Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
psyche.co
psyche.co
I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. Hard to know what one could buy to stop police brutality right now, for instance. I suspect people will come up with things.
When I see a protest right now I don't think about a carefully crafted campaign. I think about a tent revival[1]. Just like a tent revival, sinners are welcome as long as they already want to repent, but there's not going to be a lot there to make you feel good if you aren't a believer. I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity.
I think a lot of people mistake preaching to the choir as preaching poorly to the unconverted. It's not unique in any way to the left - people often mistake messages that are intended for the conservative faithful as outreach and mock it for its ineffectiveness.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_revival [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/8rjtsi/young_athei...
Martin Luther King Jr spoke quite a bit about addressing GUILT before he was killed.
Unfortunately for all of us, he was incredibly unpopular before his death due to his position on the Vietnam War so his message on guilt is lost to transcripts.
QUOTE: "The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fears, the white man needs the Negro to save him from his GUILT. We are tied together in so many ways, our language, our music, our cultural patterns, our material prosperity, and even our food are an amalgam of black and white."
SOLUTIONS FOR GUILT AND FEAR: Dr King mentioned in his speech that one can tackle guilt and fear through ACTION and COLLECTIVE EFFORT:
1. True integration - "Shared power, where black men and white men share power together, to build a new and a great nation"
2. White student generations of goodwill "who will stick with the cause of justice and the cause of civil rights and the cause of peace throughout the days ahead" The action of whites here tackles their guilt while providing hope and reducing fear for blacks.
3. "Coalitions of conscience"
4. Taking a long-view anchored in hope.
SOURCE: https://gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf
I remember being a young atheist; I thought that people believed in Christian and other hateful creeds because they were misled, miseducated, etc. Now that I'm a mature Pastafarian, I know that people believe in hateful creeds because people cannot divorce their identity from their beliefs and are not willing to risk their self-image merely for the sake of being more logical or historical, let alone more moral.
However, that's not why people are currently protesting; it's why people are counter-protesting, though.
What they did instead was going into the places where Nazis worked ("storm the institutions") themselves and started moving into official positions there. Over time they just replaced them.
I am not sure how German society would look like today if nobody dared to guilt the Nazis about being Nazis after WWII, but one thing is true: guilt alone doesn't work at all. You have to provide alternatives, make them attractive, allow people to take a new role within the new that you are planning (and be it repenting sinner).
I'm sorry, but how did you come to this conclusion? The first thing that comes to mind is the new tactic used by activist, saying something to the effect of "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist." Which is what (I believe) lead to this thing: https://www.businessinsider.com/white-protesters-confront-di...
I would say that "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist" is a message aimed squarely at those who already believe. It's urging people to do more to support the movement.
It makes me think of "All people are sinners except those saved by Jesus Christ." Both in that it's somewhat alienating to outsiders and that the people making the statements are quite serious about them!
Activists know this! They know that it would be better for recruitment to have a purely positive message to give people. That's just not where the movement is right now.
Exactly. The behavioral change is one thing, but who's gonna do the emotional work?
>I also think most activists are aware of this.
Maybe, but I suspect that often it's just as important to the activists/choir to wring an apology/conviction out of the others. Settling out of court (to mix metaphors) is not as satisfying.
Can this get expanded on a little bit? How does one recognise some else's validity?
I get the simultaneous feeling that leaving them alone isn't what they want, and me waving my hands and pronouncing them (eg, a young gay) valid is likely to get a very negative reaction. Who am I to decide what is and isn't valid. What exactly does that mean in a what-do-they-want sense?
My guess is they want other people to copy them so they can build a community, but I'm sure there are other interpretations.
This means things like recognising that being gay is a thing, that it's a normal and perfectly ok way to be, and that the person in question is in fact gay and accepted into the group as such.
It's the opposite of the kind of parenting that makes people nervous to "come out" (which many gay kids will have grown up in).
I personally think that, besides the above, a lot of the loudness comes from a feeling of freedom. Where all of a sudden you no longer need to hide who you are, which leads to a stronger expression of a part of you that was pent-up.
Actually a very hard question with a million answers for a million different combinations of identity and scenarios.
At a high level I think recognizing validity takes the form of a social acknowledgement that someone else as "as much" right as us to be in public space. You can think about LGTBQ+ folks going out glammed-to-the-gills, or how the modern gay rights movement started after police raided a gay bar for no particular reason, or slut marches protesting sexual harassment. These are all people doing things in public that are taboo in a way that's related to their identity (gay people acknowledging their sexuality in public / people dressing in revealing ways) and demanding they be treated with respect. Often even if they are shouting rude things.
For a more heteronormative example you could think about the distraught parent who might break social norms when their child is hurt or killed. If you're a doctor and you have to tell the parents their child is dead and they scream at you, you don't treat them like they're random people on the street. You respect their validity and understand that they are dealing with a lot and your feelings aren't top of mind[1].
It can also be as small as not asking where someone who is a little racially ambiguous "where they're from" before you get to know them. Not because the question is rude exactly, but because it's probably a question they get a lot and it highlights the difference in your backgrounds.
[1] This is actually very hard on medical professionals even if we all understand!
The opposite of guilt-tripping is not "positive, uplifting." Let's take a contemporary example:
Guilt-tripping: "when you don't wear a mask you're KILLING grandma."
