Are you nice or kind?
haleynahman.substack.com
haleynahman.substack.com
This is one of my enduring memories of NYC as I saw this precisely play out first hand. A tiny woman with a massive stroller arrived at the base of the stairs and the guy walking in front of her glanced back then gave the slightest nod before reaching down and grabbing the front axle. She overhead pressed the stroller handles, they climbed a couple of flights and at the top of the stairs he put his end down. Not a word exchanged, not even a thanks, they just went their separate ways. It was so smooth, almost choreographed, I don't believe the woman even broke stride.
Cool to hear this is not uncommon. This incident is indeed also one of my most enduring memories of NYC.
The song _In the Dutch Mountains_ (by The Nits) refers to the dykes, not the bridges. By the explanation of the author, Henk Hofstede, the only Dutch mountains are the dykes (dams) and the only valleys the streets between the rows of houses.
Some of this is very self-serving for the median commuter as well. Someone struggling with a stroller or luggage is likely blocking some portion of the way for people getting in and out of the Subway, and the easiest way to fix that is just to help the person.
I've carried a number of strollers, suitcases and whatnot for people without barely a word. The same is true for helping people get their cars out of the snow, giving directions or anything else.
Plus you've probably got your headphones on and are running late to your morning meeting or meeting up with your spouse.. and the extra minute of putting down the stroller, freeing your hand to remove your headphones and adding some superfluous verbal interaction just feels... superfluous.
From an evolutionary game theory perspective, all seemingly selfless coordination acts are really self interest with extra steps. Prairie dogs have a vocabulary of about 10 words for the approximately 10 types of predators they might want to warn each other about. Why would a male prairie dog participate in a system which perpetuates the life of competing males? Because all participant prairie dogs benefit from not getting eaten, and the marginal benefit to the individual is higher than the marginal cost.
Of course, prairie dogs don't sit around working out payoff matrices and finding the Nash Equilibrium. The behaviour is hard coded without an understanding of why. Warning their fellow dogs just "feels like the right thing to do". so they do it.
I found New Yorkers are always happy to lend a hand when needed.
This tickled a memory of a time I helped a lady with her suitcase up a long flight of steps. She was about two thirds of the way up and was wrestling it like it was full of lead bricks. I wasn't in a hurry, so I offered to help - she paused before accepting, like she didn't want the help but desperately needed it. As I reached towards the suitcase, I tried to break the ice a bit with "haha I'm probably going to regret this huh" - and broke off in shock.
The suitcase was light as a feather.
I could hold it out at arms length easily. It could have been filled with packing peanuts. I couldn't suppress an exclamation of surprise - "why, it's so light!" - which the lady took as quite an insult. I felt very odd about it all - should I have pretended to have struggled a bit?
While 2 posts above you,
“I found New Yorkers are always happy to lend a hand when needed.”
-
I sincerely hope this does not come off as condescending, and if it does, I am sorry. I hope you are having a good day. Cheers.
You misunderstood my point. My point isn't about selfish altruism - which I noted was a "nice thing to do". Something I've done personally myself - strollers, luggages and even shopping bags. My point was about the way he wrote the story "...Not a word exchanged, not even a thanks, they just went their separate ways. It was so smooth, almost choreographed, I don't believe the woman even broke stride.".
Something an ordinary person did that didn't take much effort or time, that happens every day in nyc, he "hollywoodized". That's my point.
> I sincerely hope this does not come off as condescending, and if it does, I am sorry. I hope you are having a good day. Cheers.
No worries. I don't get offended or triggered by silly social media comments like many people do. And even if you were condescending, that's your right. No need to apologize for it. My advice is to reread a comment and try to understand it rather than getting emotionally caught up by it. Nothing sadder than a man ruled by emotions.
No need for thank you or your welcome… maybe exchange friendly smiles.
The older I get, the more niceness drives me nuts when not also backed with kindness. If I have to choose who I’d rather work with, I’d rather work with kind people who aren’t nice. They’re not always easy to work with, but I can count on them to work with people instead of complain about them behind their back.
This is, of course, not a dichotomy. There are plenty of people who lack both qualities. Those brilliant jerks I am totally fine never hiring again.
For one, I consider myself to be someone generally "on the left" politically, but I've felt so nauseated by what I see as the worst performative debates of the leftish mobs ("master to main" anyone), because I feel they share the exact same nauseating tactics of the far (and not-so-far) right: professional victimhood. On the right, the media is "so unfair" and there is a "war against Christmas", while on the left nothing is ever anyone's fault if they weren't the benefit of "privilege" in their life.
What I like about this author is she acknowledges the kernels of truth on both sides, but clearly advocates that actual, honest, non-avoidant action is what is so often missing.
It's time to abandon this harmful single axis thinking. It leads to "generally left" people being afraid of having "right wing views" and the other way round, creating cognitive dissonance and other bad mental states and mental mono cultures among "the left" and "the right".
I am homosexual and for LGB rights, but feel mostly disdain for Q and especially T and the other made up letters. I support a strong social security system, free health care, livable pensions etc. and I believe the rich should be taxed more, minimum wages should be increased significantly. I am for a very selective immigration and asylum system based on merit of the immigrant for the country (Australia/Canada). "#MY_COUNTRY first!" deeply resonated with my soul, every politician should live that.
Am I left? Am I right? I feel like those labels absolutely do not apply to me.
When I talk about the "mono culture", what I mean is, for example most of my homosexual peers seem to feel subconsciously forced to support opinions of parties that traditionally support them that are actively harmful to them, e.g. letting Muslim immigrants into the country.
Plus I can't count the times I've seen folks looking confused at a transit stop and someone asks them if they need help before I get to them. Of course, the local will act annoyed the entire time while helping.
I handed the shovel back, and started leaving and noticed that they were headed into their home, not to their car. I inquired, and they weren't going anywhere. Maybe a bit more interaction beforehand would have helped.
