Fairness and kindness are not weaknesses | Hacker News Reader

Fairness and kindness are not weaknesses

gerrymcgovern.com

20 pointsdevonnull25 comments

I got my iPhone stolen from me a few months ago in a sort of mugging.

I say "sort of", because it wasn't really violent, I wasn't injured, but rather two teenagers (I'd say roughly 17-18) came up to me, one asked if he could call his mom, I tell him that I'll call her on speaker phone, I unlock my phone, then his friend grabs my phone, the first guy shoves me, and they run away. I didn't chase after them because I had no idea if they had a knife or anything. [1]

That really sucked, I liked that phone, but the part that sucked worse was everyone felt compelled to give me a long victim-blamey lecture about how you can't trust anyone and that I shouldn't have unlocked my phone, and that they would never fall for anything like that. Usually I just rolled my eyes with this, but eventually one person wouldn't relent, constantly explaining that in NYC this is something you gotta know, despite the fact that I have lived in NYC longer than this person.

Eventually I responded back with "you know, I appreciate the lecture, but having empathy isn't a weakness you fucking moron. If I was stuck in Manhattan without a phone I would want someone to help me. I guess I just thought it was right to pay it forward. I'm sorry that you don't feel that way".

For some reason, that guy hasn't talked to me since.

[1] Before I get a bunch of suggestions, I did report the phone as stolen on the FindMy app, and I filed a police report with the IMEI.

(Too much) empathy can definitely be a weakness. It is situational however, in a safe and peaceful environment it is beneficial and helpful, in less fortunate environments it can make you a target.

Too much of anything can be a weakness. If you blow up whenever someone makes a mom joke at your (mom's) expense ... that can be used against you. It takes a cool head to prevail in these situations and defensive thinking. He could have asked the kids to back up, ensuring he had enough space and time to react if they tried something.

You can still help people and remain wary of them.

According to game theory, you should have empathy but not too much. Its such a powerful theoretical finding for every aspect of life. I found it best explained in the Veritasium video on game theory [1] [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mScpHTIi-kM&pp=ygUfZ2FtZSB0aGV...

People occasionally posit how they would deal with situations were they to arise. For example, that they would have fought back if they were on one of the planes which was hijacked on 9/11.

It’s really hard for anyone to say how they would handle themselves in a situation which they have not encountered before.

As a side note, people who continually lecture other people are generally not great people to be around.

Yeah, I feel a bit bad for calling the guy a fucking moron; I'm sure I've spoken out of my ass about something I've never experienced in the past. I've never said that I'd fight back against the 9/11 terrorists, but I'm sure I've done judgy "If I were there..." things in the past.

Yeah those people can go screw (respectfully, I mean; I'm sure some are your friends.) Sorry that happened to you, but for what it's worth, this internet stranger would've done exactly the same thing, and I think your reasoning is sound.

I mean, I don't think that they meant anything by it. I just think it's easy for them to be in positions of judgement when nothing like that has happened to them.

I probably shouldn't have called the guy a fucking moron, I was just frustrated because everyone was giving me the same lecture.

I think it was kind to provide your phone to someone asking. The fact that they robbed it should not be a seen as a lesson, rather should be seen as "shit happens but it could have been worse".

Maybe if you did not offer the phone, they would have taken it forcefully.

If you take a look at this article as a heuristic as to where our new neigbors arrived from https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/15/us/where-immigrants-come-...

You will notice that since the 1960's the new americans have come from societies where kindness is definitely seen as a weakness because of how corrupt their societies are. So people adapt and view kindness as so.

Just because they have arrived here does not mean they have shed their previous world views.

And the correct response to that is to show kindness, obviously. The alternative is to degrade to a low-trust society.

Actually, it is not obvious, especially if you’re acting independently.

Once there’s a critical mass of people in society that can’t operate in high trust, you’re basically waiting for the generous people to be fleeced.

~There was a cute simulation web app on HN 6 months ago…I can’t find it.~ Found it!

https://ncase.me/trust/

I’ll repeat: the obvious solution to avoid this (you are describing a low-trust society) is to show kindness.

It is simply untrue that the US is already a low-trust society, so yes it is obviously the correct solution to continue to show kindness.