Positive, uplifting (and also BS): "those new designer masks are so cute and trendy!"
Using social proof without guilt tripping: "as more and more people make the effort to wear mask, we stand a chance to stop this deadly disease."
We still have the problem of overzealous banning of content/language/bad opinions. To suggest feel-good articles as a solution sounds a little bit too dystopian.
There was a story on HN recently about how protestors for the Micheal Brown case made headlines while the Eric Garner case did not, and it was because the Brown case had shades of grey, while the Garnet case was open and shut. Similarly, college rape cases with evidence don't make the headlines, while unsubstantiated accusations get picked up by feminist organizations and promoted. Another example, PETA makes waves with irritating campaigns that turn people off from the movement, while other animals rights organizations quietly do good.
But all those movements have a purpose. Even if they do not convince any individuals, while only preaching to the choir, they get important messages out there, expand the moral Overton window, and make their peer organizations' positive messages more likely to be heard and accepted.
Back when I was in college (late 90's) I remember coming across a forum post where someone else was talking about this.
The gist of it was that they knew a gay women who came out when she was in college, and after she did everything became about sexuality. According to the poster, this woman was pretty annoying to a lot of people. "How do you know person X is gay? Don't worry, they'll tell you about it".
But then he talked about how he was friends with this woman over a lifetime and eventually you could know her for years and never realize she was gay. It stopped being the most important part of her identity and just became 1 thing in a 100. She would talk about it with her closest friends but it just wasn't something she needed everyone to know.
The explanation this person gave is that when you're new to something like that, you sort of wrap yourself up in it as an identity. But then over time, as it becomes familiar, you find that there are other aspects of your identity as well, and maybe your sexuality/religion/whathaveyou isn't the most important thing to communicate to other people.
Since then, I've seen this borne out twice in my life.
The first:
While in college I befriended a guy online who eventually told me he was gay. I never personally cared so for me it was whatever. But fast forward a few months and at one point I eventually blew up on him (over chat, we were strictly online friends) because I just got so tired of him equating everything to being gay. It would be completely innocuous things that somehow indicated someone was gay or disliked gays. He went offline after that and never came back and I sometimes wonder if he liked me. For me it was just an online friend, but I do sometimes think about it. I can't remember how we met, but I think it was while I was running a kingdom in the online game of Utopia (I'm pretty sure it's still around in some form).
The second:
I have a very good friend whom I've known for over 25 years. I'm closer to this guy than my own brothers. He grew up christian and at some point in college decided he was an atheist. And he turned into the stereotypical 'angry atheist'. I used to talk to him about it and ask him why he felt the need to be an asshole to someone just because they were a theist. Over the years he's calmed down a LOT and treats theists with a lot more respect than he used to. You'd probably never know he was atheist unless you asked him specifically.
---
Anyway, I was just surprised to see this sentiment. It's one that I've kept with me for years and I very rarely ever see anyone else acknowledge it.
Nature knows no greater zeal than that of the recently-converted.
I think this is a really good analogy I'd not thought of, but incorrect in the last part. I think there are (and historically, were [1]) plenty of casual participants in tent revivals, made to feel good because they are collectively part of something energetic and out of the ordinary that their peers were also part of. Such person thinks consciously or subconsciously "I may not buy (or even understand) what preacher-man is shouting about, but it sure is fun be with lots of people dancing, yelling, and letting loose, and they seem to like me when I participate. Maybe if I'm even more energetic than guy next to me, I'll get even more approval from these people." Not every participant, but I have to think that was one motivation in many cases. I'll leave to others to draw parallels to present day.
There have also been people combining activism and protest with street fairs and free food (which makes me think of evangelical tent revivals), but that's been muted since the pandemic.
In my late teens and early twenties I constantly guilt-tripped people close to me. It was my "thing". It hurt everyone a lot. Then one day I realized how sick it was, and stopped completely. Now I never do it to anyone for any reason, and push back whenever someone does it to me for any reason. I recommend this approach to everyone.
Unfortunately, most people don't even realize they're being manipulated. Whenever I get visibly upset at being manipulated, people question it. Almost inevitably, they don't understand the manipulation and think it's fine.
If that is evil then I don't know where your morality is centered around but certainly not "morally neutral".
It's funny that people can have such different backgrounds and life experiences, and that, as it turns out, end up in similar places because maturity results in finding a balance. At least in my opinion.
Whoa: hold on just a second there. I don't necessarily disagree with your wider point but we need to step away from this inflammatory and accusatory language.
You said that you used to guilt-trip people constantly when you were younger, and then you stopped when you realised how sick it was. Doing it didn't make you evil: it made you immature, and then you grew out of it.
Except that - and I sort of hate that I'm pointing this out - you haven't entirely grown out of it because you recommend people not do it but then brand them evil if they do. That's guilt-tripping, and it's manipulative and inflammatory. (Still, we all have our off days and revert to type from time to time, so please don't see this as a personal attack.)
Anyway, my wider point is this: part of maturing is developing better and more effective social skills. Hence many people change a lot between their late teens and mid-20s.
Not everybody does though. If guilt-tripping and similar kinds of manipulative behaviour become the pattern someone follows throughout their life (i.e., they don't choose to grow out of these behaviours) that might make them evil, but let's try to avoid almost literally demonizing vast numbers of people who are probably just immature.