But in Calgary, Manitoba, Waterloo... I've done and seen people at this while also having a nice conversation.
Like if I'm at the grocery store and I strike up a long "polite conversation" with the cashier, I'm actually kind of being a dick to everybody behind me in line, by slowing things down. And it seems rude to me, that I should impose upon the cashier to make them pretend to be my friend. They are working and I'll respect that by letting them focus on their job.
Speeding things up for the people behind me and keeping the professional boundaries in place aren't some sort of deep difference in the problem-solving philosophy. This is just basically a different way of looking at politeness that emphasizes getting out of the way.
Small talk bullshit like that ain't hard. Toss out some one-word responses or thought terminated cliches.
I agree. This was pointed up in a cartoon I saw a bunch of years ago. It had two identical panes of two drivers in their cars.
In the pane entitled L.A., one driver was saying to the other "Have a nice day!" while thinking "Fuck you!"
In the pane entitled New York, that driver was saying "Fuck you!" while thinking "Have a nice day!"
As a native New Yorker, that really resonated. As such, a big "Fuck you!" to everyone! ;)
Then to my dismay, I realized I only had $2 cash in my wallet. "Shit. Let me out. I only have $2. I'm so sorry."
He looked back at me and said solemnly, "You're late, you're broke, and you're not that good looking." Then he turned off his meter, took what money I had, and drove me the rest of the way. I made my train with time to spare, thanks to him.
Never in anticipation of reward or even acknowledgement.
Never because someone might see you (virtue signalling)
Nor because it makes you feel good inside. (vanity)
Not even if God had commanded you. (must come from free will)
Also Kant positioning himself as a moral philosopher is pretty ironic because he was insanely racist.
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
> One of the first major challenges to Kant's reasoning came from the French philosopher Benjamin Constant, who asserted that since truth telling must be universal, according to Kant's theories, one must (if asked) tell a known murderer the location of his prey. This challenge occurred while Kant was still alive, and his response was the essay On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives (sometimes translated On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns). In this reply, Kant agreed with Constant's inference, that from Kant's own premises one must infer a moral duty not to lie to a murderer.
Utilitarianism is just as subject to countering every argument for it with "yeah, but why?"
It boils down to the is-ought problem. If you remove the objective will of god, what is left is the subjective will of individual human beings. I struggle to see how utilitarianism would follow from the latter.
> Also Kant positioning himself as a moral philosopher is pretty ironic because he was insanely racist.
What in the world does that have to do with being a moral philosopher?
I'm not sure what you mean by this, sorry.
> It boils down to the is-ought problem. If you remove the objective will of god, what is left is the subjective will of individual human beings. I struggle to see how utilitarianism would follow from the latter.
Well, utilitarianism would suggest that good derives from pleasure and bad derives from suffering. Thus, a good action is one that increases pleasure or reduces suffering. Pleasure and suffering are subjective, so the idea is that the ideal is to fulfil people's preferences. The will of god, on the other hand, is not objective either - different religions have different interpretations, many religions don't have a will of god, and atheists don't believe any of them anyway.
> What in the world does that have to do with being a moral philosopher?
Racism is broadly considered immoral. I just find it a funny irony, not a critical takedown of Kant's moral philosophy.
Let me show you.
> Well, utilitarianism would suggest that good derives from pleasure and bad derives from suffering.
Why does good derive from pleasure?
I realise what you mean now though; just asking "yeah but why" can be used to constantly question anything because it assumes that axioms can be questioned - any model must be grounded in axioms that cannot themselves be justified within that model. We could get into social constructivism if you really want, but that's an area in which I'm quite well-versed; "yeah but why"-ability is not a sign of weakness of a model.
The point of utilitarianism is to align the model of morality with things that people want.
"True" even starts to lose meaning in this context as these statements don't correspond to anything in the external world, they are entirely fabricated from ideas. They can be self-consistent, others can share the ideas, but that's about as good as things get.
Glad you cleared that up. Some philosopher types had been struggling with it for a few centuries.
For real though, what are you supposed to do with a moral system that requires you to adhere to rules regardless of outcome? Where the founder literally said you should aid a murderer because lying is wrong? That's so stupid. You can only derive such a system from religious belief where the rules are a manifestation of a higher power, as Kant did.
Study it. Explore its edges. Knock it down. Rebuild it. See how it works where your other "models" don't. Incorporate it. Synthesise it.
Philosophy does not give answers for the confused, and it doesn't provide comfort for the anxious. For those go to mathematics and religion.
I can feel you are a keen student of philosophy, and would do nothing to discourage that. On the contrary, the spirit is admirable. But you are not a Jedi yet. :)
It is a common error for engineers approaching philosophy to pick up pieces and treat them as tools, like physics models, and to look for the "right" one for a "job". I urge you to play with them as toys a little more.
I am glad to see we've sparked a cool discussion.
That will come.
I am trying to think of an example/metaphor of the Gestalt way that philosophy (and the pursuit of the other learning you mention) obliquely and surprisingly pops into your life as a massive benefit.
Never, personally though, have I been seized by a "bare idea" and then gone off and applied it to some utility (except maybe as a short-lived cognitive behavioural experiment on myself).
Perhaps it's similar to how playing musical scales, painting bowls of fruit, or playing chess, one day makes you a decent performer, painter or strategist.
> Just wanting to play with and consider ideas is valid
At another extreme, only wanting to play, without even the end of self-improvement in mind would be, as Nietzsche put it - an idle museum of ideas for loafers in the garden of knowledge. Definitely not a good use of time unless your only aim is to stave off nihilism for one more day. So a middle path to tread...
respects
> utilitarianism (ethics come from the outcome) is the better option.
Is murder ethical then, if the murderer uses the victim's organs to save the lives of 10 other people?
You always have to watch out for the edge cases lest you get cut.
