Edited to add: I still believe there’s a core thing that’s pretty vital here (a hill I would die on), but I no longer believe my words below are adequate to gesture at that hill. I’m gonna retract the below comment for now to save my own and Habryka’s and others’ attention, then come back when I think I have a more adequate conceptualization. (I’m also still uncertain how much anyone disagrees with it, as I was explicit about in my original comment; but I’d like to post a revised comment when I work one out because I eventually want ~common knowledge of the relevant principle, if I can get it.)
Original comment in strikethrough below:
There’s a hill that is sometimes-central and sometimes-tangential to this discussion, that I will die on: this forum should not ask users to directly manage others’ feelings, basically ever.
(The word “directly” is doing some work here: the site should indeed ask users to be (certain kinds of) polite, and those politeness norms will indeed tend on average to cause fewer upset feelings. Similarly for some other good norms.)
Why should the forum ~never ask users to directly manage others’ feelings? Because it gives those others too much power over what actions are/aren’t acceptable, in a way that’s pretty confusing for everybody and messes with good boundaries. My degree of irritation over a LW comment-reply has to do with its epistemic and rhetorical virtues (which’re a reasonable thing to ask the author to optimize for) but also has to do with e.g. whether I missed lunch and whether the author reminds me of some difficult bit of my college years. It would be unreasonable of the site to e.g. demand that I eat lunch before engaging — that would be way too invasive and tangled-up; LW can ask actions of me but my emotions are my own business. It would be similarly unreasonable (and invasive, and tangled-up) for LW to ask the other user to attempt to optimize-for my emotions directly.
(By way of analogy, the rules of chess were perhaps crafted to cause fun and challenge and so on, but when I’m playing the literal board game of chess I’m not usually thinking about how to cause fun and challenge and so on to my opponent; I’m usually thinking about how to cause checkmate; and this is fine.)
I’m honestly not sure to what extent this is a point of disagreement:
Habryka states “The issue with Said is not that “he hurts people’s feelings”. I would never use that phrase…”
If I understand Vaniver correctly (which I’m not at all sure I do; I’m guessing some), his view is that Said and others should manage peoples feelings in cases where those feelings are “rational,” i.e. would not be destroyed by the truth. I disagree with this principle: my fasting-exacerbated feelings of irritation would not be destroyed by the truth (only by a sandwich) and are nonetheless a poor target for other LW-users’ optimization.
This comment thread contains an upvoted statement that “it absolutely is [your responsibility to manage other peoples’ feelings],” (which has sometimes had medium-high agreement votes, though at this moment has net-disagreement-votes), and some other statements I interpret along similar lines.
In any case, I would like to stand up for “this forum should not ask users to directly manage others’ feelings, basically ever” and to argue with anyone who wishes to disagree, if there are such people.
I think “managing people’s feelings” is too ambiguous of a term to make a principle out of. I can imagine some versions of it that feel good to me, and some version of it that seem quite bad to me.
As phrased, this would make it a bad principle to adopt because the ambiguity includes various interpretations of it that would IMO be catastrophic to the site, especially if we allowed users to push them all the way to the edge.
For example, it seems obvious to me that if someone experienced a recent tragic death, that if you are engaging them in comments directly, that you don’t make jokes related to that death, and expect them to take it in stride. Is this “managing someone’s emotions”? I think unambiguously yes. You might even be making jokes that would land a year or two later when the hurt is less raw. I also think it would be really pretty crazy for someone to do that (and also to not stop if asked to do that, because that is “asking them to manage someone else’s emotions”).
For example, it seems obvious to me that if someone experienced a recent tragic death, that if you are engaging them in comments directly, that you don’t make jokes related to that death, and expect them to take it in stride.
I agree with this example, but I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out where you’re going with it, and I currently disagree with “Is this ‘managing someone’s emotions’? I think unambiguously yes.”
Possibly my conceptualization of “asking people to manage others’ emotions” is not the clearest/best.
