> I think the same could be said for the commercialized version of anti-racism that’s been embraced by brands both personal and corporate. The kind that emphasizes microaggressions and representation over social and economic emergencies. Politically speaking, niceness is good, but kindness is urgent. Clapping for essential workers is nice, paying them a liveable wage is urgent. Using the right pronouns is nice; ensuring rights, safety, and protection for trans people is urgent. “Nothing happens after the pronoun check-ins and the icebreakers,” Green, who is Black and non-binary, wrote. “It's rare we make sure that people's immediate needs are addressed.”
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?
> 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.
In addition to the Nice vs Kind distinction, there is the sort which is “Nice” or “Kind” to one person/people with the tactic of explicitly being “Mean” or “Evil” to someone else.
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.
Indeed. I would go so far as to say that it's only true kindness when it's kind to everyone. (I wrote a top-level comment here with a link to a piece I recently wrote about this.)
So following the original Author's Nice (optics over results) vs Kind (results over optics) IDK how Mean (optics over results) vs Evil (results over optics) actually works.
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.
> What does a Mean act that doesn't harm the other person look like?
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.
So the stakes are low, but it's objectively harmful. If you cut in line, it takes longer for me to get through the line than if you weren't there. Compare this to the "Nice" act of throwing out "thoughts and prayers" when someone says their house burned down.
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.
Cutting in line is harmful in the grand scheme of things. If everyone cuts society devolves into anarchy. It's only by policing cutters and fostering a culture of it's not okay to cut that we keep society functioning. Sure, in some cultures people still cut but we still have to push back or the society just gets worse and worse.
I'm also trying to figure out if they're abusing niceness or kindness when they cut the line. Perhaps both? They clearly expect people to just let them in and not resist. One time there was a huge line in passport control to come home. A couple tried to cut in front of me, bypassing about a 15 minute wait. I very nicely pointed out where the end of the line was. It was not kind to them perhaps, but it was kind to the rest of the folks that would have to wait a while longer, especially if folks kept cutting because they kept being held up by other cutters, and seeing that cutting worked. So perhaps it's abusing the tradeoff between kindness to them as people and kindness to the rest of the line.
>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").
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.
Just about everything you described (aside from "bureaucracy" which is a net neutral) could be considered Punishment, or punitive behavior. They're not doing Evil with the goal being harm, but some version of "this will fix things/this will get them to stop being bad".
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.
I'm not following your comment in relation to the one you replied to
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
So we agree, the post I was responding to was confusing.
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.
I think most everyone who actively hurts others have "Motivated Reasoned" up a story about how they deserve it, and this is a noble just action that improves the world.
I (as well as most social psychologists) agree with you. Everyone's the hero of their own story. You bomb an abortion clinic to "save the children" and you bomb parliament because "the politicians are all corrupt" and you bomb another country because "they would do it to you if given the chance".
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.
> 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").
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?
> Stand at a flight of stairs in the NYC subway with a stroller. Someone will grab the other end, help you carry the stroller, and then walk away without saying a word.
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.
Wow, something very similar happened to me when I first came to America to study from Ghana and landed in NYC. Struggling with my luggage up a flight of stairs from the subway station, a young lady grabbed the other end of my heaviest bag, helped me up with it, and left without saying a word.
Cool to hear this is not uncommon. This incident is indeed also one of my most enduring memories of NYC.
When I was in Amsterdam a couple years back, walking up a hilly street, I saw a lady with a stroller hanging out with her friends and chatting away while the stroller with baby inside started to roll down the hill towards me. I grabbed the stroller and rolled it back up to her about six feet or so. She looked at me, looked at the stroller, then laughed briefly and went back to talking to her friends. I just kept walking and thought, “that was one of the strangest short interactions I’ve ever had with somebody.” I put it down to something culturally Dutch that I didn’t understand.
Dang, I've been trying to find the street on Google street maps to see just how slopped it was, but it was too long ago now and I can't remember which street it was. The facts that it was near a pot cafe and a wooden shoe store really don't help.
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.
I have been on the other end of this somewhat often, as one does when they take the subway to/from work every day.
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.
Yes this is part of it for sure - help me help you, we're all trying to just go about our day here.. let me lend a hand.
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.
>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,
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.
We had a similar experience when living in NY with two small children. People would always offer to help, but one time in particular a woman grabbed the front of the stroller and started helping me down the subway stairs, then she looked back and said "Could you please go faster, I'm running late". She was in no obligation to help us in the first place. We got to the bottom and she ran off to a train.