At the end of the day, all ethics is rooted in selfishness. The weighing of what we want to happen to us, what we want to do to others and what we don't want to happen to us. There is no universal or natural or absolute ethical framework. It's just a human invention born out of human selfishness.
Even better, just kill everyone for a greener earth.
I agree that moral frameworks are more of a guideline than a ruleset because no one model is going to be both simple and map onto messy reality. Ie, like all models, they're reductive but can still be useful. My point was that deontology is just an appeal to rigid consistency, where at least utilitarianism takes context into account, leading to better flexibility to match up with reality.
How is that right, if you ignore the costs (such as evil)? What the heck does "right" mean?
What she is describing is the difference between being polite, and being good.
Knowing how to be polite is an important skill for social decorum and practicing empathy.
But politeness is performative, it is "skin-deep"; and is very easily and frequently used to both hide and mask a conscious choice to _not_ do good.
For example, instead of helping you dig out your car, I could instead, politely, express empathy with your situation. Since our society holds politeness as a virtue, I can now feel good (and be socially rewarded for) having done a slightly good thing. The reality may be, however, that what I have actually done is selfishly excused myself from actually having helped you.
Bad actors exploit this phenomenon. And this is widely understood.
This is where "Thoughts and Prayers" comes from. This is why a Southerner saying "Bless Your Heart" is understood to be an insult (it translates, roughly to: 'you just said something stupid, so rather than engage with you, I'm going to use politeness to allow me to ignore you / your statement'). This is a large part of what Bo Burnham's recent hit "That Funny Feeling" was about. etc.
In my personal life, I have generally found people who exploit this phenomenon to be among the worst people I have to deal with, as people who are bad actors but lack the ability to be polite get filtered out pretty quickly, while these such people can persist and deal damage for quite some time.
I will take an impolite good person over a polite bad actor any day of the week. Though, of course, too many people without an understanding of how to be properly polite in close context is its own recipe for problems.
A lot of those "bless your hearts" & "thoughts and prayers" read the same, except we don't have a formal, explicit concept in English of such things.
As someone who grew up in the south, I'd just like to mention that "Bless Your Heart" could be used in a derogatory manner.
But, most often, it's used to express genuine concern for someone going through a tough time.
So, don't automatically assume it's an insult :-).
I've yet to see this put as succinctly as this.
The kindest person I've ever encountered was also the gruffest. I'll call him Brother John.
I lived in close quarters with him for not quite a year along with a dozen other persons: shared small quarters (lots of bunk beds), meals, chores, recreation, etc. Outside of our living situation the work was back-breaking 24/7/365: running an orphanage plus a home for the infirm. Altogether the ratio was, on average, about 15:1 (residents to care workers). The context was Cap-Haïtien in the early 2000s. There was no backstop, someone needed something you did it for them: sad, you hugged them; hungry, you fed them; poopy, you cleaned them (again); dead, you buried them; and so on.
I didn't get along well with Brother John. For the first couple of months, I would smile and acquiesce. It didn't take me long to realize no one got along with him: not the folks within our little community, nor anyone in the surrounding neighborhood... maybe most everyone in the surrounding city had felt his porcupine quills when crossing paths with him?
About 8 months in (my time there), Brother John was reassigned; he was sent to one of the community's apostolates in western Africa. His reassignment and departure happened abruptly. An eruption of grief ensued promptly.
The thing is, despite his gruffness, Brother John was among the most caring/kindest persons you might ever meet. You needed something: diaper changed? itch scratched? big bag of rice for your family? firm slap in the face? ride to an hours-distant mission hospital? housing for your dead-relation's children? close to death and needed to cry and talk about your fears? He would size up your need and take care of it, or explain why it was beyond his reach (though he'd probably try regardless). And he'd somehow get it done before anyone else barely had time to blink. He'd been doing that for years.
People didn't love Brother John and lament his loss after weighing his lack of nice-ness. They knew and experienced him for what he was: a kind man whose like is rare, someone you tell your kids and grandkids about, gruffness and all, with a hope they take it as a lesson about how to selflessly serve your neighbors.
We all agree that the bundle of traits associated with Kindness - being positive, agreeable, caring, and giving - are basically good, but the Devil's always in the details.
I think that what a lot of people call Kindness, I call Ruinous Empathy [1] or avoidance. This sort of "kindness" either fails to communicate challenging information, or it bends over backwards to sugarcoat it so much that the message gets lost... which amounts to the same thing.
[1] https://www.radicalcandor.com/faq/what-is-ruinous-empathy/
The turn of phrase I've used in my internal monologue is "harshly compassionate". The example given frames this in terms of assistance, but it goes beyond that. Pearl Jam's song Given To Fly really exemplifies this sort of thing. In the middle of mythologizing and uplifting messaging of love, the word "fuckers" gets dropped in.
Similar but not the same: Brooke Allen's contrast of "good" people versus "nice" people <https://brookeallen.com/2015/01/14/how-to-hire-good-people-i...>
https://psychlopaedia.org/society/republished/whats-the-diff...
""" The idea of trigger warnings originates in the psychiatric literature on post-traumatic reactions, where triggering had the same connotations. The primary features of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) include so-called “re-experiencing symptoms”, like intrusive thoughts and flashbacks.
These thoughts and images bring traumatic events vividly back to life, accompanied by the intense fear that the events originally evoked. Experiences that recall those early events trigger re-experiencing symptoms through a process that is rapid, unconscious, involuntary and automatic. That process is often understood in terms of fear conditioning. """
The only person who I know of who has a form of PTSD that could be triggered by reading a mystical take would be Dawn Lawton, writer of "When Buddhism goes bad", or someone who went through a similarly distressing situation.
https://danlawton.substack.com/p/when-buddhism-goes-bad/comm...
Is a situation like this common enough to warrant it? While there are some posters on HN who are into buddhism/meditation or have tried it, I think this sort of experience is still not so common in this space and the TW threatens to cheapen the meaning of a trigger, normalizes pathological sensitivity and adds artificial social barriers to interesting discussions.