Do you have a guess about whether you and I disagree about anything substantial about norms? Do you have a phrasing you agree with that might capture the core thing I’m trying to stand up for here, in a way that is less confusing?
Hmm, I think I don’t really have a good positive example, or pointer, at the thing you mean by “not managing other people’s emotions”. Not making jokes you expect them to be triggered by, for sympathetic reasons, seemed to me like among the most central examples of managing someone’s emotions, so if that isn’t included I am now pretty confused what you are pointing to.
“Not asking users to directly manage other peoples feelings” was my original phrase, FWIW. (Emphases added.)
Two central examples of the kind of thing I have in mind (from elsewhere):
Person A says a thing, which upsets person B. Person A is expected to try to make B not-upset, kinda regardless of how this happened.
Participants in a large-group conversation are asked to “slow down” whenever at least one person in the conversation seems too triggered to process things well, even if this means [obviously interesting and relevant issue X] is never in fact talked about, or not at enough speed to get much throughput.
Part of my intuition here is that property rights and ~Hayekian natural law allow miracles of interactive productivity, and there’re a bunch of contexts in which this gets messed up when the {property rights and domains of allowed free choice and responsibility} get mangled.
Asking me to be (particular kinds of) polite is totally compatible with clear property rights of a sort that lets me choose freely what I’m gonna do, with an eye toward what I want to achieve, while leaving others a predictable domain in which they can do the same (without them needing to worry that I’ll mess up the rights they’re counting on). Asking me to not upset others (in generality) wouldn’t be.
Person A says a thing, which upsets person B. Person A is expected to try to make B not-upset, kinda regardless of how this happened.
But how is “not making a joke that would land well if not for the other interlocutor recently having experienced a tragic death that rhymes with that” not an example of this?
Or do you mean “there cannot be a norm that you are always responsible for someone else’s emotions, no matter how their emotions arise?”. In that case, sure, I agree with such a norm, but it also seems exceptionally weak. It doesn’t say much about there being some circumstances where we consider other people’s emotional reactions sympathetic, and worth modeling in the conversation, and the “recent tragic death” example is one such instance.
Edited to add: I still believe there’s a core thing that’s pretty vital here (a hill I would die on), but I no longer believe my words below are adequate to gesture at that hill. I’m gonna retract the below comment for now to save my own and Habryka’s and others’ attention, then come back when I think I have a more adequate conceptualization. (I’m also still uncertain how much anyone disagrees with it, as I was explicit about in my original comment; but I’d like to post a revised comment when I work one out because I eventually want ~common knowledge of the relevant principle, if I can get it.)
Original comment in strikethrough below:
There’s a hill that is sometimes-central and sometimes-tangential to this discussion, that I will die on: this forum should not ask users to directly manage others’ feelings, basically ever.(The word “directly” is doing some work here: the site should indeed ask users to be (certain kinds of) polite, and those politeness norms will indeed tend on average to cause fewer upset feelings. Similarly for some other good norms.)Why should the forum ~never ask users to directly manage others’ feelings? Because it gives those others too much power over what actions are/aren’t acceptable, in a way that’s pretty confusing for everybody and messes with good boundaries. My degree of irritation over a LW comment-reply has to do with its epistemic and rhetorical virtues (which’re a reasonable thing to ask the author to optimize for) but also has to do with e.g. whether I missed lunch and whether the author reminds me of some difficult bit of my college years. It would be unreasonable of the site to e.g. demand that I eat lunch before engaging — that would be way too invasive and tangled-up; LW can ask actions of me but my emotions are my own business. It would be similarly unreasonable (and invasive, and tangled-up) for LW to ask the other user to attempt to optimize-for my emotions directly.(By way of analogy, the rules of chess were perhaps crafted to cause fun and challenge and so on, but when I’m playing the literal board game of chess I’m not usually thinking about how to cause fun and challenge and so on to my opponent; I’m usually thinking about how to cause checkmate; and this is fine.)I’m honestly not sure to what extent this is a point of disagreement:Habrykastates“The issue with Said is not that “he hurts people’s feelings”. I would never use that phrase…”If I understandVanivercorrectly (which I’m not at all sure I do; I’m guessing some), his view is that Said and others should manage peoples feelings in cases where those feelings are “rational,” i.e. would not be destroyed by the truth. I disagree with this principle: my fasting-exacerbated feelings of irritation would not be destroyed by the truth (only by a sandwich) and are nonetheless a poor target for other LW-users’ optimization.This comment thread contains an upvotedstatementthat “it absolutely is [your responsibility to manage other peoples’ feelings],” (which has sometimes had medium-high agreement votes, though at this moment has net-disagreement-votes), and some other statements I interpret along similar lines.In any case, I would like to stand up for “this forum should not ask users to directly manage others’ feelings, basically ever” and to argue with anyone who wishes to disagree, if there are such people.I think “managing people’s feelings” is too ambiguous of a term to make a principle out of. I can imagine some versions of it that feel good to me, and some version of it that seem quite bad to me.