Yet by contrast, "I was doing the right thing without realizing it", "The next thing I knew, I was doing good deeds", "In a moment of carelessness, I helped someone". You never hear those things and you surely never will. Righteousness cannot exist without intent and righteous action requires righteous intent. You can't do the right thing unless you consciously try to.
Under this view, unintentionally malicious actions, such as abusing guilt trips without being aware or caring about their harm, are still evil because by default, to prevent them, you have to be aware and paying attention, and if you aren't that's your failure to act righteously.
I disagree with this statement. I carelessly do things and people tend to thank me for my kindness and helpfulness, even though I was never intending to do it. People will do the right things without realizing it all the time, in a thousand little ways. I can talk to a friend just to talk, but to my friend, it may have been a sudden, unexpected, and welcome reprieve from a dark and lonely mental space. I can share an otter video because I think otter youtube is great, and in doing so adjust someone else's viewing algorithm away from so much unhealthy/addictive/extremist stuff on that site.
People's actions are rarely with real justice or malice in intention. Most of the time it is nuances of grey, thoughtlessly. Humans don't have the mental capacity that would be required of thinking otherwise.
My point is that thoughtlessness is by definition evil and that working under that assumption is better than not. You disagree and that's fine. We won't really reach an agreement over this by arguing I don't think.
Additionally, as I mentioned, thoughtless action is subject to the changing environment. What is considered good now is different from what was considered good 100 years ago and what will consider good 100 years from now. If your actions are thoughtless you are simply a product of your environment, no matter how warped and disgusting it may be.
If your environment rewards small good actions, you're not actually acting righteously, because you're just reproducing what's expect by your environment. When the environment turns sour and what's considered good starts becoming more and more warped, you will not have the will to resist it because your actions are thoughtless and not righteous. You will fall into evil, like everyone else, swept moment by moment, without caring about what you're doing as long as the environment responds well.
Also, "manipulation" suggests unfair trickery. If you're guilt-tripped for speeding in a school zone, is that unfair trickery? There are rules that are meant to constrain people from infringing on other people's rights and security. How are we supposed to enforce them? Should every anti-social activity be enforced by a fine or prison time? That's considerably harsher than a moment of social discomfort when you realize someone is shaming you.
Finally, calling this "evil" is exhausting your evaluative vocabulary too quickly. Guilt-tripping someone for anti-social behavior can certainly be less harmful than guilt-tripping them for pro-social behavior, which is less harmful than the anti-social behavior itself, and so forth.
I think, if you're so focused on the "signaling" -- the notion that someone is just doing that to provoke an emotional response -- then all that's saying to me is that it's provoking guilt in you, and that's made you feel angry.
My opinion is that virtue signalling is real, and, further, that "signalling" doesn't just have an effect on other people, it can change our own disposition.
The use of the phrase "virtue signalling" is sometimes applied in reverse, describing someone that is insufferably smug and exudes a sense of unearned moral superiority and ascribing those traits to their desire to signal their piety to others. Oddly, I find that a kindness as it means these undesirable traits have an external cause and can therefore be corrected.
When I hear someone look at somebody doing something good in the world, and dismiss them as mere "virtue signaling," it tells me more about the person doing the labeling that the person labeled. They can't conceive of someone doing something pro-social for its own sake, and instead ascribe cynical "signaling" to justify their own lack of morals.
I think virtue signaling is synonymous with dog whistling, but different jargon is used by different partisan groups.
It depends what messages and from whom. From corporations? From politicians? From advertisers? In CVs? I think it would be prudent to consider motivation in some cases, but it is a subjective assessment still, as might be the message.
I hope car/bike choice will never be a political statement. That would be a loss for everyone. Not everything should be regarded as that as it would suggest severe bitterness.
This argument feels like splitting hairs. My understanding is that we're talking about guilt-tripping in the sense of actively engaging with someone in order to produce a desired outcome from that someone. Merely seeing someone biking to work doesn't really pass that litmus test, as the cyclist isn't immediately interested in what you do based on your opinion of his commuting choice.
> Doing it is evil and makes you evil.
I say "we" because, in many cases, it is not a single individual but a community or any social group.
Jewish and Catholic cultures are famous for their guilt-driven development approach to upbringing: https://thetylt.com/culture/catholic-guilt-or-jewish-guilt
To be clear, guilt sometimes makes sense as a deterrent. But let's not use it lightly.
Actually it seems you didn't 100% stop guilt tripping others
You can do this at the whole society level: for instance, no society that underemploys some large fraction of its populace will effectively compete against an equivalent one with efficient workplace participation.
So you can then blame them for all sorts of things. Guilt trip the Arabian nations for low participation of women, the Mississippis of America for low black participation. They'll double down and not correct. Then you beat them by just being better at using your people.
Sadly the article only hypothesizes this and doesn't talk about concrete evidence for the entrenching effect but one can hope.
Slave labor can be more "effective" than workers with rights.
I'd rather humanity survive through slavery than be extinct through freedom, but I don't think I need to make that choice since I think free people self-organize into more resilient societies so long as they do not assume too much load of taking care of the non-adapted.