Well, that's just what I think. But if what you say is true, it would also be what you think, as me.
I think GP was being a little flip with that, especially since many on HN are likely (as I am) empricists who don't really go in for "mystical language" or what is generally known as "woo."[0]
Hence the facetious reference to a "trigger warning."
Perhaps GP could confirm or reject my hypothesis?
[0] http://skepdic.com/woowoo.html
Edit: Found the missing link.
Absolutely. Although Poe's Law seems to apply to pretty much anything that's not tide charts or ASCII tables.
I was going to say sunrise/sunset times, but I was afraid of annoying the flat-earthers.[0]
[0] For those of you without a sense of humor, cf. Poe's Law[1].
I'd brand it with pictures of Bill O' Reilly, his show's colour scheme, and inspirational quotes. This tide chart could seem to be a legitimate homage to him, or an elaborate humorous poke.
*You can't explain that!
Shouldn't that be "knife goes in, guts come out. That's what Osaka Seafood Concern is all about"?[0]
Just sayin...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Minutes_over_Tokyo#Them...
EDIT: I meant to post this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzkRHFl2ppw
I love Osaka and I love seafood. Nothing to be concerned about.
I didn't get as far as your quote, but I'll take your word that it's fabulous. Thanks for sharing it with me!
I dig seafood a lot too. Never been to Osaka, but I understand it's a nice city.
I was referring to the company loyalty song at (the purely imaginary, I'm sure) Osaka Seafood Concern. Well, at least according to Matt Groening, et. al.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzkRHFl2ppw
Thanks! That is quite amusing and definitely fits the criteria for a meme.
And I knew Bill O'Reilly was an ignorant jerk, but damn!
Also as an introvert, helping with a pram on a subway without small talk sounds pretty cool. Shame I don’t live in NYC or similar!
I am absolutely certain I have been on the other side of this as the person helping someone completely clueless how to rock a car out of being stuck.
That the author calls it “miraculous” still even after retrospect is amusing.
interested to see when the pendulum swings back on this
People on the east are just 10 to 15 years from living in Florida as right side as you get. I do think the right is MORE KIND in general.
The premise is New Yorkers are Kind but not Nice, and that's good. Well, in the context of helping a woman with a stroller vs not, obviously helping is better, even if you don't say thanks or say anything nice at the same time. But also, why not both? It's not like you can't help with the stroller, AND shout a friendly "Have a nice day" as you leave. It costs nothing extra. It's okay that New Yorkers are NOT like that - it's totally fine. The job got done. But it's not binary.
So the implication is that the alternative is to say "Wow it looks like you are really struggling with that stroller, that must be so tough", and to offer no help in response. But, I don't think this person exists. Maybe it's true that people on the West coast won't help with the stroller, but they're NOT going to stop and empathize and do something nice while they do it. The people not helping on the subway on the West coast are NEITHER Nice nor Kind, maybe because of geography, maybe because the individualism of car-orientated culture makes people forget they live in a community the way people in New York are incapable of forgetting.
I propose that that "Nice but not Kind" caricature is actually incredibly rare to the point of non-existence. It tends to be used by the right to describe the entire left - as virtue signaling, caring-about-optics, overly politically-correct, social justice warriors. But the people who are using these characterizations are not themselves fighting for meaningful change. They're using this exclusively to criticize caring or small incremental progress forward.
Yes, legal protection for trans people is more important than using correct pronouns. But who out there is preaching proper pronoun usage WITHOUT supporting legislation for protection of trans people? Tell me which politicians support these protections, and I'll vote for them, but day-to-day I cant change the law. I CAN change what pronouns I use with my friends and strangers. So do I spend most of my time being "nice but not kind" because I only vote one day out of 365 for politicians that do Kind acts?
Even the "liberal vs leftist" comparison is a bit strange because it's entirely US-centric and is part of the way that Americans fool themselves that the Democratic party is in any way progressive. They are centrist by any political spectrum definition, and as such share some of the same "conservative" attitudes to certain types of social progress as their Republican counterparts.
So yes, Be kind. If you can only be one, Be kind. But 99% of situations it costs nothing extra to Kind AND Nice. And The situations where one can ONLY be Nice but not Kind are few and far between, and tend to be exaggerated.
I recognised it immediately as a Melbournian who has had colleagues from Queensland.
Over there, when a friend needs help they'll help them. Over here, when a friend needs help we'll take them out to brunch and "be there for them if you need us".
>It tends to be used by the right to describe the entire left - as virtue signaling, caring-about-optics, overly politically-correct, social justice warriors. But the people who are using these characterizations are not themselves fighting for meaningful change. They're using this exclusively to criticize caring or small incremental progress forward.
I lean somewhat conservative and can assure you that this take is plain wrong. Most of the reaction to political correctness is a reaction to the isolation/injustice that some people's feelings matter, and others (straight white males) don't - that some people's success should be celebrated, and others (again, straight white males) booed.
Can you offer some examples of help that is being offered in favour of taking them out to brunch and "being there"?
> I lean somewhat conservative and can assure you that this take is plain wrong. Most of the reaction to political correctness is a reaction to the isolation/injustice that some people's feelings matter, and others (straight white males) don't - that some people's success should be celebrated, and others (again, straight white males) booed.
I think we're talking about different things.
My hypothetical example is a situation where person A corrects person B's language and suggests that their phrasing is racist, or sexist, or etc. And Person B lashes back by saying Person A doesn't REALLY care about the race/gender involved, but is only virtue signalling or focusing on political correctness. It's a derailing tactic, because the scenario isn't where Person B is doing something else meaningful but Kind (while Not Being Nice). And the implication is that Person A ONLY cares about being Nice, and wouldn't be Kind in a different circumstance.
