Sometimes I tell somebody about a problem in our relation. An answer I often hear is an honest “What do you want me to do”. This is probably well-intentioned most of the time, but I really don’t like this answer. I much prefer when the other person starts to use their cognitive resources to optimize the problem to smithereens. “What do you want me to do” is the lazy answer. It is the answer you give to be agreeable. It makes it seem like you don’t care about the problem, or at least not enough for you to invest effort into fixing it.
This is highly dependent on the relation and the problem. If you don’t have a ready answer to “what should I do”, then you probably should be asking and discussion whether and what kind of problem there is, prior to expecting someone to put a bunch of thought into your short description.
Yes. I was thinking about the scenario where I make it absolutely clear that there is a problem. I feel that should be enough reason for them to start optimizing, and not take my inability to provide a policy for them to execute as an excuse to ignore the problem. Though I probably could describe the problem better. See also this.
Fair enough—those details matter in human relationships, and it’s probably not possible to abstract/generalize enough for you to be comfortable posting while still getting useful feedback in this forum.
I do worry that a lot of LW readers’ model of society and relationships is more symmetrical in goals and attitudes than is justified by experience and observation. Other-optimization (Trying to make someone more effective in satisfying your goals) is not pretty.
In this case, I mean that I’d be kind of shocked if most humans, even close friends or romantic partners, react to “here’s a problem I see in our relationship” with the openness and vigor you seem to expect.
In general, I mean there’s often a denial of the fact that most people are more selfish than we want to project.
Do you mean “What do you want me to do” in the tone of voice that means “There’s nothing to do here, bugger off”? Or do you mean “What do you want me to do?” in the tone of voice that means “I’m ready to help with this. What should I do to remedy the problem?”?
I mean the situation where they are serious. If I would tell them a solution they would consider it and might even implement it. But they are not pointing their consequentialist reasoning skills toward the problem to crush it. See also this comment.
“What do you want me to do?” prods you to give concrete examples of what a solution looks like. That can reveal aspects of the problem you didn’t realize, and implicitly shows people an model of the problem. Which is crucial, because communicating is hard, even with people you’re close to. Especially if they haven’t didn’t notice the problem themselves.
I have not communicated the subtleties here. I was mainly complaining about a situation where the other person is not making the mental move of actually trying to solve the problem. When I don’t have an answer to “What do you want me to do?”, they see it as an excuse, to do nothing and move on. Your interpretation presupposes that they are trying to solve the problem. If somebody would do what you are describing, they would do well to state that explicitly.
“What do you want me to do?” is much worse than “What do you want me to do? I am asking because maybe you have already thought of a solution, and it is just a matter of you telling me how to implement it. Then I can go ahead and implement it if I also think it is a good solution. If not that is fine too. In this case, let’s try to solve the problem together. Let’s first get clearer about what a solution would look like. What are the relevant properties a solution should have, and what is weighting on these properties? …”
Sometimes I tell somebody about a problem in our relation. An answer I often hear is an honest “What do you want me to do”. This is probably well-intentioned most of the time, but I really don’t like this answer. I much prefer when the other person starts to use their cognitive resources to optimize the problem to smithereens. “What do you want me to do” is the lazy answer. It is the answer you give to be agreeable. It makes it seem like you don’t care about the problem, or at least not enough for you to invest effort into fixing it.
This is highly dependent on the relation and the problem. If you don’t have a ready answer to “what should I do”, then you probably should be asking and discussion whether and what kind of problem there is, prior to expecting someone to put a bunch of thought into your short description.
Yes. I was thinking about the scenario where I make it absolutely clear that there is a problem. I feel that should be enough reason for them to start optimizing, and not take my inability to provide a policy for them to execute as an excuse to ignore the problem. Though I probably could describe the problem better. See also this.
Fair enough—those details matter in human relationships, and it’s probably not possible to abstract/generalize enough for you to be comfortable posting while still getting useful feedback in this forum.
I do worry that a lot of LW readers’ model of society and relationships is more symmetrical in goals and attitudes than is justified by experience and observation. Other-optimization (Trying to make someone more effective in satisfying your goals) is not pretty.
What do you mean by this?
In this case, I mean that I’d be kind of shocked if most humans, even close friends or romantic partners, react to “here’s a problem I see in our relationship” with the openness and vigor you seem to expect.
In general, I mean there’s often a denial of the fact that most people are more selfish than we want to project.
Do you mean “What do you want me to do” in the tone of voice that means “There’s nothing to do here, bugger off”? Or do you mean “What do you want me to do?” in the tone of voice that means “I’m ready to help with this. What should I do to remedy the problem?”?
I mean the situation where they are serious. If I would tell them a solution they would consider it and might even implement it. But they are not pointing their consequentialist reasoning skills toward the problem to crush it. See also this comment.
“What do you want me to do?” prods you to give concrete examples of what a solution looks like. That can reveal aspects of the problem you didn’t realize, and implicitly shows people an model of the problem. Which is crucial, because communicating is hard, even with people you’re close to. Especially if they haven’t didn’t notice the problem themselves.
I have not communicated the subtleties here. I was mainly complaining about a situation where the other person is not making the mental move of actually trying to solve the problem. When I don’t have an answer to “What do you want me to do?”, they see it as an excuse, to do nothing and move on. Your interpretation presupposes that they are trying to solve the problem. If somebody would do what you are describing, they would do well to state that explicitly.
“What do you want me to do?” is much worse than “What do you want me to do? I am asking because maybe you have already thought of a solution, and it is just a matter of you telling me how to implement it. Then I can go ahead and implement it if I also think it is a good solution. If not that is fine too. In this case, let’s try to solve the problem together. Let’s first get clearer about what a solution would look like. What are the relevant properties a solution should have, and what is weighting on these properties? …”