I found New Yorkers are always happy to lend a hand when needed.
I was in NYC a year ago and as I was walking down the subway stairs, I saw a woman - black, maybe 60 years old - struggling to get up the stairs with what looked like a heavy bag. I moved out of the way, then said, "nah," went back, asked her if she needed help, she said, "you're the only one who asked, thank you," and carried the bag upstairs. It was much lighter than expected, maybe 10 pounds. And I went on my way.
>It was much lighter than expected, maybe 10 pounds
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?
That's why I wrote my comment, I had a very different experience than the one reported in the previous comment. Mine is genuinely a single data point though, but it was a curious difference.
Is that your experience in large cities? I'm sorry to hear it. You can see, in this discussion, that many others have a different one. Maybe there's a way to access those experiences. I do find that it depends on how I approach the city and people - openness, trust, and compassion can strongly impact the responses I get. Pushiness, suspicion, and alarm gets poor responses - for one thing, nobody has time for it. In fact, when I'm feeling that way, if I want to shift my perspective I repeat to myself, 'trust, care, help'.
The things people romanticize, especially when it comes to nyc. Nobody wants the stairs blocked in a subway. It ruins everyone's day. A mother with a stroller is a potential hazard on the stairs and it takes almost no effort or time to help her up or down the stairs. And it's a nice thing to do. A win win situation. When you have millions of residents and even more tourists moving about the city every day, you need to be practical. It's why people wait by the side of the doors to let the passengers off the train first before getting on. It's why people stand on the right side of escalators and let the people in a hurry walk on the left. You built up someone helping to carry a stroller up some stairs into a hollywood production.
I am sorry to hear that you have a need to see stories where the helper is also a beneficiary as being romanticised and not “real”. In my opinion, the acts being “self-serving” doesn’t stop them from being kind. Kindness is enlightened self-interest. Everyone wins. How wonderful. Why does the helper have to “lose” for this retelling to be romanticised?
-
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.
> I am sorry to hear that you have a need to see stories where the helper is also a beneficiary as being romanticised and not “real”.
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.
If someone in NYC came up to me and started acting friendly on the street I'd assume they were trying to scam me, sell me something, or get me to sign a pamphlet. It's more considerate to offer the help with no ceremony.
This is the oil that makes society work. Hold the door, help someone with a package/stroller. Properly merge like a zipper at a highway lane closure. Give your seat to the elderly/pregnant person.
No need for thank you or your welcome… maybe exchange friendly smiles.
> kindness may be ‘Ugh, you've said that five times, here's a sweater!’
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.
I love that people are beginning to make this distinction. I wrote a take on it recently that I might as well share here. Trigger warning for people who don't like mystical language!
"""
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.
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.
>Does mystical language honestly require a trigger warning?
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."
If its use was facetious, Poe's Law definitely applies here. Since you don't find mysticism helpful, that's one thing. If you found it triggering, that's another.
>If its use was facetious, Poe's Law definitely applies here. Since you don't find mysticism helpful, that's one thing. If you found it triggering, that's another.
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 could make a Bill O'Reilly tide chart that marks its columns with
"Tide goes in" and "tide goes out"*
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.
Unsurprisingly (well, at least to me), I was unfamiliar with the video you posted. Can a five and a half minute video be a "meme"?
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.
Sorry, didn't see this until just now. I wasn't intending to be flippant, but I also wasn't aware of the concern people have over broadening the usage of "trigger warning." I'll take that into account next time.
While the word choice feels awkward, what the author is trying to say about generalized east coast culture versus generalized west coast culture is SPOT ON. I've lived in five states, on an island, and outside the USA as well, and I would absolutely use these kinds of examples to differentiate NYC from LA, or Philly from Seattle, etc. Most of the mid-west and southern Ontario fall into this "east coast" cultural norm as well (even more extremely on the kindness side).
I live in Toronto and can confirm. People will say Torontonians are mean and aren't as friendly as the rest of Ontario/Canada, but when it snows you'll be hard pressed to find any able-bodied person not helping out random stuck cars they pass while walking. Much like the article says, you'll basically just get a wave or a shake of the head after the deed is done.
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.
After a major snowstorm (not in Toronto), I encountered an elderly person trying to dig out their car. I took their shovel, with little interaction as is described, and dug them out. It was some work. I also shoveled the curb to the sidewalk and around to the driver side, so they wouldn't slip.
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.
I think the difference of Toronto (versus much the rest of Canada) is not about helping dig/push cars slid down into the rhubarb, or high-centered on a snowbank - most all of Canadians likely would.