What you're describing is an independent concern where we as a culture today over-highlight the successes/feelings of marginalized groups, at the expense of the historical dominant majority. I think those scenarios do exist, but I also think we are in a transitionary period where we over-index on ensuring the historically marginalized are over-represented, and already the next generation will find a better balance (Gen Z doesn't care as much about race, gender, sexuality in the same way that previous generations either overtly tried to represss those that are different, or OVER-praise those that are different. Gen Z, anecdotally, seems pretty chill and even-keeled about it al)
Or the very real case where person B's language and intent is not any of those things and person A "gets in their face." ("Suggest" my ass. This "correction" always comes with a heavy dose of entitlement and hostility.)
> Gen Z doesn't care as much about race, gender, sexuality
See what "I don't care what color you are" will get you....
FWIW, it doesn't matter whether the Native American on the Land of Lakes butter label was exploitive. The safe thing is to get rid of the Indian and keep the lakes and that's playing out across commercial America. (The Florida Seminoles will survive because that tribe goes after folks who are outraged on its behalf.)
- Driving 45 minutes out of your way to pick up a friend whose car has broken down.
- Babysitting a kid that you know is a little shit, just to give your friend an afternoon off.
- Lending someone a power tool (or, more specifically, establishing a reputation for being a good mate that lends others power tools).
- Picking a friend's kids up from school or taking them to weekend sports on a regular basis.
- Inviting someone over for a casual, comfortable dinner ("You should come over for spaghetti on Thursday", not a dinner party) because you know they're working late.
For a middle-class Melbournian in 2022, approaching any of these types of things is difficult. Unless you know someone incredibly well, there's a bit of an unwritten rule that offers like these are more of a "thoughts and prayers"-esque performance than an indicator of actual, genuine willingness to assist.
It makes it incredibly awkward to both offer help and ask for it, and I personally think it's a damn shame.
>I think we're talking about different things.
I think we are too, and my strong reaction may have been based more in your username than the contents of your comment. ;)
Is this not exactly what hash-tag warriors are? 'Let me tweet about a plight within my echo chamber' but will not do anything. All talk, no action.
Yes, it's better if you donate your time/money to a worthwhile cause than just tweet about. It's better if you vote for a politician that fixes the issue.
But in the moment, facing the opportunity to spread awareness about a plight, isn't sharing awareness better than not? In that circumstance, that person is being "ONLY Nice, not kind", but there is no indication that the same person isn't also being kind.
On Twitter, I do plenty of tweeting about a plight from within my echo chamber. But I also donate thousands of dollars to worthwhile charities in the same fight. I don't tweet about that, because ironically, that WOULD be purposeless virtue signaling, without any benefit except my ego. But spreading awareness about a plight I think is important might inspire someone else to do the same contribution I make.
It doesn't have to be a binary, but it often is. I think it's just the way human brains are wired. Things don't have to be logical or make sense to be the way they are.
Some of my loudest most activist friends/coworkers/neighbors/acquaintances are actually not really that kind at a personal level, especially to strangers. They can be very showy about the issues they support or make dramatic gift giving gestures for small occasions. They also act like building staff & delivery men are non-humans who don't exist.
It's a weird dichotomy, but its real, not some invention of the author. I think theres a dimension of more activist class being in a political socioeconomic bubble. There's something to be said of the grounding effects of working a 9-5 job and interacting with lots of flavors of people.
It's a similar dynamic to the growth vs scarcity mindset.
Some people are really good at making more money. Some people are really good at pinching every penny. It is a very rare creature to actually be great at both. Almost everyone I know, myself included, I can box into A or B pretty easily. There's no reason you can't be both and if you were it would be a super power.. but very few are!
There is a reason: time. Making a lot of money usually means either long days (exhausting) or high-intensity days (also exhausting). Pinching pennies is quite easy when your strict 9-5 work day is mostly filled with low stress tasks. But when you're exhausted at the end of the day (or simply do not have time), it's much more difficult to turn down opportunities to trade time for money.
In the extreme, I'm reminded of a friend who lives on $25K/yr or so of passive income. He scoffs at things like dishwashing machines and thinks people should treat housework like a form of meditation. Dirty dishes are in all earnestness a relief from his unrelenting boredom, while for me they are one more thing standing in the way of getting 8 hours of sleep :)
(My favorite example of this is the "stretched thin on 500K/yr" meme. Some of the examples are extravagant and silly (nice cars, lots of vacations) but others actually make perfect sense if you assume both earners are in high-stress+long-hour careers (childcare, newer cars, more expensive vacations). If both parents are working 70 hour weeks then it makes sense that you're going to end up spending a ton on activities for your kids, over-paying to make the most of the little time you get together, and paying a premium to avoid time-consuming issues like a car breaking down.)
I see people in the same companies on the same teams who fit into A or B despite doing ostensibly the same job.
Now time is finite, and arguably personA decided to send time on income maximization which takes away from time they can spend on penny pinching. While personB has done the inverse. Arguably you could split your time 50/50 or 70/30, but I've seen almost no one do it.
This is maybe not the best example. But certainly there are a lot of groups who have a veneer of helpfulness, but whose actions are self-serving. Their words say one thing, but their actions another.
Then there's groups who mean well, but whose actions are ineffective. I.e. enacting these laws they hope will reduce homelessness, but do nothing to actually address homelessness (because they don't understand the issue).
Or protest about educational inequality & segregation being so unfair, but vote for low taxes while making sure their kid gets into the better gifted&talented school which also has a huge PTA budget as all the rich locals get zoned into it and can increase the per-student budget for THEIR kids through direct contributes..
There are so many people who would march in support of homeless and poor, but vote against any legislation to build more low-income housing that would actually help them, because it would also decrease their own houseprices or raise their taxes ever so slightly.
Like blocking new construction of a building on say a former McDonalds site that will be 30% low-income housing. The activists demand it be 50%.. 80%.. 100% or don't build. So sure that would be more low income housing, but it may be above the threshold where its profitable for a developer to take on the project. The delays/fights also may deter developers in that neighborhood generally.
