than the expected fare. Not because I expect them to take advantage of me, but because I have empathy for their position. Is that a ripoff? I don't think so. It's part of my assumption of service, that they'll be there when I need them and that in return I'll pay them well.
Having seen the video, I do not see anything in it that indicates that Hank is not aware of the way the world works, or thinks he should be shielded from repercussions.
Fiona Zimmer Hank never says taxis have to rip people off; that's my understanding of the situation they find themselves in. A pretty shitty one, in other words, where honesty leads to poverty.
Tony Lower-Basch Its the over trusting bit plus thinking it is the taxi drivers fault that galls me.
If you trust overmuch, then you will suffer ills that you would not if you were more consciously aware of those things. The Taxi driver is acting in a way that, if Hank were not intentionally unaware of such things, would be clear to him.
William Nichols: I feel (strangely) that I'm going out on a limb here to say this but ... it is the taxi driver's fault. He or she is the one who acted, through conscious volition, to defraud. Hank is the one who was defrauded. At least that's how I see it.
I can sort of see how you could reverse the agency there: The taxi driver has to defraud (although I'll point out ... hashtag-NotAllTaxiDrivers). Hank is the person to blame for the whole situation, for putting himself in a position where he was more likely to be a target.
But if that's the argument here, I'd like you to elaborate on how you distinguish its structure from the "short skirt" argument, because it's looking unsettlingly similar.
Yeah. I called out the similarity up thread. It bothers me.
Here's one meaningful difference: the short skirt argument is a non sequitur. That is, the length of skirt is not causally related to bad behavior. It is one of an endless number of excuses, none of which are related to the bad behavior. Its not just that the skirt is not causally related to bad behavior; it is not correlated.
That is, wearing pants is not protection against the basket of bad behaviors that use a short skirt as an excuse.
To get away from the skirt metaphor, which always makes me uncomfortable: Being intentionally over trusting is lowering one's guard; it is Luke lowering his defenses to Vader in the Emperor's Throne Room and being surprised when the sith lord strikes. Notice, Luke wasn't surprised, and defends himself. And then hides.
Intentionally being overly trusting is not raising the saber when Vader strikes.
So, William Nichols , I think what you're really asking is not whether or not paranoia is a virtue, but whether overtrusting has any value as a strategy.
I contend that it does, because it gives you information. It's up to you to decide how you will use that information, and there's a lot of ways to do that.
You can muster a defense (Luke putting up his saber), or inform others (Han and Leia at Bespin), or influence the decisions of others (Vader saving Luke) or simply survive another day wiser (Lando stepping into Chewie's reach).
Your error is assuming the con is the end of the social interaction. For most people, that isn't true. That taxi might pull up again. That creepy dude at work will continue to creep. That con artist might haunt the same six bars. The data you've collected from overtrusting is still useful even after you've been snowed once.
Fiona Zimmer So, over trusting with modifications when it is violated?
That's actually great. A question, though, is determining the violators. Right?
You're unlikely (very!) to get the same taxi driver. My own experiences have lead me not to trust any taxi driver. You are very likely to see the same work creeper, because work. Do you come to distrust just the creeper, or the business that keeps him employed? Same thing with the con artist -- do you mistrust him, or everyone with a sad story?
You're walking along a pedestrian-friendly street. Out comes a person asking for money to get on a bus to go home to see their mother dying of cancer. They need $2.75. Do you give it to them?
If you are overtrusting, sure. If the story is true, then they need the money more than I do. It is a small price to pay to reuinite a family. I don't, because I believe they are scamming. Because I have seen scams like this before, even if I have not seen this person.
So, there's the question: When over trusting with modifications, do you come to distrust groups, or individuals?
Let's be clear: any argument which says a woman "deserves it" is either invalid or, if of a valid form, unsound.
Which, I'm pretty sure, is why you it is the argument you go back to.
I reject that they are the same. But, because reasons private and public, I cannot reason well surrounding that issue. My blood boils, and any rhetorical or argumentative power I have is smashed and cannot be brought to bear.
To attempt: Reasons given for a why a woman "deserves it" are excuses.
Nor is the position that Hank is the one to blame; rather, that he ought to have known better, and does not because he chooses not to. This is not necessarily a moral failing (he only harmed himself), but is an inconsistency.
It's possible to assess people both generally and individually; if a taxi driver you haven't met starts up a familiar patter that leads into the same scam, you don't need to give them the benefit of the doubt. You have all the data you need. In the same vein, you don't need to distrust all taxi drivers forever because one scammed you once.
Again, it comes back to assessing risk + harm. If you have enough data points to know someone is a high risk and the potential for harm is high (ex: aggressive panhandler wants to follow you to the ATM when you say you don't have cash), you can set a boundary, get away, do whatever is needed to keep yourself safe.
On the other hand, if you know someone is a high risk (of being a scammer) but the potential for actual harm is low (you're flush right now, scammer can't beat you up), you might decide to 'fall for' the scam and rationalize it as an act of charity. This is essentially how most people deal with panhandlers now. Does it matter if they're trying to visit their sick mother or not? People need money to live, and whether they spend your gift on food or cheap booze ceases to be your concern once the money is out of your hands. A gift is a gift; they can spend it how they like.