But in Calgary, Manitoba, Waterloo... I've done and seen people at this while also having a nice conversation.
I slightly object to the idea that the East Coast brusqueness should be interpreted as less "nice." If we're mapping "kindness" to "actually solving real problems" and "niceness" to "being polite about things" -- politeness is a cultural idea.
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.
This is exactly one of the things I absolutely hate about the Midwest. I want to get my groceries, or beer, or gas, and get the fuck out. But everyone feels the need to have a goddamn conversation in the checkout line. Get your shit and move on.
As an ex midwesterner, it's something I kinda miss. People elsewhere come across as short or even rude by comparison. But you're right, things are definitely slower.
Really? You think that talking to people I spend a third of my life with is the same as chit chatting with complete strangers at a grocery store? I feel sorry for your coworkers.
for some people this is flipped, and for some people it's not a valuable distinction. people who shop at the same grocery store as me are part of my community--much closer to my coworkers than to commenters on hacker news, for example
We've got a couple armchair psychologists in this thread. Like precise level of professional distance kept is a deep insight into our psyches. One iota more? Maybe you've replaced your family with your work family. One iota less? You are probably clinically depressed.
One of the kickers that my ex was clinically depressed was her inability to make small talk with strangers or summon the energy to interact with anyone outside of predefined activities / roles.
Small talk bullshit like that ain't hard. Toss out some one-word responses or thought terminated cliches.
>I slightly object to the idea that the East Coast brusqueness should be interpreted as less "nice." If we're mapping "kindness" to "actually solving real problems" and "niceness" to "being polite about things" -- politeness is a cultural idea.
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! ;)
Kant's categorical imperative is a circlular argument from religion - bad things are bad because they're bad, good things are good because they're good. He advocated for telling a murderer where their intended victim is, because lying is categorically wrong [1]. Deontology can only be justified by religion; utilitarianism (ethics come from the outcome) is the better option.
Also Kant positioning himself as a moral philosopher is pretty ironic because he was insanely racist.
> 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 (ethics come from the outcome) is the better option
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?
> Utilitarianism is just as subject to countering every argument for it with "yeah, but why?"
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.
Because pleasure is the word we use to describe positive feelings, ie feelings that people intrinsically want. Suffering is its inverse, something people intrinsically don't want. A utilitarian identifies the good with giving people what they want. You can define 'good' in other ways if you don't agree that giving people what they want is good, but then I think you'd have to justify a superior definition.
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.
My point is that the only real argument for or against utilitarianism is whether you think it sounds correct. "I want the world to be like this" is where the whys ultimately end. If the killer argument against Kant was his reliance on God, this is not much of an upgrade.
The actual place where the 'whys' end is the axiomatic foundations of the model. The axioms for the categorical imperative are self-referential in the abstract (universal rules are good because they are good), whereas the axioms for utilitarianism are rooted in maximising subjective human experience. One is fundamentally materialist, the other idealist. You are right in that you can't argue on those grounds because the two sides value different things, in the same way that religious versus material justifications for actions cannot be reconciled. That does not mean that they have equal merit.
That these axioms are just statements held as true, with no actual motivation why. Because of that, it's really hard to argue in favor of one system of ethics over the other on any more solid ground than "this sounds true", or appealing to the consequences if it was true.
"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.
OK so now we're drifting from ethics into epistemology, ontology and the value of constructed models - as I said before, that's my bread and butter. You're arguing for a relativistic, practically nihilistic interpretation of models where it's all made up anyway so no one model can be better than another. I take an anti-realist position, that there's nothing about morality that is intrinsic to reality, but that we invent our models to guide our actions towards outcomes we desire. The outcome of the categorical imperative is rigid adherence to rules that have no bearing with reality, the outcome of utilitarianism is preference fulfilment for as many people as possible. These goals are not equal in value unless you think that twiddling your thumbs and solving world hunger are goals of equal value, in which case I'd say nihilism is an anti-philosophy primarily held by edgy teenagers and does nothing for anybody except provide an ego defence against criticism, like ironic detachment. I wouldn't recommend pursuing it as a guiding principle.
Not a problem, I'm here all night. Hit me up if you need the ontological question of substance answering too: it's materialism.
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.
> what are you supposed to do with a moral system that requires you to
adhere to rules regardless of outcome?