You are nerding out, I get it. But sometimes you gotta take off the “nerding out” hat before sharing an idea :)
If the manner of their oppression is ethnic, then encourage that. If it's gender-based, then encourage that.
But this is not necessarily a good thing. Labor participation of an enslaved group is surely higher and they work more hours per day...
Nor is it clear that other ethical practices outgrow societies that don't practice those ethics, e.g. China (and many other examples) and democracy.
Nor would you want to entrench a non-ethical viewpoint when it comes to nuclear warfare ( first strike / nonproliferation) / climate change.
This is commonly the flaw with Arab nations' use of their workforce of women. They are all working a lot of the time. It's just a huge waste of what they're capable of.
Slavery is similar. You just flatten everyone into unskilled labour. You lose. People will better fall on to the curve where they can participate the best in a free society than a slave society.
This sounds likely to fuck people up in the head and also to hurt your relationship, so I wouldn't do it myself but it is interesting to think about. The ends don't justify the means.
Some people will respond better to one or the other. Also, the carrot of 'feeling good about yourself' has many nuances.
An anecdote:
We used to live in a village that had a few kilometers of semi-rural 2 lane road leading to it. Even though this road was outside city limits, it had many driveways and side streets on it so the speed limit was 50 km/h. At the time we had 2 cars, one regular family car (VW) and one luxury car (BMW).
I always drove at the 50 km/h speed limit. However, when I drove the VW 70% of drivers would overtake me, while when I drove the BMW nearly all drivers would fall in line behind me. This was consistent over years, and extremely obvious once you noticed it. Apparently people are influenced by the behavior of others, but how that influence is achieved can depend on subtle factors.
Another example: For decades there where 'informational feel good' campaigns trying to get drivers to stick to the speed limit on the town's ring road. Decades without any result. When finally a plethora of speed cameras were introduced, the speeding problem was solved in a few months.
Just shaming/punishing people for it isn't going to solve it, if there aren't e.g. pull factors like practical solutions to avoid driving when drunk, recognition for people who don't drink when driving needs to be done etc.
I think often the worst thing is existing culture. So things like: "It is not manly/cool to wear a seatbelt." Would a Hollywood action hero wear a seatbelt? Certainly not!
Things like these are very hard to get rid off and take time and maturity. Endangering yourself and others is neither cool nor manly, it is a mechanism to show others how invincible you feel you are: the modern day equivalent of banging on your chest. Ironically people who are actually strong and secure rarely ever need to do all that chest banging.
Something Orwell observed in Down and Out is that the worst snobs are not to be found among a restaurant's clientele, but among its waitstaff.
In one TV show called "Forever" (spoilers, btw.) there's a nice scene where one of the characters is driving a car at gunpoint and gets out of the situation by driving into a wall and releasing the bad guys seatbelt right before impact.
There's nothing inherently uncool about seatbelts; it's just a matter of how it's presented. "Heroes don't need seatbelts to drive a car" makes as much sense as "Heroes don't need guns for a gunfight".
This proves that the rules of coolness can sometimes be shifted away from valuing recklessness. The same effect might be possible for other areas as well.
> You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
You can then use both the stick (tension that leads to confronting a crisis) to lead people to the carrot (pride for confronting that crisis).
It does depend on the community’s ability to internalize that tension, though. I’m concerned that is much harder than it used to be. I think for many American Republicans in particular that is no longer possible, because they’ve created parallel information streams that scrubs out all of that tension. If that’s true, I don’t actually know what the right tactic is to help them understand the tension that exist in so many issues, or even if there is a plausible tactic.
[1]: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
Another good one I'm trying recently is: "You're right to think that given the information you know, and here's some more information you should consider."
Oh and: "That's a great hypothesis, here's another one."
How does it work with e.g.?
A: 2+2=5
B: Yes and....
'yes and' or 'this might be true from your POV, but please consider'
> A: 2+2=5
> B: Yes and....
Pretty cleanly “Yes and minus 1”
B: Yes, in structural engineering (or rocket science) 2+2=5, and in cosmology 2+2=10, and in computer engineering 2+2=2, and as we're doing arithmetic here, 2+2=4.
(Is Leo Moracchioli a cosmologist? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81XldQHApg )
Yes and .... you're wrong you idiot
B: Yes, and I believe it's 4.
This is a mutually respectful dialogue. You don't pretend to know better. You're just each sharing your ideas, and if they conflict, you'll open a dialogue into why they think it is 5? And here's why I think it is 4. And then you can both try to resolve the conflict and see why you think differently and what the correct answer actually is now that you've considered both.
In your example, it might seem a bit silly, because of how certain we all are that 2+2=4. That said for anything less clear cut, you can really see where saying "Yes and" is better.
A: Unit tests are more important than integ tests.
B: Yes, and I believe integ tests add more value than unit tests.
That said, it really depends who you're talking too. If someone is super open minded and welcomes disagreement and are constantly trying to test their knowledge, you probably won't need any of this. But if someone is less receptive, less confident, has a big ego, etc., Then you do need to manipulate their emotions to have them be more receptive.
What if one really knows better though, eg talking about life at a place where you've been, but the other person never was there and is just guessing?
I'm thinking a problem then can be the bystanders / co-workers: now they're going to think 5 is a fairly ok answer, when you didn't very clearly disagree about that?
Especially if the other person sounds self confident.