A woman approached me once and asked for $20 to get into a battered women's shelter for the night. I gave her $40 because even if it was a scam, it was clear she needed the money; her clothes were filthy, she hadn't eaten, and she was anxious and crying from shame. I could have chosen not to. I assessed the risk and found good reasons to 'fall for' the patter. I don't regret my choice.
William: I just don't think it's inconsistent. You can choose to not feel forced to protect yourself, and still blame others for attacking you.
Less blood-boiling issue: I have protected abortion clinics. I knew that I was putting myself at risk for some really vile insults and abuse, by doing so. Tempers run high. That doesn't mean I made some guy yell "You should have been aborted, you liberal !", or "You better watch your back walking home, !" at me. And I would argue that it does not invalidate my right to be angry about that.
Tony Lower-Basch and William Nichols , I've been trying very hard to stay away from lady-assault analogies because it's not a dry, academic thought experiment for me. If you would like to discuss that, I will recuse myself from the thread.
Thanks for the discussion so far, it's been very interesting.
Sure! I also picketed a Federal Building to protest the Gulf War. Federal employees got dragged away by the cops for having gone freakin' berserk and physically attacked us (one guy was swinging a loaded brief-case at protestors' heads) rather than accept going to a different, less-convenient, entrance that we had (deliberately) left unblocked.
I had been warned that would likely happen. I still feel the responsibility was on the attackers. Agree? Disagree?
It is, of course, the exact same argument format. By agreement, this has no bearing on arguments regarding violence against women. Does this work for you, Fiona Zimmer ?
Okay, so: Assault. Assault is not the weather. Taking an umbrella out in the rain is sensible because the rain isn't choosing to fall on you. It's going to do it regardless of whether you put up an umbrella or not. One of the things that drives me absolutely bananas in Media is that most assaults are reported in the passive voice: "Twelve people hit by blowdarts on the Bay Bridge", "Violence claims six in drive-by shooting", and so forth. Human predators overwhelmingly benefit from this type of language, because the subtext is that violence is just a thing that happens and it's the fault of you, the victim of assault, for not bringing your violence-proof umbrella out today.
And that's bullshit.
Assaults are not the weather. Other humans choose to assault people on purpose.
Overtrusting folks and paranoid folks both benefit from risk assessment. So do their predators. Most crimes are opportunistic, in that the criminal chooses a time and place they assume is low-risk. Muggers, panhandlers, taxicab drivers, and so forth are all fully capable of assessing the risk of their actions. Tony Lower-Basch 's assailants may have chosen poorly, in that they lost their cool in front of the cops, but it was still their risk to take. Their actions, for which they can take full responsibility.
This is remarkably similar to a thought experiment from philosophy. I'll go down that rabbit hole, and then come back up to get at Tony's question.
Pretend I'm hiking through a country with political instability. I hike past a village. On the way out, I am captured by an evil jerkface and his band of evil jerks. But, they are not interested in me -- they are interested in the village. And the evil jerkface leader tells me: "Congratulations! Because you are here, we are going to have a holiday. Normally, we would kill all these villages. But, because we have an American, we're going to let them go. Just one thing: you've got to kill one of them. Kill one, and you and the rest of the village get to go free. Refuse, and I'll kill all of them and you."
Normally, the question is: What do you do?
Then there's a discussion on the level to which you own your actions. If you refuse to kill the person, are you responsible for the death of the village? If you do kill the person, are you morally culpable?
But, there's an underlying assumption here: that you are hiking in a place with bands of roving jerkfaces. Which you could readily have avoided, and sidestepped the entire problem.
So, you bear some of the moral weight, as without the hiking the situation would never have arose. You would not been have a causal factor in the situation. (Sure, something about "Then i didn't go hiking, and a village died." But, at that point you are utterly unaware -- and responsibly so! -- of the actions of the evil jerkfaces. And cannot be held liable for them.)
So, what's the similarity to Tony's situation? -- People are responsible for what they can expect to come from their actions. You knew there would likely be violence, and chose to take the action anyway. You bear responsibility for creating a tense situation. -- People are responsible for what they can expect to come from their actions. The feds who attacked you are responsible for their actions.
That is: it doesn't have to be that just one person is to blame.
So I am "responsible for creating a tense situation." Can you expand upon what that means? I suspect that the words may have different meaning (when you unpack everything in them) for you than they would for me ... so we are at risk of cheerfully agreeing on the words, while disagreeing completely on the substance the words are supposed to point toward.
As a for-instance: Do you take the further step of saying "Well hey, that Federal Employee wouldn't have been attacking you if it weren't for that tense situation, so you bear part of the responsibility for that"?
While still holding said federal employee entirely liable for his (and its almost always a him, isn't it?) actions, I would also say that you bear some moral weight, yes. That is, you are both morally responsible for the harm that is caused.
"So you bear some of the moral weight, as without the hiking the situation would not have arose. "
Well, no. I reject that premise. The political instability did not arise from American hikers hiking recklessly through. My actions did not affect Evil Jerkface's decision to wipe out a village, nor can I actually stop him from doing so. That's all on him . Those are still his decisions, he's just trying to disguise them with a handy patsy.
Moving on to the real -life analogy, Tony did indeed contribute to the tenseness of the situation, because that's what a protest is designed to do. But protests are also a legitimate and protected form of expression in America, so it's not unreasonable to expect protests in your day -to day life. Heavy traffic makes people tense too, but it doesn't excuse road rage.