Meanwhile - how much low-income housing did the former McDonalds provide?
Well, exactly. The right wing has been very successful by ceding the center. The extreme right is enthusiastic and turns out to vote, and the center-right is willing to vote with them.
Perhaps the far left would turn out enthusiastically for a far-left candidate, but the Democrats believe that it wouldn't be enough to balance the loss of centrists. The result is a party that attempts to appeal to the center, while retaining a slight left-wing balance. There is little place for a genuinely progressive stance.
Fascinating that you think this, I think the left have ceded the center.
In the UK it's Blair -> Corbyn (previously). In the US, it's Obama -> Biden (well, not the Biden that campaigned but the one we got).
The left have moved much more left, the right more towards populism (?). And seemingly neither side is fiscally conservative...
Does anyone think that "virtue-signaling, caring-about-optics, overly politically correct, social justice warriers" are being nice? Heck - do they think that they're being nice?
> They're using this exclusively to criticize caring or small incremental progress forward.
You're assuming that everyone views that as "caring" and "progress forward."
That's not the point.
You can paint the entire left as "virtue-signaling, caring-about-optics, overly politically correct, social justice warriors", and you can paint the entire right as "racist, misogynist, overly religious homophobes".
And you can certainly find examples of those people, but it's reductive, and untrue for most people, on either side.
Most left-leaning people do actually go out of their way to be kind... hell, most humans do. I lived through a natural disaster and I can tell you that no one was asking the politics of the people helping to clean up.
23 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
29 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors.
one of the biggest problems in contemporary times is politicians who pat themselves on the back (and encourage everyone who voted for them or who supports their party to also pat them and themselves on the back) for accomplishing something politically that Sounds Nice And Good On Paper but in reality doesn't change anything about anyone's situation. this problem long predated social media of course but it's pretty obvious that social media has only exacerbated things, because advocating for something that Sounds Nice And Good On Paper gets lots of user engagement (likes, retweets), which only goes to further the illusion that it's any sort of solution to any sort of problem.
why spend lots and lots of money to actually attempt to fix institutional, structural, or otherwise endemic issues for any group of people, when hollow PR-friendly gestures get you reelected just as easily?
in fact, it's even better to do make hollow, PR-friendly, Sounds Nice And Good On Paper-type gestures than to actually do anything, because in the process of promoting such maneuvers, you get to convince everyone "on your side" that you're doing something Necessary, Right, and Just, but, more importantly, anyone who disagrees with the empty gesture or calls you out for making hollow PR-friendly gestures to begin with can be easily dismissed as some kind of -ist Political Adversary! then you get to posture yourself against them and their -ism which leads to further back-patting (or, if you prefer, circlejerking).
it's hard to see a way out of this mess—where would one even begin to try to change this metastructure that prevents the change of further structures by incentivizing ineffectual bullshit gestures over Actual, Measurable Change That Improves Peoples' Lives?
One person at a time, without making a big fuss about it, realizes that to be first you must be last, and gets the work done and learns to ignore the bullshit.
It’s not glamorous, it’s likely to be ignored completely by the powers and the principalities, and it’s one of the few things on this earth that keeps you human because it keeps you in relationship and community with other real life complicated people.
Most of popular identity politics is either “Nice and Mean” (X identity is great, Y people are bad) or “Kind and Evil” (there’s institutionalized whatever, so let’s help X by punishing Y).
Meanwhile the actual good people in the world are Kind and Kind to everyone.
I don't believe many (any?) people think they're doing Evil with the goal of harming others as the ends. It seems most likely that people think they're doing something for a greater good, but that requires sacrifices (e.g. "Yes, we have to murder/imprison all the Jews/Asians/Gays/Whatever, but that's because they're ruining our country").
And I don't know how many people are trying to be be Mean but not doing a small Evil. What does a Mean act that doesn't harm the other person look like?
Also as someone who regularly engages in identity politics, I think your last point is just a "No True Scotsman" but also sort of proves my earlier point: being kind is doing good without regard for the optics, and everyone thinks that's what they are in their head.
Cutting in line, is one example that comes to mind. Certainly a mean thing to do, and a dick move, but not really harmful in the grand scheme of things.
I guess a better example is screaming "fuck you" when does something you don't agree with? If "Nice" is expressing a desire to help without helping, being "Mean" is expressing a desire without hurting?
I'd need to pull some research, but I'm pretty sure that the mental gains of "thoughts and prayers" is degrees lower than the mental pains of "fuck you", so I felt like they weren't proper equivalents.
For real? Revenge, grudges and spite are common as all heck. Think divorce disputes, passive aggression, abusive relationships, bureaucracy. I've seen it more than once in business relationships too.
You killed my dog, I'm going to murder everyone in your criminal empire. You're leaving me, so I'm taking the house. You're bad, so I'll be bad.
There are very few people who feel they're morally evil (and ironically, those who do are rarely as bad as they think). I think people do bad things, and typically they do it because they feel they have to be the one to do this bad thing in service of a greater goal that they view as good.
Parent: “Kind and Evil” (there’s institutionalized whatever, so let’s help X by punishing Y).
You: Evil (results over optics)
"there’s institutionalized whatever, so let’s help X by punishing Y" is not results over optics, it's optics over results. Or maybe that's just what it conjures in my head
If a system has been created (as our "kind vs nice" duality does) and you seek to expand on it, I think you should expand on it in "logical" (ymmv on what "logic" is). So if you add "Evil and Mean" they should a similar duality, IMO.
That said, I don't think "Evil/Mean" should be an added axis to the "Kind/Nice" paradigm, because they don't actually bring clarity. It's adding language that doesn't help provide better understanding to the original discussion, but instead confuses. How can you be Kind (good results over good optics) and evil(however you define it)?