The obvious error to your “obvious” solution is that some areas are already low-trust, and thus without removing that low-trust culture/the low-trust individuals there is simply no possible way to change it. Manhattan has had a reputation of being low-trust for longer than I’ve been alive, and that only continues to prove itself. L.A., Detroit, Chicago, really any major city are all low-trust environments. This may not be the whole of the US geographically, however it certainly is from a population perspective.

“Continues to prove itself”

Citation needed

Nah man, you doubled down on justifying your pathological empathy to your friend, so it's well deserved that he doesn't talk to you anymore. You are all in for yet another round of lessons from the global south, as you continue to enable mass migration, and this time it's not just petty crime they're committing. I have zero empathy for the likes of you, and the way you defend your bleeding-heart ways: it isn't just by doing what's supposedly virtuous but also by pontificating. This is a prime example of the submissive, whiny millennial from a developed country (or a tier 2 one like where I live) who thinks they have the moral high ground.

I never disputed that I'm a whiny millennial from a developed country; that's objectively true, and easy to glean in about ten seconds of talking to me.

I don't really see how calling me a "whiny millennial" or having "zero empathy for the likes of me" disproves my point; I still don't think that having broad empathy for the plights of others is a weakness and I don't see how pointing to a conspiracy about the global south really disputes that.

Also, "pathological empathy"? Really? Because I was going to let someone use my phone (on speaker) to call their mom? Give me a break; if I had "pathological empathy" I wouldn't be a yuppie living in the United States buying items produced by dubious labor in China.

I just want to be a decent person, and follow the fairly typical "treat others how you want to be treated". If I were in a position where I needed to call my mom and I didn't have my phone, I would like to live in a world where people help me with that. I don't think it requires "pathological empathy" to want to try and just be a decent person. Yes, in hindsight I probably should have just pointed them to a public phone or a police station or something.

I don't think (and never claimed to) have a "moral highground", whatever the hell that means, I just get annoyed when people brag about how unempathetic they'd be in situations they've never been tested on.

No, but it's dangerous to grant it to people who don't reciprocate. One of the diversity officers at my company was recently discovered to have been embezzling money from the company, cloaking oneself in noble moral intentions and telling a satisfying moral story is just that: speech. We need to see folks demonstrate good faith before inviting them into a system of trade for mutual benefit.

> We need to see folks demonstrate good faith before inviting them into a system of trade for mutual benefit.

Starting form zero a society where everyone follows this to the letter can not get started since there is no record of actions yet for people to judge people by.

Experimentally extending trust/opportunities in perhaps a limited fashion is one way to get the ball rolling on this

And if people are waiting for you to replicate, when will there ever be any trust?

"[And no further.]" This musing couldn't be appreciated without (historically) grossly wasteful computing. It's marginal whether you could justify India's green revolution on the premise of the article.

Reminds me of KSR's pessimism in "Ministry for the Future".

I'm glad we got mobile phones and computers, to help us tabulate and appreciate this disparity, before we prevent further useless use of resources.

I do not know why the post is flagged, but I am not surprised as I only see a weak link between the article and the title and it is definitely political. And I am surprised so few comments are about the content.

However, the subject is still interesting. We have a fairness problem with the carbon footprint of the wealthy but we have no good solutions for now.

I am sure technology can help, but polical and social work will be needed too.

> Billionaires are Machiavellian, psychopathic, and narcissistic, according to psychological research. They are malevolent self-promoters, emotionally cold, nonstop liars and highly aggressive.

Ironic considering the title of the post

What's ironic about it?

Narcissism and psychopathy are recognised psychiatric disorders. It is a breach of psychiatric ethics to give a professional opinion on anyone who you have not personally assessed (the Goldwater rule).

Wealthy and successful people are probably slightly more prone to exhibiting the behaviours associated with those disorders, but the evidence base for this is low quality. If there is a difference then it's fairly subtle; there's certainly no clinical evidence to suggest that the ultra-rich are significantly different in their psychological makeup from the ordinarily wealthy.

It's a bit odd to call for fairness and kindness, while in the same breath dismissing a diverse group of people as essentially being irredeemably evil based on little more than speculation. It seems particularly weird to conflate Bill Gates and Roman Abramovich, when the only thing they really have in common is that they're very wealthy.

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