Harder questions. And, to be clear, I don't really have universal answers. There's no claim to absolute rightness here.
Fiona Zimmer You can be both legally entitled to do something (like a protest) and morally culpable for the results. Is that problematic?
The revealed premise here is something like: You bear moral responsibility for the outcomes of an action that you had a good reason to know would result.
Is that a disagreeable premise?
Tony Lower-Basch To take actions where the outcomes you expect are positive. In the protesting analogy, being yelled at (and maybe punched) is a price you willingly paid in order to have a greater good come from it. Is that not true?
How did we just slide from discussing moral blame to talking about price to be paid? That's a really extreme shift of categories, and I'm going to reject it. I'm not willing to talk about "price to be paid" until we've thrashed out your assertion that I am morally blameworthy in a case of violent assault.
Should I have avoided protesting, so as not to be partly to blame for violence? Yes or no.
No, really. That's the answer to that question. There is insufficient information in the question for me to be able to have even a guess as to the praise or blameworthiness of the action.
That is, for me to have any idea about that, I'd need to know why you were protesting, what political change you expected to come of it, and if you knew you'd be aiding making a situation where violence was likely.
For example: If you were protesting to impress a girl, expected no change, and were callous to violence towards yourself and others? Then, sure, you were to blame.
If you were protesting because the Agency was doing something awful, you expected the protest to affect policy, and were not aware of the potential for violence? Then, there's absolutely no blame.
I think your morally culpable for everything you do, legal or not. You answer to society through the law, you answer to yourself through morality (though others' may try to pressure you based on thier morality which can be good or bad depending, but that is a different issue)
William: Well that's new. A few posts ago you were talking about how I was (objectively) partly to blame for inciting violence. Now it depends on my motives, my hopes, and my knowledge?
If I was an all-American boy, doing my civic duty to impact policy, who didn't mean to cause any harm ... well then my actions aren't blame-worthy.
But if I was some sleazy no-account, just trying to rebel against the establishment, and I didn't bother to think through what might happen ... weellllll, I think we all know that I'm to blame for everything that comes of that.
Heck ... I don't have enough information to tell the difference between those two. Seems like it's in the eye of the beholder.
But yeah, of course it is. Or else there wouldn't be a bajillion notions of the good, and a bajillion conflicting ideas.
In particular, my ascribed to form of morality has a lot to do with the capability of people. That is, more is morally required of you as your capabilities increase.
So, for example, you know judo (ok, i am a bad friend and do not know which martial art you practice), and I do not. if there was a situation in which judo would be beneficial, then due to your increased capability, more would be morally required of you.
Now, granted, I am also morally blameworthy for not knowing judo.
You were very much not talking about capabilities there, though. You were talking about respectability: Doing the proper sorts of protest, for a proper motive.
Anyway, you want information? Here's the information I think is relevant, plus a whole bunch of information you claim goes into your calculations.
A Federal employee saw a bunch of students peacefully protesting, with their arms linked, in front of one of the entrances to his building. He waded in, swinging a heavy briefcase at peoples' heads.
We'd all been warned this sort of thing might well happen, because people are assholes.
I, personally, was there because I thought the Gulf War was a freakin' terrible idea (which, by the way, I stand by in retrospect). I felt strongly that silence was complicity, so when I heard a protest was being organized I was eager to be heard, even though I doubted that it would make a long-term difference. I was not then a capable martial artist ... though we had some, spaced evenly throughout the line. Good thing too, it turned out, as one was involved in (without harm) disarming the major attacker.
I contend that nobody in that line, whatever their motives, was in any way to blame for that man's actions.
I contend, further, that the argument that they might be is equivalent to another argument I've heard.
"Look, Tony, I know you know the answers in class ... but you're way younger than all the other students in this class, and they resent you for being so smart, so soon, and ... well, being different. And I can't really control what happens outside this classroom. Maybe you could just ... not raise your hand when I ask questions? Because, really, if you insist on drawing attention to yourself it's only natural that they'll want to hurt you."
Given the tone, I want to pause things here. Before continuing, I want to ensure that my friendship with both of you -- and perhaps, anyone else watching -- is not at risk.
Oh heck, no, no risk to the friendship. I'm feeling heated because many of the reasons I think you're wrong come from my lived experience of similar arguments being applied hurtfully, but you're not doing that. You're just talkin'.
If you swing a briefcase at my head, that might change, mind you. Fair warning :)
If I swing a briefcase at your head, I expect you to hit me right back.
Or, in the words of Malcolm Reynolds: Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back.
A problem is that we don't have enough words to describe all the things that we want. Or at least, we've not been using them.
Generally speaking: Jumping into a lava pit? Suicidal. Jumping into a lava pit, and expecting to be unscathed? Dumb. Jumping into a lava pit, expecting to be unscathed, and morally blaming the lava? Morally blameworthy.
I think there is a similar argument about going to where someone works and telling them that they are badwrongevil. I think we both know that accepting an argument that puts ones wallet at risk is, at best, hard. That is, feds working towards a badwrongevil results are like a laval pit, and can be argued with about as productively.
They could have walked the few dozen yards to the unblocked exit. Heck, they even could have waited the half-hour it took for the police to decide we'd had our say, and round us up for obstructing traffic.