If I'm being completely honest, felt like OP was trying to inject their personal opinion of the current state of politics into a discussion about personal behavior. When people start complaining about "identity politics" I just immediately assume we disagree politically and try point out what I perceive as flaws.
True APD (anti-social personality disorder) and Narcissism (the 2 disorders where the sufferer is most likely to be "bad for the sake of being bad") relatively rare. Most people have something resembling a reason for why they hurt others.
Contemporary example: Whites are not born white, they are born human but abused by their parents into whiteness. (professor of education recommending reading, btw)
Another pleasant lass opined that white people are born into not being human and are demons. People paid to watch.
Is it even evil if you're disenfranchising not-people?
In LA they say "good morning" and mean "fuck you".
In NY they say "fuck you" and mean "good morning".
And nice is near-meaningless.
I think the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary. Much has changed in the world. For example, looking at some recent issues: Major cities are handling policing much differently; discrimination against women is now toxic to careers; the US Congress has now made lynching a crime and is removing Confederate names from the military. District attorneys in cities have been transformed. Major news media now reports differetly on race than just a few years ago.
It's common rhetoric, going way back, to dismiss progressives as powerless, but what people see today as the norm or conservative is what progressives achieved in prior generations. If you're a 'chick' (based on your username), you don't have to live with a male family member and get their permission for everything, can get a full education, be financially independent, can have intimate relations and dress (mostly) how you please without being ostracized, can have careers beyond nursing and teaching, etc. When people woke up and made those changes, years ago, they got the same response as today.
But why is it so urgent to shut them down? What is so threatening? What a waste of time - time would be much better spent achieving something ourselves. So much needs to be done.
This is actually a great example of does-nothing virtue signalling: It was already a crime.
You may have skipped the article. The tone of responses is not what anyone is talking about. Acting despite the tone of responses is not the topic
Leftists: you should be able to have xyz. Oh, no, I don't have a feasible plan to implement it but I'm definitely saying you should have it. (nice)
Liberals: here's a massive reduction in child poverty through the expanded EITC (kind)
I definitely agree with the geographical divide though, wherein the SF "progressives" are very nice and will put out the "BLM, No one is illegal, etc" sign in the garden but balk at being kind enough to actually build homes to allow those people to live near them.
edit: thanks for the downvotes with no constructive criticism, very kind of you!
Get rid of nuclear plants. Block new solar because it replaces some pretty land. Argue about view obstruction by wind power.
Net effect is more natgas power.. and probably in the poorer neighborhoods they ostensibly care about with all their "climate inequality" activism, etc.
virtue signalling: inviting the press to photograph you volunteering at a soup kitchen
virtue: donating anonymously to your favorite cause
virtue signalling: demanding the government fund your favorite cause
> virtue signalling: demanding the government fund your favorite cause
I thought that as we built and testes political systems, we decided that collegial decisions on fund attribution and nation goal were the best way of doing thing. I actually think lobbying and militant advocacy are the correct way of acting and spending money. If you aren't able to convince people, maybe your idea is not as good as you thought.
maybe if the government gave everybody a 'democracy fund' of $1000 to be distributed to whatever registered recipients/distributions. no more, no less spending on lobbying.
A litmus test as to whether you really believe it is a good cause is if you're willing to spend your own money on it. And not a token amount, either. Real money.
After all, where does the government money come from?
If you don't do that, the prisoners dilemma is so out of adjustment that everyone would start to defect and it would unwind. That isn't really a moral observation, but its the nature of the game being so out of whack where it is you vs. 330,000,000 other people. Cooperating or not cooperating can have a large effect on your own finances while each single individuals contribution is miniscule (3e-9).
But this is already happening and why we need higher taxes on the 1% and .1%.
Effective collective action requires some "forcibly". Even when everyone agrees on what's good.
Microsoft, SpaceX, the free market in general, etc., do not rely on forcible cooperation. Yet it's very successful.
This is about the same as proclaiming a fringe explanation for relativity effects to be definitely true, in a physics thread.
It makes me sad to read so many comments from people who are convinced that the only way to get cooperation is through force.
This is a false choice, because both force cooperation, and neither "is voluntary". How they do so, when, and how much, is what's different. That's the trouble here, it's not a "force or don't" choice. If you don't force anything, you'll have a bad time. Evidently, if you force too much, you're also likely to have a bad time. There's a lot of room—and not just on that one-dimensional measure—between the two extremes.
> It makes me sad to read so many comments from people who are convinced that the only way to get cooperation is through force.
You don't need to be sad, then, because you're reading that into it.
When has Microsoft forced you to cooperate with them?
You try to make some sort of moral equivalence between force in the USSR and the US. Do you realize that the USSR built a wall around itself and would shoot anyone who tried to leave?
All I can say is, talk to someone who grew up in the USSR. I have a couple friends who did. I saw the Berlin Wall in 1969 in its heyday. I've heard the bullshit from Soviet apologists trying to deny the Wall and its reality.
Then come back and tell me about how McDonald's forces you to ... what ... I have no idea what you imagine McDonald's is forcing you to do.
You can always run away to Venezuela anytime you feel oppressed in the US. Nobody is going to stop you.
Nothing about my post claimed, or implied, this, so I don't know why you ask.
> You try to make some sort of moral equivalence between force in the USSR and the US.
No, not at all. Nothing about that passage was about morals.
> All I can say is, talk to someone who grew up in the USSR. I have a couple friends who did. I saw the Berlin Wall in 1969 in its heyday. I've heard the bullshit from Soviet apologists trying to deny the Wall and its reality.
OK? Point conceded, since I never contested it? What's that... got to do with this?
> Then come back and tell me about how McDonald's forces you to ... what ... I have no idea what you imagine McDonald's is forcing you to do.
I don't know either, since you're imagining me imagining McDonald's forcing me to do something. For the same reason, I will be unable to "come back and tell you". I lack whatever information this is.