Any thoughts about how to strongly disagree, in a polite way, when the other person is crazily wrong in a slightly harmful way?
But I think too that in most cases, especially when talking one and one, the Yes-and or sth like that probably is a good approach
If the other person is actually trying to misinform, it'll be hard. If they're really genuine, I think doing the above gives the bystanders enough info to choose for themselves. Like, you still should disclose the information you have, so say you have been there, and that it wasn't at all like that from your first hand experience, etc.
The thing is, you won't convince everyone, but you'll have a better chance at convincing others if they hear you out and consider what you're saying openly. So that's kind of the idea here.
> if they hear you out and consider what you're saying openly
Yes I agree
Basically, "you're wrong" is dismissive of the other person's intelligence. That's why I want to avoid it.
So when someone is saying something I mostly agree with, but I just want to expand on it, instead of saying "but" or "not quite" or "that's not it", I will say "yes, and". Because I recon that's very much what I think as well with just a few minor additions.
If someone has an idea and I think there are better ideas, I won't say, "that's dumb", or "no", I will say, "oh that's a good idea, can I propose one too?" Because that's what I want to express, like good job with that idea, nothing against it except I'd like us to consider if this other one might be better, which it might not be.
Etc.
So to me, that's the reason for change in language. First I want to express that I'm listening to what you said, I'm considering it, and I think it's really good, but there are certain aspects that I'm unsure about, and now I'd like them to consider those.
getting results like this from giving study subjects a questionnaire is nice, but is there an actual real world, macro example of somehow inducing positive self-images on a large scale and seeing the desired effect?
I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case. One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of years, with actual results. Singapore's a place that is well known for getting people to do the right thing, I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.
And to pick up the examples from the article, environmentally-friendly behaviour, haven't we seen real results after we began, often with aggressive campaigns, how ruining the environment is both wasteful and harmful, having turned symbols of excess into symbols of shame?
You see it, especially with racial issues, that when (mainly white activists) shame other white people for being white (and ergo automatically racist), those being shamed generally retract even further away from potentially engaging with the issues
Eating all meat is great for you. You'll feel better. They seem pretty successful.
Church and religion, I would say mostly works on positivity.
The argument would be these campaigns degrade to negativity. This certainly seems like it's playing out. Movement X goes more extreme. The internal members chose negativity over positivity.
The stereotype of the Chinese is they will work towards a common goal but leave a traffic accident victim on the street. Not sure how true that is. And not sure what the actual goal is.
Very good question.
Depends on the religion, I guess. I was raised Catholic, and a lot of it was about making people fell guilty about their sins and telling them if they keep doing bad things and don't repent, they'll spend an eternity in hell.
Not exactly positive, IMO. Sure, there was always mention of how if you're a good, Christ-believing person, you'll get eternal rewards, but that always felt like a relative afterthought to me.
> The stereotype of the Chinese is they will work towards a common goal but leave a traffic accident victim on the street.
It's funny that you mention that; just today a friend in San Diego saw a car accident out his window (driver was unconscious after crashing into a parked car). He ran downstairs to see if the guy needed help, and saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video. He asked if anyone had called 911, and no one had.
I guess that's not exactly the same as ignoring an accident victim, but it's just as bad, if not worse.
In general the church was the dark symbol of fear. Have you ever been to the vatican? The same in big. Everything there is big, with the intention of making you small and fear them. At least that was my impression. Other people I was with had different experience
The catholic religion in itself is also a lot about loving and doing the right thing out of love and wanting to help for the sake of it. But yes, for me it mostly comes down to doing good things out of the fear of bad things happening to you.
"and saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video. He asked if anyone had called 911, and no one had."
And wow, I have to say I cannot imagine this happening here in germany. Except maybe for some very dark areas on a bad time of the day.
Yup. Religious architecture is generally designed to make humans feel insignificant and powerless. Which is true, in the universal scheme of things, if you think about it. But religions use this as a carefully curated tool of propaganda, manipulation, and control.
https://www.catholicscomehome.org/our-evangomercials/
There's a lot of complexity going on
Getting them to start doing something.
To keep them doing something.
Competing with alternative ideas as they run negative campaigns.
I totally think guilt works, I just can't workout how well, I do know it can spark a organised backlash, guilt in the church probably strengthens Atheism but might also strengthen current members.
> saw four people standing there, gawking, taking pictures and video.
Like the Chinese examples I'm always cautious how to interpret these stories/footage. Rough rule in life, people are good as long as you make it easy for them to be good.
And using guilt to keep people in a belief system is just psychological manipulation. It doesn't matter if it works; it's disgusting and dishonest, the opposite of what these people laughably claim to believe in.
> people are good as long as you make it easy for them to be good.
It's not all that hard to press four buttons on a phone, wait a few seconds, and say some simple words about what happened and where. But no, that would distract from making a "cool" crash video to share on Instagram.
I get that my story is a third-hand story to you, and you have no idea who I am, so you have no idea if I'm relating it faithfully (or if I even know enough to relate it faithfully). But I know who I am, and I know the person who told me this story (and, after calling 911, took and sent a photo of the useless gawkers), and it greatly troubles me.
There is evidence that, for example, treating prisoners more humanely and giving them trust and responsibility can lower recitivism rates, while there's also ample evidence to suggest that harsh fines and imprisonment for minor crimes creates greater recitivism. But this may vary by country and implementation.