There was nothing inevitable about their choice. Please stop treating them as if they were sub-human automata. If you want to talk about who is morally responsible when somebody puts themselves in the path of (say) a zombie horde, that's a different discussion entirely.
I suppose the difference is this: I hold that if I can accurately predict that an event will happen due to my actions, then I am responsible for that event.
Which seems to be the fundamental disagreement point between me and everyone else in the world. :-)
Well, you've got a bit of a paradox there, in that openly pursuing this philosophy will predictably lead to empowering bullies: All they have to do is threaten some outcome of Bad-Level-5 if you don't do their bidding, to get you to do anything of Bad-Level-4 or below.
So if you want to embrace the paradox, feel free, but I think it's pretty weak sauce to use it as a way of judging others.
Well maybe. But from the long view, the desire of bullies is almost always a worse harm than what they can deliver. Because a bully doesn't hit you once and walk away, they hit you again and again.
FWIW, I'm not imagining you as the victim ... your'e the bystander. So you'd only be involved the one time.
But I'll meet you halfway: You're the victim of bullying. You're different (doesn't matter how) so they want you to never speak in school, never make eye contact with anyone, never presume to be in the same hallway they are, and definitely never ever go to any adult about the situation. They promise you (and you have reason to believe them) that if you violate these rules, you will be beaten, possibly killed ... and it will be YOUR FAULT, not theirs, because you chose it.
it's a virtue if
ReplyDeletea) they're really out to get you
b) your job is about preparing for unlikely outcomes.
Fiona Zimmer Right. I saw a thing last night that rubbed me the wrong way, and I'm trying to pull apart what did it.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that intentionally and consciously being "over trusting", and saying that when you are ripped off is entirely the fault of the scammer is inconsistent. And probably a vice.
That is: if you consciously make yourself a target -- consciously lower your guard, do not act paranoid when around Badness, etc -- then to what extent are you morally liable for harm that comes to you?
My concern, of course, is that this sounds equivalent to saying that women in shirt skirts deserve it. Which they don't.
Paranoia isn't just about being overly cautious ... it's about placing yourself at the center of vast (albeit malevolent) forces.
ReplyDeleteI think the self-centeredness of the whole thing, with its attendant loss of empathy for others, tends to swamp the virtue to be had in caution.
Yeah. I was being short. An easier statement may be: is there a healthy limit on the truth that we give to others? If we give more trust than that, to what extent, if any, are we morally culpable for harm caused?
ReplyDeleteOnly to the extent that prevents the underground lizard people from eating your brain. Cruz 2016
ReplyDeleteWhat.
ReplyDeleteBasically the response I would expect from an extremely paranoid person
ReplyDeleteThe flaw of the 'short skirt' assessment is that no one's making the other party target you. Assault is not the product of vast, impersonal forces that just so happen to combine into violence with the right catalyst.
ReplyDeleteIt is entirely possible to assess a risk correctly (as low) and have it happen anyway. This does not make you bad at risk assessment, and it does not excuse the other parties from culpability.
Prelude: this came up due to seeing this vlogbrothers video yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASsJ9pxnPlg
ReplyDeleteFor those who don't want to watch a video: Hank was ripped off by a taxi driver. This sends him into a spiral of paranoia, until he decides to be over trusting despite knowing that some people are jerks. He then suggests that the only reason we cannot be over trusting is jerks like this, and that he should be able to be over trusting without harm.
That is: Hank suggests that while he is over trusting, he still has a right to expect the world to be as he wishes it to be, and to suffer no ill affect due to holding beliefs regarding the world that are inconsistent with the world as he knows it to be.
And, well, that seems like complete and utter garbage. Hank can choose to be ripped off sometimes and suffer that tax, or he can develop a more paranoid mindset and pay that mental tax. That is, you either pay the mental tax (which hank rejects), or pay a monetary tax from being ripped off from time to time.
Am I crazed?
I don't think this show's you're crazed (though I always recognize the possibility). I do worry that the structure of the argument has a lot in common with (e.g.) the argument that women who want to play video games or RPGs should "have a thick skin" about misogyny and abuse, because that's how the world is.
ReplyDeleteTo what extent is "that's the way the world is" evidence for a claim of "that's what you ought to accept as normal and proper"? How much room is there for looking at the world and saying "This isn't how it ought to be"?
I think there's two things:
ReplyDelete(1) Acting as if the world is a way that it is not.
(2) Working to make the world the world we want it to be.
In general, hank does a lot of (2). Nerd Fighteria works against world suck. But, in this case, he's saying he is going to do (1) and expect no repercussions.
And that's what seems like bullshit. Pelosi didn't get to be Speaker by pretending Strom Thurmond was a good guy. And I bet she wouldn't be in an elevator alone with him, because he was a sleazy motherfucker.
Speaking as someone who performs risk assessment on virtually everyone I meet all the time, I can see his viewpoint. The Reason We Can't have Nice Things is because of con artists and other unpleasant persons presuming on the social contract of humankind. Again, no one's making them do that. It's a conscious decision on the con artist's part to prey on other humans. They assess the risks of doing so just as much as their marks.
ReplyDeleteI'll also point out that 'overtrusting' itself is a form of social engineering. You can use trust as an assessment of other people, especially people you need to interact with often. If you suspect Person A might be an opportunistic asshole, but you don't know for sure, you can a) never, ever, ever allow them the opening they need to prey on you, or b) give them an opportunity under controlled conditions and see what they do.
