The Psychosocial Beauty of R/AmITheAsshole | Hacker News Reader

The Psychosocial Beauty of R/AmITheAsshole

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Am I the only one who thinks that "AITA" is kinda fake?

It's easily one of the biggest e-points generator that can cause a lot of dopamine. Almost like a meta-trolling where you know the shot is going to land.

You could go about your day, experience some event, wonder "what would happen if I reacted differently?" And then think up that fanciful alternate timeline and post it on aita.

Yes we can use aita for communal rule building, but I think it has the potential to cause a lot of societal distrust, the more fanciful that the stories might get.

Perhaps it won't be the case, am I the asshole for thinking so?

Yeah I think this is a legitimate concern. There are definitely some people there just karma-farming, but the mods seem to do a good job finding those folks and removing their posts as spam.

A lot of accounts are throwaways, which IMO means they're probably not karma-farming. But someone else pointed out you can still get some dopamine from fake internet points on a throwaway.

I have one i've kind of wanted to post. Hey HN, Am I the asshole?

This was awhile ago during the summer. Nice day, aka construction season.

I'm a passenger in a car; we're driving north and we have the most basic of smalltalk going on. Totally nothing controversial, literally just talking about what a beautiful day it was. That maybe I'll take my telescope out and check out saturn that night. Ask if they had any plans and let them talk. I was genuinely listening as they talk and drive, I didn't really have much to say. Just enjoying looking around.

We come up to a spot where if you turn right, you can avoid the one lane downtown construction we were clearly headed directly toward. They rarely drive downtown so likely didn't know the construction was coming. So I slightly cut them off and say, "I'd turn right here, avoid the construction up there."

We weren't going downtown anyway, it was a fine plan to avoid. But they pull into a bus stop. They are on the verge of crying. They tell me, "You're always criticizing the way I drive. I'm the one driving and I get to decide how to get there." I was rather short on words. I was only trying to help, not offend or anything. I said sorry as we do eh.

They then demand I get out of the car and walk the rest of the way. I chuckled and asked really. They were serious. I got out of the car and walked a couple blocks and sat on a bench waiting for taxi to get me. It would have been probably closer to 45 minutes to walk either to our destination or walk home. It was about half way. My fat butt probably could have benefitted from the walk but meh.

I think back as well. I tend to give similar tips, "You can turn here and take $road to get around quicker" or whatever. Its not criticism, just trying to share the infos. I appreciate when people help me out in this way. Am I the asshole?

From their accusation: there is clearly a long history of this happening in the context of this person driving. You've left out all of the history and context. You even left out your relationship to this person. This could be a friend, coworker, spouse or your child.

Your relationship to this person matters especially because their words might not be literal. "You're always criticizing my driving" might mean "You always criticize me" in general. Or it might mean "You don't trust my judgement". Or it might mean "You have financial control over my life and I'm just now at my breaking point."

Most importantly, I don't want to know the details and HN isn't the place for these threads. But if I were you I'd evaluate my entire relationship to this person rather than this one summer downtown drive.

>From their accusation: there is clearly a long history of this happening in the context of this person driving.

I was told later, they had changed their meds but never got into what this meant. Certainly not a long history, but certainly i have given tips before.

>Your relationship to this person matters especially because their words might not be literal. "You're always criticizing my driving" might mean "You always criticize me" in general. Or it might mean "You don't trust my judgement". Or it might mean "You have financial control over my life and I'm just now at my breaking point."

This is the other one which has come up before. "You dont trust my judgement" but like... I don't know where its coming from.

The thing is, I actively avoid criticism as much as possible. Dale Carnegie style. Never ever works. I never really criticized the way they drove, I was only giving them help. Totally not judgmental.

I guess I understand relationship matters but this would confuse things more.

I dislike the spirit of "/r/AmITheAsshole." I don't think I can put it into apt words, but it may go something like: "does this really matter?" and "must this really be exhibited for all to see?" and "who cares who the asshole is?"

It is a little like reality TV...there's a voyeuristic angle to it. But I think the fact that the community is mediating real-world disagreements makes it much more wholesome that reality TV.

I'm the opposite. I like the spirit of what /r/AmITheAsshole was supposed to be: A place where someone can get a bunch of neutral 3rd parties to judge them on a situation and ask if they're being unreasonable so that they can personally grow from it.

That said, the reality of what the sub ends up being is completely different. Lots of people posting fake stories for karma. People posting situations where they're OBVIOUSLY not the asshole. People that are definitely assholes and refuse to accept judgement. Most of the (likely) real stories conveniently leave out key facts that only get discovered in the comments.

But every now and then, there's a REALLY good thread where nobody agrees who the asshole is.

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