Actually, occasional and positive reinforcement has been shown to be the best way to change behavior. Slot machines (and the most successful games) are based on this principle.[0]
> One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of years, with actual results. Singapore's a place that is well known for getting people to do the right thing, I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.
Have you lived within any of these cultures enough to understand what motivates those within them? How do you know how much pride is a factor for them?
I can imagine authoritarian rule, and brutal punishment, or a history of either, may change the behaviour of people. But that is very different to the passive mechanism of guilt.
[0] Different reinforcement schedules and their efficacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Simple_schedules
It never acknowledges any problem with their policies or nation or even its people. Atleast that's what comes from their supreme leader.
As a result lots of people have developed blind faith in this particular supreme leader and any criticism is met with "anti national" tag.
Untill now I had believed those were paid trolls and IT cell employs but my own relatives are not tolerating any word said against the political party so it seems all have been colored in the faith and belief of this party.
I think negative reinforcement can work to get people to stop doing things. If you get people to associate feelings of shame or fear with doing things you don't want them to do, then they'll stop. If all you want is obedience, and you're working in a culture where reputation and avoiding shame is a big deal, this can work well.
But if you want more than obedience, if you want people to actually agree with what you're saying, and do (or don't do) things because they truly believe those things are good (or bad), then shame and fear probably won't get you far.
> And to pick up the examples from the article, environmentally-friendly behaviour, haven't we seen real results after we began, often with aggressive campaigns, how ruining the environment is both wasteful and harmful, having turned symbols of excess into symbols of shame?
Sure, and my opinion, at least in the US, is that it hasn't been anywhere near as effective as we need it to be. There are a lot of people here who just don't care about recycling or reducing waste, and many who don't even believe that burning fossil fuels is changing our climate.
Yes, we do have a lot of people who are genuinely trying to do the right thing. Some of that is due to fear of what will happen to them if they don't (which isn't ideal). In some places you can get fined for putting recyclable items in the trash bin; I expect many of the people who mainly recycle because they don't want a fine would likely just stop recycling if the threat of fines went away.
Others actually do believe in the cause of environmental protection, and believe that we need to take care of our planet for future generations; that's a positive-reinforcement outcome, though admittedly an uncertain-future one. Saving money on renewables (when that's possible) is a great positive that makes people feel like going that route is the right thing. I even remember in years past people considering reusable grocery bags as a sort of status symbol, as petty as that may seem.
> I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.
You will always loose most intellectuals with that amount of paternalism and you are doomed to fail at some point. Not a good strategy at all. Singapore is a benevolent dictatorship and works to some degree, but it still requires participation. And force doesn't work, maybe for a short while, but it actually inhibits values getting entrenched. And it wouldn't work for any demographic, people would just laugh at you and in most cases it is actually deserved.
> having turned symbols of excess into symbols of shame
We did that since Abraham and probably long before.
And I definitely wouldn’t want to live in China and I would be very uncomfortable living in Japan. Singapore really just depends on how much money you have and how easy it is to vacation elsewhere. Aggressive environmental shaming seems to have created a deep divide and shows the exact behaviour warned about in the article where people become defensive and then further entrench their beliefs with some deciding to lean into it and flaunt their “shameful” behaviour in the faces of those trying to shame them. How are these good examples?
"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity..."
It kind of gets at the limitations of flattery too - people will re-act positively up to a point (they want to be loved and what's flattery if not a declaration of love?) but if they suspect that they're not worthy of the love being offered then they'll reject it.
Guilt trips are frequently the reverse of that. They put too much emphasis on what it takes to be worthy of love but not enough that doing whatever if it is will cause the person to be loved. But then again if you believe someone is doing something wrong it's possible you might make that person understand they're doing something wrong - it's a lot harder to convince them you'll like them for not doing it. People understand resentment too much I think.
I am not white nor black.
I have been innsulted by social justice individuals for defending my friend who was being insulted by them.
Whether right or wrong, insults are not the way to cooperation. Everyone is challenged differently and some less than others. What matters is not my prestige or wealth compared to another, what matters is that I am content and live with dignity. I will never be treated as another nor do I want to, I am me. I have dignity and although I am not fully content of my situation, I am joyful because I have faith what I am doing is right and will lead to contentment.
The problem is an identity centered around attributes. The solution is an identity centered around objectives.
Color is minor. Respectfulness is not. For being treated without respect by SJWs I now avoid them. I have dignity as they do. I will not tolerate being mistreated.
Stupid is the idea that attributes physical or spiritual as sufficient to determine your tribe. Goals are better. People change, spiritually and physically.
Goals are ideas in action. If I had to write a hierarchy of identity defining objects I would go with: 0) Goals (what I want) 1) Spirit (what I think) 2) Body (how I look)
As far as I understand, it is already like that. Looks trickle from ideas which trickles from goals.
That is why a common enemy is a cause for union. i.e. a common goal. This is why the race to the moon united americans (common goal, again).
The last thing I need from a dentist, and the first thing I will get from a dentist, is a lecture about what brought me in to the dentist.
I know why I need to go see a dentist. I don't need them to repeat back to me what I've been telling myself but with a flavoring of guilt-trip, I need to know how bad it is and what to do to move forward.