Turning your back on a belligerent drunk in a bar (for example) is as much a test of them as it is of you. If they throw a punch, you may get a bruise, but you'll also know a lot more about him. And his friends.
And, for that matter, your friends.
Very interested in continuing the discussion, after my evening gives me the time to watch the whole video.
ReplyDeleteFiona Zimmer 90% agreement.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to largely avoid the male privilege of display by Hank: he can afford not to do risk assessment, because he only fears his wallet.
That being said: I'm going to make one pretty big disagreement: Due to how we have structured taxi cabs, there is an expectation that they will rip you off. In order to survive in that profession, you basically have to rip off rubes.
that is, the system is rigged against them. They must rip off people to make enough money. So, did the cabbie have a choice?
Sure, he could have not ripped off the rich, white guy with a youtube platform. And, instead, ripped off someone less able to absorb the loss. Because the taxi drive must rip people off.
And that sucks. But, it means you ought to expect a taxi driver to be looking for an opportunity to rip you off.
Also, Tony Lower-Basch , your kids may be old enough for Crash Course. Generally speaking, Hank and John do good work.
ReplyDeleteI think that Hank's argument stems from the concept that if you treat a person with a specific expectation they are more likely to follow that expectation. For instance, if I treat a person as if I expect them to handle my valuables without doing harm, they are more likely not to harm my valuables even if that is not normal. It doesn't garuntee they won't do harm, but it does encourage it. This can also have a negative effect, if a person is treated with mistrust they are more likely to seek a way to break that trust than they normally would. This isn't one of the biggest motivators of behavior, but it is noticable especially with strangers.
ReplyDeleteHrm. I may have to see the video now, because I'm not sure I agree that taxis have to rip people off, or that overcharging a fare necessarily is ripping someone off.
ReplyDeleteCabs provide a necessary, hazardous, underpaid service on demand. I rarely use cabs, but when I do I make sure I have room in my budget for more than the expected fare. Not because I expect them to take advantage of me, but because I have empathy for their position. Is that a ripoff? I don't think so. It's part of my assumption of service, that they'll be there when I need them and that in return I'll pay them well.
So, I dunno. YMMV.
Having seen the video, I do not see anything in it that indicates that Hank is not aware of the way the world works, or thinks he should be shielded from repercussions.
ReplyDeleteFiona Zimmer Hank never says taxis have to rip people off; that's my understanding of the situation they find themselves in. A pretty shitty one, in other words, where honesty leads to poverty.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Its the over trusting bit plus thinking it is the taxi drivers fault that galls me.
ReplyDeleteIf you trust overmuch, then you will suffer ills that you would not if you were more consciously aware of those things.
The Taxi driver is acting in a way that, if Hank were not intentionally unaware of such things, would be clear to him.
William Nichols: I feel (strangely) that I'm going out on a limb here to say this but ... it is the taxi driver's fault. He or she is the one who acted, through conscious volition, to defraud. Hank is the one who was defrauded. At least that's how I see it.
ReplyDeleteI can sort of see how you could reverse the agency there: The taxi driver has to defraud (although I'll point out ... hashtag-NotAllTaxiDrivers). Hank is the person to blame for the whole situation, for putting himself in a position where he was more likely to be a target.
But if that's the argument here, I'd like you to elaborate on how you distinguish its structure from the "short skirt" argument, because it's looking unsettlingly similar.
Yeah. I called out the similarity up thread. It bothers me.
ReplyDeleteHere's one meaningful difference: the short skirt argument is a non sequitur. That is, the length of skirt is not causally related to bad behavior. It is one of an endless number of excuses, none of which are related to the bad behavior. Its not just that the skirt is not causally related to bad behavior; it is not correlated.
That is, wearing pants is not protection against the basket of bad behaviors that use a short skirt as an excuse.
To get away from the skirt metaphor, which always makes me uncomfortable:
Being intentionally over trusting is lowering one's guard; it is Luke lowering his defenses to Vader in the Emperor's Throne Room and being surprised when the sith lord strikes. Notice, Luke wasn't surprised, and defends himself. And then hides.
Intentionally being overly trusting is not raising the saber when Vader strikes.
So, William Nichols , I think what you're really asking is not whether or not paranoia is a virtue, but whether overtrusting has any value as a strategy.
ReplyDeleteI contend that it does, because it gives you information. It's up to you to decide how you will use that information, and there's a lot of ways to do that.
You can muster a defense (Luke putting up his saber), or inform others (Han and Leia at Bespin), or influence the decisions of others (Vader saving Luke) or simply survive another day wiser (Lando stepping into Chewie's reach).
Your error is assuming the con is the end of the social interaction. For most people, that isn't true. That taxi might pull up again. That creepy dude at work will continue to creep. That con artist might haunt the same six bars. The data you've collected from overtrusting is still useful even after you've been snowed once.
Fiona Zimmer So, over trusting with modifications when it is violated?
ReplyDeleteThat's actually great. A question, though, is determining the violators. Right?
You're unlikely (very!) to get the same taxi driver. My own experiences have lead me not to trust any taxi driver. You are very likely to see the same work creeper, because work. Do you come to distrust just the creeper, or the business that keeps him employed? Same thing with the con artist -- do you mistrust him, or everyone with a sad story?
