And you feel that you can create disincentives against their performing this self-modification by making the annoyances even more common.
Even as a snide caricature, this is wrong. A lot of commenters here don’t seem to acknowledge three responses possible to claims of offence: to capitulate to them, to ignore them, and to flout them. The last two should not be conflated; the difference between them is the difference between illustrating an article on Muhammad with pictures (scroll down, since this example leans a little bit in the direction of capitulation) and participating in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.
Respectfully, I do not conflate ignoring and flouting. In a g-g-grandparent, I call these responses ‘not feeding the utility monster’ and ‘poking it with a stick’. Capitulation would correspond to ‘feeding the monster’. I implicitly advocated not feeding the monster; i.e. ignoring the claims of offense.
What I may have done, though, is to conflate VM with one of the many people here who advocate ‘poking them’. If so, I plead guilty with extenuating circumstances; I was seduced by the formal beauty of a side-by-side comparison of two diagnoses of mental malfunction:
They dislike us; we dislike them.
They therefore gain utility by annoying us; we gain utility by annoying them.
They annoy us by inducing us not to draw Mohammed; we annoy them by drawing Mohammed.
But that only annoys if we want to draw Mohammed; and the other only annoys if they despise having people draw Mohammed.
So we self-modify to want to draw Mohammed; and they self-modify to feel real pain when people draw Mohammed.
We accomplish this self-modification by convincing ourselves using arguments involving slippery slopes, lines in the sand, and the defense of freedom, together with an intuitive understanding of their devious psychology and a grasp of game theory. They accomplish this self modification using arguments involving slippery slopes, lines in the sand, and defense of the faith, together with an intuitive understanding of our Satanic psychology and a grasp of game theory.
Even as a snide caricature, this is wrong. A lot of commenters here don’t seem to acknowledge three responses possible to claims of offence: to capitulate to them, to ignore them, and to flout them. The last two should not be conflated; the difference between them is the difference between illustrating an article on Muhammad with pictures (scroll down, since this example leans a little bit in the direction of capitulation) and participating in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.
Respectfully, I do not conflate ignoring and flouting. In a g-g-grandparent, I call these responses ‘not feeding the utility monster’ and ‘poking it with a stick’. Capitulation would correspond to ‘feeding the monster’. I implicitly advocated not feeding the monster; i.e. ignoring the claims of offense.
What I may have done, though, is to conflate VM with one of the many people here who advocate ‘poking them’. If so, I plead guilty with extenuating circumstances; I was seduced by the formal beauty of a side-by-side comparison of two diagnoses of mental malfunction:
They dislike us; we dislike them.
They therefore gain utility by annoying us; we gain utility by annoying them.
They annoy us by inducing us not to draw Mohammed; we annoy them by drawing Mohammed.
But that only annoys if we want to draw Mohammed; and the other only annoys if they despise having people draw Mohammed.
So we self-modify to want to draw Mohammed; and they self-modify to feel real pain when people draw Mohammed.
We accomplish this self-modification by convincing ourselves using arguments involving slippery slopes, lines in the sand, and the defense of freedom, together with an intuitive understanding of their devious psychology and a grasp of game theory. They accomplish this self modification using arguments involving slippery slopes, lines in the sand, and defense of the faith, together with an intuitive understanding of our Satanic psychology and a grasp of game theory.
And a jolly time is had by all.
I think that this is what happened. There are people here who have advocated poking them, and I agree with you about that. But VM is not one of them.
I like your comparison.