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Comment by atum47 | Hacker News Reader

in theory this looks good. reality is a bit different. I constantly have problems with my left and right neighbor (middle of pandemic and this ahole is doing a barbecue with loud music since yesterday) about their lack of consideration (this in my parents house, where I am right now). In my apartment is no different... loud music, stumping on the floor... that kind of problem you have on a building. my father have a huge heart and does all kinds of good things for people, and I watch him getting screw over by the same people he helps (this includes people he hire to work for his small company).

each passing day I feel more and more inclined to buy me a piece of land with no one around it, build a small house in the center of it and never interact with this kind of people forever.

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This has been studied in game theory terms.

The best strategy seems to be to give people the benefit of the doubt initially, being kind and altruistic without reservation. But as soon as they don’t respond in kind, you update your strategy immediately and stop extending any generosity beyond baseline courtesy. The ball is in their court now. If they switch from selfishness to altruism, then you can match them. Otherwise, don’t let yourself be exploited.

I’ve found this approach has simplified many social decisions for me. Even things like whether to say hi to a neighbor passing on the sidewalk. I used to not always be sure of the best way to handle these situations. If you give a hearty greeting and are ignored, you feel lame and rejected. If you ignore them and it turns out they are friendly, they could see you as unfriendly, or they might also be on the fence, waiting to see what you do, and by ignoring them you miss out on establishing a friendship that could be valuable to both of you in the long run.

Now it’s easy: I say hi the first time I see someone and treat them warmly. If they aren’t friendly back, I don’t worry about it. I simply ignore them now unless they make an effort to change the dynamic (happens more than you might think, actually).

This way you don’t miss out on the good people, don’t sweat the bad/manipulative people, and remain flexible in case someone was just feeling shy or having a bad day. Game theory ftw!

(This strategy is called “tit for tat”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat )

I don't have a link now, but if there is a chance for miscommunication, the good strategy becomes more "forgiving". So you can keep being cooperative and kind for more than one iterations to be sure they really want to defect. Then you can defect too, until they cooperate.

The Evolution of Trust[0] is a fun walkthrough of those game theory strategies. It adds the twist of miscommunication towards the end.

[0]https://ncase.me/trust/

Thanks! That's the link I meant!

If you’re applying game theory here, I’m curious what the objective function would be? (What are you trying to maximize/minimize?)

I think a potential flaw is assuming people are static beings. Consider if you passed me shortly after my dog died...I may not be in a mental state to even notice you said anything. If we passed weeks or months later I could be in a completely different state but we’re still not connecting because you’ve already concluded it wasn’t worth the effort.

I feel like there is a fundamental issue if people look for interactions to be transactional marketplace. It’s completely different than deliberately acting from a place of compassion

The goal is to maximize how much of your social time and energy is spent on mutually rewarding interactions and relationships relative to one-sided or exploitative interactions and relationships.

A constraint is wanting to remain open to potentially rewarding new relationships (so not simply closing yourself off to people who aren't already in your circle).

Another constraint is remaining flexible for when people update their behavior (in either direction). Which I think answers your objection? If you were in a bad state because your dog died, that's completely understandable. But now it's up to you to salvage the dynamic, not me, as I already went out on a limb once. If you do that, then the first encounter would be water under the bridge and I wouldn't hold it against you.

Giving compassion is wonderful, but life is a lot better when you reserve most of it for people who will respond with compassion in kind, rather than milking it for their own benefit and giving nothing in return. Sticking up for yourself doesn't mean being transactional--it just means that you extend compassion to yourself as well as to others.

While I can understand your perspective and probably would completely agree in the past, it still strikes me as rooted in a transactional expectation. “I did something so now it’s incumbent on you to do something.” My definition of compassion doesn’t encompass giving compassion only if I have the promise of receiving it in return. I also think you can be non-transactional while still having boundaries. Not saying hi back is probably a boundary we’d disagree on.

I found it only feels wrong because I expected something. So the problem is as much in my expectation as their behavior and based in a faulty assumption that interactions are a zero sum game. I don’t always embody non-transactional compassionate behavior but having tried both approaches, once you can get past the expectations of what people can do for you, I find it a better way to live.

I think we actually agree. I'm not saying that you should expect something in return when being kind to people. That's not real altruism.

I'm more talking about when someone goes in the other direction and is notably unkind, inconsiderate, cold, exploitative, or otherwise disrespectful to you. That's when it's time to switch to a new strategy.

To me, ignoring a neighbor who greets you is pretty cold and disrespectful, but yeah, everyone has a different line when it comes to these things, and it depends a lot on context.

t4t comes from the prisoner's game, where the choices are 'cooperate' or 'fuck the other person over for your own gain', so that sets the mindset the strategy is meant for.