You're walking along a pedestrian-friendly street. Out comes a person asking for money to get on a bus to go home to see their mother dying of cancer. They need $2.75. Do you give it to them?
If you are overtrusting, sure. If the story is true, then they need the money more than I do. It is a small price to pay to reuinite a family. I don't, because I believe they are scamming. Because I have seen scams like this before, even if I have not seen this person.
So, there's the question: When over trusting with modifications, do you come to distrust groups, or individuals?
So, uh, William I hesitate to even ask this ...
ReplyDeleteDo you think a woman who gets drunk (thus causally increasing her risk of sexual assault) is the one to blame if she gets assaulted?
Like ... she lowered her guard, she's being over-trusting ...
I'm trying to see the difference that I presume is there.
Let's be clear: any argument which says a woman "deserves it" is either invalid or, if of a valid form, unsound.
ReplyDeleteWhich, I'm pretty sure, is why you it is the argument you go back to.
I reject that they are the same. But, because reasons private and public, I cannot reason well surrounding that issue. My blood boils, and any rhetorical or argumentative power I have is smashed and cannot be brought to bear.
To attempt: Reasons given for a why a woman "deserves it" are excuses.
Nor is the position that Hank is the one to blame; rather, that he ought to have known better, and does not because he chooses not to. This is not necessarily a moral failing (he only harmed himself), but is an inconsistency.
ReplyDeleteIt's possible to assess people both generally and individually; if a taxi driver you haven't met starts up a familiar patter that leads into the same scam, you don't need to give them the benefit of the doubt. You have all the data you need. In the same vein, you don't need to distrust all taxi drivers forever because one scammed you once.
Again, it comes back to assessing risk + harm. If you have enough data points to know someone is a high risk and the potential for harm is high (ex: aggressive panhandler wants to follow you to the ATM when you say you don't have cash), you can set a boundary, get away, do whatever is needed to keep yourself safe.
On the other hand, if you know someone is a high risk (of being a scammer) but the potential for actual harm is low (you're flush right now, scammer can't beat you up), you might decide to 'fall for' the scam and rationalize it as an act of charity. This is essentially how most people deal with panhandlers now. Does it matter if they're trying to visit their sick mother or not? People need money to live, and whether they spend your gift on food or cheap booze ceases to be your concern once the money is out of your hands. A gift is a gift; they can spend it how they like.
A woman approached me once and asked for $20 to get into a battered women's shelter for the night. I gave her $40 because even if it was a scam, it was clear she needed the money; her clothes were filthy, she hadn't eaten, and she was anxious and crying from shame. I could have chosen not to. I assessed the risk and found good reasons to 'fall for' the patter. I don't regret my choice.
William: I just don't think it's inconsistent. You can choose to not feel forced to protect yourself, and still blame others for attacking you.
ReplyDeleteLess blood-boiling issue: I have protected abortion clinics. I knew that I was putting myself at risk for some really vile insults and abuse, by doing so. Tempers run high. That doesn't mean I made some guy yell "You should have been aborted, you liberal !", or "You better watch your back walking home, !" at me. And I would argue that it does not invalidate my right to be angry about that.
Agree? Disagree?
Tony Lower-Basch and William Nichols , I've been trying very hard to stay away from lady-assault analogies because it's not a dry, academic thought experiment for me. If you would like to discuss that, I will recuse myself from the thread.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the discussion so far, it's been very interesting.
Fiona Zimmer I concur. Let's avoid it in the extreme.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Could you give us an analogy that doesn't involve, well, misogyny?
Sure! I also picketed a Federal Building to protest the Gulf War. Federal employees got dragged away by the cops for having gone freakin' berserk and physically attacked us (one guy was swinging a loaded brief-case at protestors' heads) rather than accept going to a different, less-convenient, entrance that we had (deliberately) left unblocked.
ReplyDeleteI had been warned that would likely happen. I still feel the responsibility was on the attackers. Agree? Disagree?
It is, of course, the exact same argument format. By agreement, this has no bearing on arguments regarding violence against women. Does this work for you, Fiona Zimmer ?
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols and Tony Lower-Basch , yeah, it's good. Thanks for humoring me,
ReplyDeleteNo thanks necessary, but you're absolutely welcome. I should have thought to divert to some less charged example without the prompting.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so: Assault. Assault is not the weather. Taking an umbrella out in the rain is sensible because the rain isn't choosing to fall on you. It's going to do it regardless of whether you put up an umbrella or not. One of the things that drives me absolutely bananas in Media is that most assaults are reported in the passive voice: "Twelve people hit by blowdarts on the Bay Bridge", "Violence claims six in drive-by shooting", and so forth. Human predators overwhelmingly benefit from this type of language, because the subtext is that violence is just a thing that happens and it's the fault of you, the victim of assault, for not bringing your violence-proof umbrella out today.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's bullshit.
Assaults are not the weather. Other humans choose to assault people on purpose.
Overtrusting folks and paranoid folks both benefit from risk assessment. So do their predators. Most crimes are opportunistic, in that the criminal chooses a time and place they assume is low-risk. Muggers, panhandlers, taxicab drivers, and so forth are all fully capable of assessing the risk of their actions. Tony Lower-Basch 's assailants may have chosen poorly, in that they lost their cool in front of the cops, but it was still their risk to take. Their actions, for which they can take full responsibility.