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 believe there are two routes you can go with philosophy: you can simply explore ideas within the fields you're interested in, or you can use it to guide your actions. Different fields are more or less practically applicable; ethics is somewhat useful, where something like Descartian radical doubt is a purely theoretical exercise. I do enjoy playing around with some ideas, but my primary interest is getting use-value (you could say utility, even!) out of them. Mill used utility to guide his actions and was, for his era, a very progressive and humanist individual. My interests skew towards practical ideas in ethics, epistemology and ontology, philosophy of science, sociology & political theory etc. Just wanting to play with and consider ideas is valid, but it's not the only use of philosophy.
> but my primary interest is getting use-value (you could say utility,
even!)
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...
You don't need to explain the benefit of a general philosophical education, friend - I have a few areas that I've learned about because I think they approach truth, while not being directly applicable. My ontological perspective is made up of a mix of Deleuze, Whitehead, Zen and cybernetics, for instance - it sits in the background guiding my perspective while not being 'a tool' as such. Agreed on the middle path; an education in the liberal arts can contribute to general development and actualisation.
Every ethicical framework has issues at the edges. Whether they be based in categorical imperatives or utilitarianism.
> 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.
I disagree that selfishness is the root of ethics; I think the root of ethics is the desire for a higher good, for the world to be a better place for the people living in it, which is fundamentally altruistic.
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.
refusing to share without feigning ignorance doesn't seem like a lie to me. there's not much value in applying the problem to a simple choice between being an accomplice and being a liar--nor is there in dismissing egalitarian ideas from an eighteenth century european philosopher over some other ideas that were widely misunderstood as appropriate at the time
Yea now I remember it's Plato... Alex (beacon)'s objection to
universalised deontology came, I think, from a dialogue - I can't
remember or seem to find online it now, but it's probably in Republic
2? where Socrates, Cephalus, Polemarchus and Thrasymachus are getting
pissed and talking about weapons and the scenario comes up "Would you
give a knife back to someone who is really angry and saying they'll
kill someone - or would you lie and say you lost it" or similar. And
one of them says "It wouldn't be dishonourable (a real lie) to pretend
in that circumstance" - as you say "feigning ignorance doesn't seem
like a lie to me". So even though a Kantian lens 2000 years later,
lies have a little leeway for being "economical with the truth" under
difficult conditions. Kant doesn't chisel it in stone, he says make it
unversalisable, in which case the firmware update just makes the new
universalisable "Never tell lies unless a murderer urgently wants his
knife back".
A challenge I have with this framing is it suggests a binary when none is necessary.
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 propose that that "Nice but not Kind" caricature is actually incredibly rare to the point of non-existence.
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.
> 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".
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)
> 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.
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.)
>Can you offer some examples of help that is being offered in favour of taking them out to brunch and "being there"?
- 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. ;)
My point is that these situations don't give the opportunity to ALSO be Kind.
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.
How do you conclude "no action" though? Like how do you know what they donate their time to, how they vote, how they try to change minds, where they donate $, etc.?
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!
> 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.)
Time is a factor but not completely. It still seems to be a subconscious decision, and maybe something to do with your childhood upbringing.
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.
It's also possible that the extremes are actually the two global optima. But I agree that personal temperament and perhaps upbringing has a lot to do with it.
> But who out there is preaching proper pronoun usage WITHOUT supporting legislation for protection of trans people?
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).
An example here would be the people who protest the breakdown of homeless shantytowns (from which bussing to shelters is provided) but also protest any new shelter being built in their zip code.
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.
There's also well meaning but poorly thought out activist maximalism.
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?
They are centrist by any political spectrum definition
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.
> 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.
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."
> Does anyone think that "virtue-signaling, caring-about-optics, overly politically correct, social justice warriers" are being nice?
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.
> virtue: donating anonymously to 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.
except that money isn't distributed democratically.......
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.
I fail to see the virtue in forcibly spending someone else's money on your favorite cause, even if it is a good cause.
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.
I could send my whole life savings / net worth off to some organization that is addressing climate change and it won't make a drop in the bucket and nothing will change.
That is why taxation is coercive to force people to cooperate, and to provide guarantees that other people are cooperating in addition to you and to spread the load out.
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%.
> The USSR was forced cooperation. The US is voluntary. Which economy fared better?
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.
> When has Microsoft forced you to cooperate with them?
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.
> virtue signalling: demanding the government fund your favorite cause
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.
Perhaps true, but that has no bearing on whether you're being virtuous or not.
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.
I am missing something about this distinction: It seems your actions, such as organizing community action via government or voting, are definitely implicated in your virtue. Why are these actions, which have serious consequences, treated differently from other actions? If I organize neighbors to pickup trash, or work through city council to clean the street, what is the difference other than the mechanisms?