As phrased, this would make it a bad principle to adopt because the ambiguity includes various interpretations of it that would IMO be catastrophic to the site, especially if we allowed users to push them all the way to the edge.
For example, it seems obvious to me that if someone experienced a recent tragic death, that if you are engaging them in comments directly, that you don’t make jokes related to that death, and expect them to take it in stride. Is this “managing someone’s emotions”? I think unambiguously yes. You might even be making jokes that would land a year or two later when the hurt is less raw. I also think it would be really pretty crazy for someone to do that (and also to not stop if asked to do that, because that is “asking them to manage someone else’s emotions”).
I agree with this example, but I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out where you’re going with it, and I currently disagree with “Is this ‘managing someone’s emotions’? I think unambiguously yes.”
Possibly my conceptualization of “asking people to manage others’ emotions” is not the clearest/best.
Do you have a guess about whether you and I disagree about anything substantial about norms? Do you have a phrasing you agree with that might capture the core thing I’m trying to stand up for here, in a way that is less confusing?
Hmm, I think I don’t really have a good positive example, or pointer, at the thing you mean by “not managing other people’s emotions”. Not making jokes you expect them to be triggered by, for sympathetic reasons, seemed to me like among the most central examples of managing someone’s emotions, so if that isn’t included I am now pretty confused what you are pointing to.
“Not asking users to directly manage other peoples feelings” was my original phrase, FWIW. (Emphases added.)
Two central examples of the kind of thing I have in mind (from elsewhere):
Person A says a thing, which upsets person B. Person A is expected to try to make B not-upset, kinda regardless of how this happened.
Participants in a large-group conversation are asked to “slow down” whenever at least one person in the conversation seems too triggered to process things well, even if this means [obviously interesting and relevant issue X] is never in fact talked about, or not at enough speed to get much throughput.
Part of my intuition here is that property rights and ~Hayekian natural law allow miracles of interactive productivity, and there’re a bunch of contexts in which this gets messed up when the {property rights and domains of allowed free choice and responsibility} get mangled.
Asking me to be (particular kinds of) polite is totally compatible with clear property rights of a sort that lets me choose freely what I’m gonna do, with an eye toward what I want to achieve, while leaving others a predictable domain in which they can do the same (without them needing to worry that I’ll mess up the rights they’re counting on). Asking me to not upset others (in generality) wouldn’t be.
But how is “not making a joke that would land well if not for the other interlocutor recently having experienced a tragic death that rhymes with that” not an example of this?
Or do you mean “there cannot be a norm that you are always responsible for someone else’s emotions, no matter how their emotions arise?”. In that case, sure, I agree with such a norm, but it also seems exceptionally weak. It doesn’t say much about there being some circumstances where we consider other people’s emotional reactions sympathetic, and worth modeling in the conversation, and the “recent tragic death” example is one such instance.