This is remarkably similar to a thought experiment from philosophy. I'll go down that rabbit hole, and then come back up to get at Tony's question.
ReplyDeletePretend I'm hiking through a country with political instability. I hike past a village. On the way out, I am captured by an evil jerkface and his band of evil jerks. But, they are not interested in me -- they are interested in the village. And the evil jerkface leader tells me: "Congratulations! Because you are here, we are going to have a holiday. Normally, we would kill all these villages. But, because we have an American, we're going to let them go. Just one thing: you've got to kill one of them. Kill one, and you and the rest of the village get to go free. Refuse, and I'll kill all of them and you."
Normally, the question is: What do you do?
Then there's a discussion on the level to which you own your actions. If you refuse to kill the person, are you responsible for the death of the village? If you do kill the person, are you morally culpable?
But, there's an underlying assumption here: that you are hiking in a place with bands of roving jerkfaces. Which you could readily have avoided, and sidestepped the entire problem.
So, you bear some of the moral weight, as without the hiking the situation would never have arose. You would not been have a causal factor in the situation. (Sure, something about "Then i didn't go hiking, and a village died." But, at that point you are utterly unaware -- and responsibly so! -- of the actions of the evil jerkfaces. And cannot be held liable for them.)
So, what's the similarity to Tony's situation?
-- People are responsible for what they can expect to come from their actions. You knew there would likely be violence, and chose to take the action anyway. You bear responsibility for creating a tense situation.
-- People are responsible for what they can expect to come from their actions. The feds who attacked you are responsible for their actions.
That is: it doesn't have to be that just one person is to blame.
So I am "responsible for creating a tense situation." Can you expand upon what that means? I suspect that the words may have different meaning (when you unpack everything in them) for you than they would for me ... so we are at risk of cheerfully agreeing on the words, while disagreeing completely on the substance the words are supposed to point toward.
ReplyDeleteAs a for-instance: Do you take the further step of saying "Well hey, that Federal Employee wouldn't have been attacking you if it weren't for that tense situation, so you bear part of the responsibility for that"?
While still holding said federal employee entirely liable for his (and its almost always a him, isn't it?) actions, I would also say that you bear some moral weight, yes. That is, you are both morally responsible for the harm that is caused.
ReplyDeleteSo he's fully responsible, but I'm also partly responsible.
ReplyDeleteThere's, like, 125% responsibility?
Can you actually elaborate on what you're saying, rather than just say it again? Because I don't understand you at all.
"So you bear some of the moral weight, as without the hiking the situation would not have arose. "
ReplyDeleteWell, no. I reject that premise. The political instability did not arise from American hikers hiking recklessly through. My actions did not affect Evil Jerkface's decision to wipe out a village, nor can I actually stop him from doing so. That's all on him . Those are still his decisions, he's just trying to disguise them with a handy patsy.
Moving on to the real -life analogy, Tony did indeed contribute to the tenseness of the situation, because that's what a protest is designed to do. But protests are also a legitimate and protected form of expression in America, so it's not unreasonable to expect protests in your day -to day life. Heavy traffic makes people tense too, but it doesn't excuse road rage.
Actually, I've figured out my precise question here.
ReplyDeleteYou say I am partly responsible for the assault.
What should I have done differently, to live a blameless life?
Harder questions. And, to be clear, I don't really have universal answers. There's no claim to absolute rightness here.
ReplyDeleteFiona Zimmer You can be both legally entitled to do something (like a protest) and morally culpable for the results. Is that problematic?
The revealed premise here is something like: You bear moral responsibility for the outcomes of an action that you had a good reason to know would result.
Is that a disagreeable premise?
Tony Lower-Basch To take actions where the outcomes you expect are positive. In the protesting analogy, being yelled at (and maybe punched) is a price you willingly paid in order to have a greater good come from it. Is that not true?
How did we just slide from discussing moral blame to talking about price to be paid? That's a really extreme shift of categories, and I'm going to reject it. I'm not willing to talk about "price to be paid" until we've thrashed out your assertion that I am morally blameworthy in a case of violent assault.
ReplyDeleteShould I have avoided protesting, so as not to be partly to blame for violence? Yes or no.
Answer: It depends.
ReplyDeleteNo, really. That's the answer to that question. There is insufficient information in the question for me to be able to have even a guess as to the praise or blameworthiness of the action.
That is, for me to have any idea about that, I'd need to know why you were protesting, what political change you expected to come of it, and if you knew you'd be aiding making a situation where violence was likely.
For example: If you were protesting to impress a girl, expected no change, and were callous to violence towards yourself and others? Then, sure, you were to blame.
If you were protesting because the Agency was doing something awful, you expected the protest to affect policy, and were not aware of the potential for violence? Then, there's absolutely no blame.
Anyway in between those two is a hard gray area.
I think your morally culpable for everything you do, legal or not. You answer to society through the law, you answer to yourself through morality (though others' may try to pressure you based on thier morality which can be good or bad depending, but that is a different issue)
ReplyDeleteWilliam: Well that's new. A few posts ago you were talking about how I was (objectively) partly to blame for inciting violence. Now it depends on my motives, my hopes, and my knowledge?
ReplyDeleteIf I was an all-American boy, doing my civic duty to impact policy, who didn't mean to cause any harm ... well then my actions aren't blame-worthy.