Compassion can mean different things. Merely being polite, positive and listening and not screwing the other over, sure makes sense to be generous about that to many people.

But in many cases compassion may mean self sacrifice: time, money, effort etc. It's fine to expect something back, at least not being mean or more demanding to you or sour about why you didn't do more. There are toxic people like that that you better not help. You can learn it the hard way. Maybe it can be communicated better, but in many cases people are predisposed to see you as a threat. If you offer to help, they think you do it as a scheme to help yourself and screw them. And they will fume even years afterwards that you somehow screwed them over when you genuinely helped them. That you didn't help enough, that you were selfish etc.

You need to choose who you spend your finite energy on. Not every person in a bad place is some idealized angel who is thirsty for your help and will be grateful.

You're just playing tit-for-tat. The main benefit it extreme simplicity- in principle, one bit of memory per person, and one if-then decision. And it performs very well in iterated prisoner's games.

Yes, everyone has a complex inner history blah blah blah. There's 6 billion people, and you're not going to give equal attention to all of them, so you need different approaches. Plus, explicitly playing tit-for-tat keeps you from being emotionally gamed as easily.

As you state, it’s based on an overly simplified model. I.e., it’s a heuristic that may not generalize well to the more complex realities of life, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. It’s akin to an objective function of “find a reasonable local optimum solution that requires as little overhead as possible” which can completely miss the global optimum. I was asking for clarification because I was curious how important the “overhead cost” function was as a constraint to the OP. That’s probably where our perspectives diverge; I’m usually willing to take on more of that overhead cost if it can break me out of the local solution.

As an aside, the perspective is appreciated but dismissive approaches to comments (“blah blah blah”) tend to go against HN guidelines. You make good points but I wouldn’t want them to be lost to moderators because of the phrasing

It seems to me that switching from immediately stopping the kind action (e.g. greening someone) as soon as it's not reciprocated to stopping the kind action if it is habitually not reciprocated could address a lot of those problems.

You could probably also put a maximum age on your game state. E.g. if it's been more than a week since this person failed to reciprocate, then treat this like an initial interaction.

I can't thank you enough for how much this helps me. I've become very guarded when it comes to strangers. You lay out a good strategy on how to deal with people. This would help one get acquaintances, friends, and weed out the bad ones.

Being helpful and kind to others also requires that you be kind to yourself. You can only give when it is healthy to do so.

Some people will be narcissists, self involved, and mean. Some people will try to take advantage of you. That's okay; You cut them out of your circles and move on. Being kind and pruning your social circles to those who are kind in return is like tending a garden. It isn't 'unkind' to weed the place a bit from time to time to make an environment that you enjoy being in.

> Being helpful and kind to others also requires that you be kind to yourself. You can only give when it is healthy to do so.

Agreed. We all deserve the same fundamental measure of respect. It’s equally important to be kind to myself and to others. The two are the same thing in disguise.

It can take reflection to parse out each situation, but if a “helping” act of mine is actually damaging to me in a way I resent or would prefer to avoid, then am I really being kind to the other person? I’d argue that often I’m actually acting out of an unhealthy impulse of guilt, some sense of social-obligation, self-identity, etc, which is really just about myself.

Sometimes helping another person - even if they want said help - actually doesn’t help them at all, and that’s not really kindness in my opinion. It requires judgement.

True kindness includes more than the “soft and mushy” feelings a lot of us look on with suspicion. Authentic kindness and care can be hard as fuck because it means saying no or not helping someone when your natural impulse is to do so.

See: parenting, family members/friends with addictions, letting go an employee who’s well-intentioned, breaking up with someone who’s nice, etc.

IMHO Buddhist thought is a great tool for thinking about this kind of stuff.

It's not going to completely solve every problem - that's a pretty high standard! Maybe you could ask your father how he feels about it.

I see and experience the same things you do, and I choose compassion and kindness (my mantra with strangers is: trust, care, help). I can't change other people or the world, but I do choose how I respond to them. I can defy the evil, unhappiness and despair in the world. What I've learned is that it is so much better for me, and for the other people, and for the situation - it doesn't solve every problem, it's not the entire solution, it doesn't even work every time, but it moves the needle; perhaps most importantly, I think it sets an example and inspires others - imagine a world without the compassionate people. Compassion is armor: When people act like jerks, usually it's because they have their own problems, their are overwhelmed, they are afraid, etc. You and I act like jerks too. Have compassion on them and on yourself - life is hard.

> never interact with this kind of people forever

Whatever kind they are, they are everywhere. We all need to find our peace of mind, but at the same time I don't want to withdraw: What am I living for? To avoid? More people are more opportunities to live.