Thanks for explaining and I understand your point.
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 see again the idea that for people to cooperate, compulsion must be used. I don't agree with this at all, and the US is full of effective and efficient cooperation without compulsion. These can involve literally tens of thousands of people, all voluntarily cooperating towards a common goal.
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).
> 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.
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.
Although kindness is seen as a virtue and niceness a sin in many arenas in life, in some business settings being superficially nice and ruthless is seen as a virtue. I wonder if there is more accessible content discussing how to deal with such people and situations
In Philly someone can call you an asshole (usually worse) and it it can put a smile on your face. Brotherly love man, it's one of the few places I feel like I can be myself.
I'm reminded of the musical Into the Woods, which makes this kind of distinction one of its central themes, as particularly embodied by the witch ("I'm not nice, I'm not good, I'm just right"). One of the songs is focused on her confrontation with the musical's set of other fairy-tale characters about how they care more about being "nice" (that is, saving face and not feeling morally culpable about anything) than about either being "good" (taking morally correct actions and accepting personal suffering in the process) or being "right" (fixing the kingdom's major ongoing crisis, whatever the cost).
Well, that's a good question, isn't it? None of the characters, including the witch, are without their flaws and problems in their worldview. You might be interested in watching the musical to find out more.
I've seen it. Sondheim is brilliant but the musical's extreme relativism, as I understand it - anything is ok as long as you accept the consequences - lost me and didn't seem to have a basis in the story.
This is wonderfully articulate and motivates me at least to aim for a more stoic approach to life. Makes me wonder what I can do to help the world as mostly I don’t do much at all for wider society. At least I don’t tweet nice stuff to compensate!
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'd add one more differentiation. "Nice" doesn't require much effort but "kind" does. Being kind might require some sacrifice. Maybe it's voting against the zoning law that will increase your property value.
"Kindness" is one of those words that we've all recently agreed is an Absolute Anchor of Goodness. It's in everyone's mouth and on all the yard signs. But since no one agrees on what Goodness is, we don't agree on what Kindness is either. The "nice vs. kind" distinction is one of the ways we (indirectly) challenge that Absolute.
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.
Interesting that I can so easily argue the reverse in terms of her political alignments:
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!
Right you have some of this strain of thought in the more extreme environmental class.
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.
Quite the opposite: It's Good >> Nice/Kind. It's saying things that are very unpopular, pointing out realities that people are uncomfortable with, because it's good and necessary, regardless of the very un-nice, unkind responses you get. The idea is that we cannot fail to talk about and address these things anymore, just because some people are uncomfortable and it's challenging social norms to say them.
No, because it's doesn't work. So the fact that it's ineffective as well as quite often hypocritical means it's optics > results. If you want results, doing the "woke" thing won't get you any.
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.
In fact, there is a lot of racial violence, and people have been generally unaware of and denied it when they encountered it. It was people who chose to be woke that brought it to non-Black society's attention, and they were of course ridiculed and denied (par for the course) until George Floyd.
Applying this to engineering orgs, one of my hiring principles has been “hire kind people.” My thought was that you can teach people lots of things, but you can’t teach people to be kind. I’m probably wrong on that, but it’s seemed true in the context of building teams. You can more easily teach niceness than kindness, anyway.
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.
A really great question. In my experience, there is no single set of interview questions that get at that trait. However, you gain some sense of their capacity for kindness in how they answer interpersonal questions, conflict resolution, and how they think about working with teams. Also, in my experience kind people tend to recognize other kind people. I often think this is what "culture fit" x-factors end up amounting to.
The best coworker I've ever had was a CTO who was well known for being grumpy. He leaned into it, with a Darth Vader head on his desk, an internal email signature identifying him as "CTO, Grumpiness," etc. When I actually started working with him on projects, I realized he was unbelievably kind. He taught me most of what I know about software project management and designing architectures. Over the course of a few years, I spent dozens of hours in his office with him going over problems and possible solutions on his whiteboard and making sure I understood, followed by me watching him code a quick proof of concept.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 234 ms ] thread23 ‘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?
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.
https://youtu.be/QJpRSf4q-hI
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.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiQZaGNX108
-
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 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://hackmd.io/@monktastic/Its-all-you
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].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
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!
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! ;)
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.
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.
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've yet to see this put as succinctly as this.
In LA they say "good morning" and mean "fuck you".
In NY they say "fuck you" and mean "good morning".
How is that right, if you ignore the costs (such as evil)? What the heck does "right" mean?
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!
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/
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.
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.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027652/
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
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.