If people actually followed all the different doctors' advice, they'd be healthier, sure, but only because they spend every waking moment taking care of their X body part.
When I had to go to an endodontist, he was also similarly on point. This was in SF. Honestly, I have a pretty high opinion of American dentists.
This is strictly not the best way because it both requires the extra cost of reinforcement to be administered, and tragically fails for anything we haven’t installed that mechanism for. It is practically impossible to install reinforcement points for every single agent and for every single thing they do.
Intrinsic motivation is simply much cheaper, making people want to do the right thing by their internalized codes, by reinforcing the frame in which they see themselves as moral people, reinforcing the benefits of reciprocity and gift economy.
This is why purity codes are much stronger in rural communities where most of the transactions are not through money but good moral standing. Granted, those codes themselves can easily get outdated, and distributed moral standing calculations basically limit the practical group size to a function of Dunbar number, but the alternative of codifying desired behavior in monetary or legal terms is just too blunt and easily gameable.
Though to go meta on myself, your humor here is wonderful. You might enjoy an even stronger response with ...
"Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs."
How about using, you know, reason? Treating them like adults? Give them pros and cons so they can make a rational decision?
This article frames motivation as based on either a positive or negative self-image, but it doesn't question whether motivation based on self-image is the best option.
I haven't seen any evidence that self-image is universally the primary motivation across cultures, so the degree to which people are motivated by it would seem to be influenced by the way things are presented.
Reason is one other potential motivation that could be considered a special case of acting in accordance with perceived transcendent principles. Loyalty to others or aspirations for collective achievements are other motivations that are not always centered on self-image. These aren't inherently more valuable, and they can be just as positive or negative as self-image, but they present alternatives.
There are far fewer "adults" than you might think.
As one spiritual master said: "Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don’t believe them. Don’t believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. “Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success.” This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That’s all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don’t really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful."
This might not be a morally bad thing, or an overall net negative in terms of utility; when politicians are bad enough, executing them really does have an affect on the upper class. But it's seditious, which is why folks don't want to talk about it; they don't want to be arrested nor first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
The amount of abuse that the upper class has committed upon the typical person is so large that there's no way to peacefully empower them anymore. 10% of the USA is impoverished, 30% cannot afford to own housing, 40% are financially insecure, and our Pareto 80/20 distribution of wealth has slid over the past two decades to nearly 90/10 [0]. Honestly, that last number doesn't stress it enough: Fewer than a thousand people have over half the wealth of the USA [1] and it gets worse with each recession.
Rationally, how would you correct this situation? The guillotine crowd has a solution, and the only cons are that it's illegal and that it can get out of control quite quickly. Meanwhile, the closest thing to a mainstream political solution comes from Bernie and the Democratic Socialists, and their reforms are widely unpopular among the political establishment.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
[1] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/mar/10/michael-mo...
If that actually worked we wouldn't be having this conversation. People, particularly in large groups, use emotion, tribalism and ego protection over reason.
If reason and fact worked well to change minds, we wouldn't have idiots "rolling coal".
Yeah that totally works.
I drive a prius, and several times I have seen coal rollers cross several lanes of traffic to sit in front of me with their stacks spewing. They don't know anything about me other than the brand of car I choose, but it's enough to make them go out of their way. It's got to be a positive reinforcement mechanism.
I think the reason why you can't have a rational discussion is that it will play directly into this cycle! Give someone a choice between an uncomfortable analysis of their own behavior versus a pleasurable peel out with yet another frustrated do-gooder in their wake, and they'll choose the latter each time.
Honestly I think they'll just have to get bored before they stop.
Frustration among the people they perceive to be trying to screw them over is the key part you're missing.
>They don't know anything about me other than the brand of car I choose
Whether you like it or not the things you do, including the car you choose to buy, send a signal. The signal happens to not be accurate in your case.
Right, but the original conversation was in respect to giving people the tools and information they need to make good decisions.
At this point those tools and that information has been out there for a long time.
So if they perceive that people are trying to screw them over, then we've just come full circle and proved the point - Treating them like adults and giving them pros and cons so they can make a rational decision has not worked.
I think getting through that anger and encouraging people to find a positive and affirmative way to express the same sentiment is an extremely difficult task, and really asking a lot of people.
E.g. instead of saying they have to save the environment for the future generation (which perhaps generates a guilty feeling), we want to preserve nature to keep it as it is (which they view as a positive thing, preservation of that which is good), they suddenly gave a lot more money to the cause.
Same here in the Netherlands, conservatives here fight for gay rights. Simply because it is part of our tradition. They also fight with all their might for Black Pete, look it up, because there is the constant blame game being played and they feel that the tradition is attacked. And how much I love the tradition, the current Black Pete has some stereotypes baked in. And am I a nationalist and conservative, a rare breed in my country ^_^
I am curious what happens if there is a positive sound. E.g. tell them to go back to an older tradition, Black Pete as ferocious demon helper of Saint Nikolaas. Would they still oppose change? My guess would be that there is less of an issue then and people will experiment with new image.
Perhaps something to try out locally.
Why should I not apply that to the resources of our environment? Future generations? Right, they will be okay as it is. Leading by example might help, but modesty isn't something we transport in pop or corporate culture.