This is accurate. More often than not, trying to do something good for others will end up making you feel like an idiot. For the person on the receiving end, you are a jackpot. Instead of being shown gratitude, you're likely to be exploited.

But then again, would it really be a genuine gesture on the giver's end if they were to filter based on the receiver's character or whether they will be grateful for it?

The positivity from you is likely to be absorbed by the negativity, never to be seen again, instead of snowballing into a boulder of positivity as you'd hoped. I feel the only answer is to be an endless source of positivity. In that case you're not worried whether the drops of positivity from you end up somewhere they're appreciated or not. The negativity sponges might suck you dry, so it's not for everyone. For most of us the answer might be to constrain our positivity outlets into safer, more controllable spaces (volunteering for an organization, etc.) where it is less likely that we might feel anything negative for our efforts.

> This is accurate. More often than not, trying to do something good for others will end up making you feel like an idiot. For the person on the receiving end, you are a jackpot. Instead of being shown gratitude, you're likely to be exploited.

Helping others doesn’t mean you have to set yourself up to be a sucker. Which you kinda point out when you about volunteering. But IMHO in any space our own judgement is still required and essential.

Okay, there is a major definition problem here.

Kindness can and should come with boundaries. No one is entitled to your time or energy. Choosing to spend that energy on another person, without thought of reward, is a form of kindness.

We can and probably should be polite to people by default. That is a way of showing kindness. If the other person decides to be a blackhole, leave them. If they are harming someone, you are free to (and probably should) warn other people.

Kindness does not require you let people take advantage of you.

That sentiment is quite understandable. But I think the health benefits of this outlook is more about being able to let go of these hang-ups and injustices that you attribute to other people. Victim-hood is mostly a state of mind. There reaches a point where you choose to stay there.

I would take a slightly different perspective. I think much of the benefit of volunteering etc. as spoke about in the article is from the feeling of "connectedness". It's not that being generous is in-and-of-itself beneficial, but that it helps connect to other humans. From the article:

"Humans are extremely social, we have better health when we are interconnected, and part of being interconnected is giving"

Being generous and resenting it or moving away from people would probably be antithetical to being connected. Being taken advantage of makes one feel less connected, which might be what you're experiencing.

For a good, short read related to this I'd suggest Sebastian Junger's book Tribe

There's no recovery from BNS (bad neighbor situation) in my opinion. I see that as a point of no return. The only sane outcome is, one of the two parties bailing out.

BNS doesn't mean it only happens between neighbors, just that that's what it feels like even if it happens between two parties that are not necessarily neighbors, e.g., two coworkers, two classmates, two CEOs of rival corporations. The list is endless.

BNS is the bane of my existence. I'd do anything to have a life where I'm not in a BNS match with anyone.

I was living in a big city when the lockdown was enforced by the company I was working at (at the time) so I decided to spend that time with my parents (cause I could at least help them with anything). I came home to discover the neighbor was fabricating furniture in his backyard (both of our houses have a large backyard). He would work until midnight sometimes, with no acoustic treatment on his improvised factory. I went by his house and talk to him. Explained that I was also working at home and the noise was too much. Long story short, I had to call city hall to resolve the situation. This is the same ahole I mentioned.

I'm a pretty reasonable guy. I can put myself in others shoes. But when I notice that people don't retribute, I tend to act. My father put up with a lot of things (trying to be a better person) that I don't.

Yeah being kind is more a weird tug of war. We really need lessons in how to ensure our own well being in a social context.

Now some would summarize it as: be as kind to you as you're to others. I, like your father, has a weird tendency to do everything for free.. but it's unhealthy and I suffer. But I can't really blame others for that.

Being strong and balanced.. a healthy dose of selfishness (kinda like a kid)

As a resident in NY during the pandemic, everything that you would think would cause people to cling together and bond in common cause during a difficult time period if you were an optimist, actually caused an increase of rudeness, hostility, annoyance, and battle for resources. From sidewalk space to aggressive driving to competition in apartment buildings for rare gym reservations or even elevator space, people are awful.

Ready for a move to a house of my own without audible neighbors or selfish and uncompromising attitudes.

Struggle for scarce resources triggers ancient and primitive defensive attitudes. Either that or people in the northeastern cities are rude.

Being kind doesn't mean being a chump. Be slightly more kind to others than they are to you, but when they don't reciprocate, draw strict boundaries.

Honestly learning to set boundaries was game-changing for my emotional health and my relationships.

do you see how the negative attitude you carry is eating you alive? be more like your dad

That crosses into personal attack, which is not an effective way to advocate for kindness, and also not allowed on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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