But if I was some sleazy no-account, just trying to rebel against the establishment, and I didn't bother to think through what might happen ... weellllll, I think we all know that I'm to blame for everything that comes of that.
Heck ... I don't have enough information to tell the difference between those two. Seems like it's in the eye of the beholder.
David Rothfeder Sure, but what is good?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch What, morality is hard?
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, of course it is. Or else there wouldn't be a bajillion notions of the good, and a bajillion conflicting ideas.
In particular, my ascribed to form of morality has a lot to do with the capability of people. That is, more is morally required of you as your capabilities increase.
So, for example, you know judo (ok, i am a bad friend and do not know which martial art you practice), and I do not. if there was a situation in which judo would be beneficial, then due to your increased capability, more would be morally required of you.
Now, granted, I am also morally blameworthy for not knowing judo.
You were very much not talking about capabilities there, though. You were talking about respectability: Doing the proper sorts of protest, for a proper motive.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you want information? Here's the information I think is relevant, plus a whole bunch of information you claim goes into your calculations.
A Federal employee saw a bunch of students peacefully protesting, with their arms linked, in front of one of the entrances to his building. He waded in, swinging a heavy briefcase at peoples' heads.
We'd all been warned this sort of thing might well happen, because people are assholes.
I, personally, was there because I thought the Gulf War was a freakin' terrible idea (which, by the way, I stand by in retrospect). I felt strongly that silence was complicity, so when I heard a protest was being organized I was eager to be heard, even though I doubted that it would make a long-term difference. I was not then a capable martial artist ... though we had some, spaced evenly throughout the line. Good thing too, it turned out, as one was involved in (without harm) disarming the major attacker.
I contend that nobody in that line, whatever their motives, was in any way to blame for that man's actions.
I contend, further, that the argument that they might be is equivalent to another argument I've heard.
"Look, Tony, I know you know the answers in class ... but you're way younger than all the other students in this class, and they resent you for being so smart, so soon, and ... well, being different. And I can't really control what happens outside this classroom. Maybe you could just ... not raise your hand when I ask questions? Because, really, if you insist on drawing attention to yourself it's only natural that they'll want to hurt you."
Was I asking for it then, too?
Given the tone, I want to pause things here. Before continuing, I want to ensure that my friendship with both of you -- and perhaps, anyone else watching -- is not at risk.
ReplyDeleteOh heck, no, no risk to the friendship. I'm feeling heated because many of the reasons I think you're wrong come from my lived experience of similar arguments being applied hurtfully, but you're not doing that. You're just talkin'.
ReplyDeleteIf you swing a briefcase at my head, that might change, mind you. Fair warning :)
If I swing a briefcase at your head, I expect you to hit me right back.
ReplyDeleteOr, in the words of Malcolm Reynolds: Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back.
A problem is that we don't have enough words to describe all the things that we want. Or at least, we've not been using them.
Generally speaking:
Jumping into a lava pit? Suicidal.
Jumping into a lava pit, and expecting to be unscathed? Dumb.
Jumping into a lava pit, expecting to be unscathed, and morally blaming the lava? Morally blameworthy.
I think there is a similar argument about going to where someone works and telling them that they are badwrongevil. I think we both know that accepting an argument that puts ones wallet at risk is, at best, hard. That is, feds working towards a badwrongevil results are like a laval pit, and can be argued with about as productively.
Uh ... no. Not a lava pit.
ReplyDeleteFiona put it perfectly: Assault is not weather.
They could have walked the few dozen yards to the unblocked exit. Heck, they even could have waited the half-hour it took for the police to decide we'd had our say, and round us up for obstructing traffic.
There was nothing inevitable about their choice. Please stop treating them as if they were sub-human automata. If you want to talk about who is morally responsible when somebody puts themselves in the path of (say) a zombie horde, that's a different discussion entirely.
I suppose the difference is this: I hold that if I can accurately predict that an event will happen due to my actions, then I am responsible for that event.
ReplyDeleteWhich seems to be the fundamental disagreement point between me and everyone else in the world. :-)
Yes, I definitely disagree with that.
ReplyDeleteHow about if it happens due to your inactions?
That, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd choosing correctly is trying to choose the world state with, to steal a word from the Greens, the least world suck.
This does run into the standard problem of suffering: How can I morally choose to eat sushi when people don't have enough rice?
And, well, I can't.
Well, you've got a bit of a paradox there, in that openly pursuing this philosophy will predictably lead to empowering bullies: All they have to do is threaten some outcome of Bad-Level-5 if you don't do their bidding, to get you to do anything of Bad-Level-4 or below.
ReplyDeleteSo if you want to embrace the paradox, feel free, but I think it's pretty weak sauce to use it as a way of judging others.
Well maybe. But from the long view, the desire of bullies is almost always a worse harm than what they can deliver. Because a bully doesn't hit you once and walk away, they hit you again and again.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I'm not imagining you as the victim ... your'e the bystander. So you'd only be involved the one time.
ReplyDeleteBut I'll meet you halfway: You're the victim of bullying. You're different (doesn't matter how) so they want you to never speak in school, never make eye contact with anyone, never presume to be in the same hallway they are, and definitely never ever go to any adult about the situation. They promise you (and you have reason to believe them) that if you violate these rules, you will be beaten, possibly killed ... and it will be YOUR FAULT, not theirs, because you chose it.
They're right, are they?