Conservatives were the original environment protectors in the US. Probably politics that drove them away from it. In the current political climate dogmatism is spread pretty evenly.
I like this observation. We should drive them back again though. I think they are not that hard to move if you bring the message in the correct way.
Do you have any evidence that conservatives are more detailed oriented? Anecdotally conservative US presidents Regan (response to AIDS crisis), George W. Bush (War in Iraq), and Trump (COVID response) did not seem to care about policy details. Policies such as lowering tax rates to increase total tax revenue (Laffer Curve) does not seem detail oriented.
I ain't gonna start ragging on individuals less for individual failures. Communication is the only way forward.
Greetings from Melbourne, Victoria, currently on stage 4 lockdown because enough people are selfish and don't care (unless threatened).
EDIT: (Leaving my original text unmodified above) Agree that this sounds crass, and probably not very cultivated by HN's standards, but it's from the point of view of extreme frustration with the situation - having done all the right things myself, only to see it undone by others who just don't care.
I did observe significant changes of behaviour after the fines started getting press coverage. I believe it is indeed incredibly hard to reach out and educate the masses, but when the health of our society depends very much on the last few %s doing the right thing, and this segment is so hard to get to, then drastic measures do have a play. It definitely ought to be backed up by other educational efforts though.
This crisis is making me think hard about where we draw the lines on individual freedom, when they can cause harm to others. Also, having said the above, a number of breachers were in the upper echelons of society financially wise - so it's definitely not a clear cut thing about who needs to start caring more.
Nobody can argue fines for socially unacceptable behaviour don't work. They do.
The problem is that this method of ruling only goes so far.
Eventually you run into situations where a significant enough portion of the population believes something different from another.
Its in these situations, fines and laws prohibiting actions (alcohol, abortion), that things start to fail and where positive reinforcement starts to win out.
All this is with the caveat that I don't want to live in a non free society, if that's on the table, then yes, negative reinforcement works fine, if you don't mind attending the odd struggle session in a north Korean death camp.
Same goes for intersections that violate people's expectations of what should be a stop vs a yield.
Traffic is all about making interactions predictable so people know what to do and how to do it right. Reducing variance in behavior is far more important than what the speed is or how any given traffic control device is treated.
Traffic rules are all about dumbing down these complex fuzzy patterns into something we can codify, enforce and build consistent signage/markings for.
With the number of un-legislated edge cases ratcheting up fines is a recipe for resentment among the populace (possibly leading to different voting patterns not in favor of whoever driving the push for fines). Strict enforcement usually comes with the nasty side effect of being regressive and having demographically uneven outcomes. Lax enforcement results in variable behavior. For example some people stop religiously at a certain sign, some people don't, body language indicating someone is going to do one and then they do the other can lead to unpredictability in the eyes of the other road participants (e.g. pedestrian trying to cross there) and bad outcomes.
The modern thinking (borne out by studies) regarding traffic is that the best approach is to make it easy and natural for people to do the right thing. Want people to take a stop sign seriously instead of mostly yielding, turn your Y intersection into a T. Want to slow people down without reducing visibility? Paint narrower lanes.
It's because your governor adopted a stupid policy that doesn't account for human nature. How well has banning drugs and teen drinking worked to limit those? It failed completely. How could anybody in their right mind believe the same heavy-handed approach is optimal for dealing with a public health emergency? It's not the people's fault, it's the governor's fault for adopting a policy that's doomed to failure and them blaming other people when the inevitable happens.
It's like designing an organisation. If it's possible for one single human failure to bring down the whole thing, if it's possible for one guy to accidentally delete the prod database, the fault doesn't lie with the guy who fucked up, it lies with the person who designed the system.
The 'Premier' of Victoria, was one of the first to move, and the policies in place were holding up. Mismanagement of the mandatory hotel quarantine system caused an outbreak just days after restrictions were being lifted across the country. Using under-trained security guards was a mis-step, but for the outbreak to happen at this crucial moment was more a failure in execution of the policy, than the policy itself.
I'm always willing to correct my beliefs, admit to any errors. A down-vote on its own does not provide me with any new information though.
I wonder what our leadership would make of the book "Turn the ship around". I'm not sure how they'd go about defining responsibility - it seems to be all about passing the buck and CMA.
Yeah good point. Was just unusual that that comment was downvoted (twice?) long after the submission had left the front page, but not the adjacent one where I say basically the same thing. Seemed targeted.
> I wonder what our leadership would make of the book "Turn the ship around". I'm not sure how they'd go about defining responsibility - it seems to be all about passing the buck and CMA.
Not aware of the book, but leaders of democracies are as accountable as much as their citizenry makes them.
Much of the second wave was due to mishandling of the hotel quarantine program. Given the complexity of such operations it was more likely bad luck than mal-intent. It does, however, highlight the problem of using un-vetted privatized staffing for such critical operations, and then under-training them.
Add to those blunders Melbourne's excellent public transport system that everyone depends on, a lack of mandatory mask policy, and you have the perfect storm.
"Department of Health and Human Services epidemiologist Dr Prof Charles Alpren told the inquiry that for Victorians who had developed symptoms over the past month, 1,589 had been genetically sequenced. Of those, 1,577 were linked to the cluster from Rydges, and 12 from Stamford. There were no other genetically linked clusters in Melbourne."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/22/appalling-and-...