> You can always run away to Venezuela anytime you feel oppressed in the US. Nobody is going to stop you.
Hahaha, oh, I see. This isn't my kind of fun, so I'm out. I trust this exchange was at illustratively-helpful to someone out there.
yeah, not really.
if the cause is something massive like global warning, it isn't happening due to the actions of individuals one by one, and its bigger than any charity.
and making it an individual moral problem isn't helpful because it always devolves eventually into the "so you criticize society, yet you participate in it, curious" problem.
the government is supposed to be there for the big problems, to get the government to move you have to do PR of one form or another.
For example, if you bike to work, you're being virtuous. If you drive your musclecar to work, you're not. How you vote has nothing to do with virtuosity.
How is it virtuous to make somebody else bear the cost of your dreams?
Note that organizing neighbors to pick up trash is a purely voluntary task by you and your neighbors.
I know that politicians routinely offer you virtue by voting for them to make someone else pay. But I hope you can see it's a false virtue.
Regarding others or myself sacrificing: It is necessary in anything, if we are to accomplish much, for many people to contribute; not much happens alone. So generally no one person can do most of the sacrifice (and I'm not sure it's such a sacrifice), but I definitely believe in doing more than my share.
The other part I think is rooted in common-on-HN perspective on government that I don't happen share. To me, doing it through local government or through organizing neighbors aren't much different. Democracy is another mechanism for how we get together and do things: We take a vote, we agree that we'll go along with the results - sometimes what I like to a greater degree, sometimes to a lesser one, but we also agree that we need to act as a community sometimes and can't be paralyzed, and that others' preferences are just as deserving as mine; and we have the enlightenment and good will and, failing that, the enlightened self-interest, to see that by working together in good faith we can achieve so much more for ourselves.
To me, the idea of compulsion as the basis of democratic government is an interesting philosophical and theoretical question - and answered largely by free elections, representation, free speech, and limited government. Anarchy is similar to me - a philosophical / theoretical question but not reality. They seem to me like some things on HN, in a intellectual atmosphere - a theory taken to the extreme of thinking it's real, or of testing its boundaries by insisting it's real and challenging people to disprove it, rather than something used a tool for exploring reality. Because as a practical matter, I don't see the compulsion: People follow the rules and laws because they want to; we are social beings, even evolved to live socially and emotionally fall apart if alone. I pay my taxes, follow most laws because I would anyway (e.g., I don't want to murder or steal), and others because I want to do my part for my neighbors; I respect my neighbors votes. Compulsion isn't the basis, it's just a band-aid solution we sometimes use; there aren't nearly enough resources to make everyone obey if they don't want to.
You seem to think differently, which is fine, but I think it's factually wrong to assume that everyone - who almost all live in democracies - agrees. Also, I think the compulsion theory is yet another attempt by certain groups (not you) to attack our democracy, to politicize the very idea of it, by transforming it from an achievement of humanity and a way we can live with hope and progress, to something dark and pernicious.
I also propose to you that voting is not the same thing at all as having a choice. For example, every election in my state has tax increases on the ballot. They always pass. What happened to my choice? I have to pay the increased taxes, whether I voted or not, whether I voted yea or nay, whether I want to or not.
> People follow the rules and laws because they want to
By and large in the US, they do. But they are still compelled to. Every law lists the penalties for non-compliance.
A democracy is far better than a dictatorship, but I'm not under any delusions that the will of the majority is not backed up by compulsion.
To put it more simply, a democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner (that's why we have a Bill of Rights, btw).
You have a choice and other people in your state have equal choices (maybe me!), and of course not 100% will agree, and so democracy respects all those choices. Democracy, in a sense, is a respect for other people's opinions and choices.
I'm not pretending there is no compulsion at all, or that sometimes things that could be or should be voluntary are made universal through law. And then so few inform themselves, and there is so much mis- and disinformation, and so few vote. So yeah, it's a mess. It's a messy human system, and so is every other system: As I think you are a veteran of IT systems, I'm sure you know that even our logic machines are fundamentally messy and human.
But volunteering, which I've done plenty of, isn't so ideal either. Some things I do voluntarily are necessary and should be universal, and my neighbors sit home and leave the work to me. (I'm not crying, just observing dynamics of it.) Some parties make the 'voluntary' compulsory through very undemocratic pressure, and a democratic system would be better. Volunteer structures often omit the input of people who are affected by the situation but lack time, money, status, etc. - people who would have a say if done democratically. Sometimes that's done intentionally, so powerful parties can run over the vulnerable. 'Voluntary' can mean 'extra-legal'. Some parties 'volunteer' for their own good to avoid meeting obligations to the group - e.g., wealthy parties fund 'business district' quasi-governmental services and then rage when asked to contribute to the collective good, like schools or cleaning other neighborhoods. In some places, wealthy parties directly fund police equipment - it's not a compulsory tax, but probably a very bad idea. In an Apple Store in one city I noticed a uniformed city police officer acting like a security guard; I inquiried politely and they said Apple paid the city directly for their services. Democracy has a lot of built-in equity.
My main point is that democratic government is one way (not the only way) we voluntarily (though not always voluntarily) organize ourselves. Self-government is another term used for democracy - how could we manage without a king or some superior governing us and compelling us? It turns out, we could get together and cooperate, and function better than a king - a pretty optimistic development after 10,000 years of civilization. Democratic government is not some pernicious special case, compelling us under its yoke, though like any tool it has advantages and disadvantages we should consider (including the compulsory parts).
> To put it more simply, a democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner (that's why we have a Bill of Rights, btw).
That is one of my favorite ways to express what I think is a fundamental concept about human rights and mob rule, and so I agree completely.
> I see again the idea that for people to cooperate, compulsion must be used.
I wrote also about volunteerism.
I see the irony of my uninteresting comment too! This is just not the content I come to HN for at all.