I picked “resisting social pressure” and then when I got the second message, I thought “Aha, I was asked if I value resisting social pressure, and now I’m offered the chance of applying social pressure to make things go my way, to see if I will defect against the very virtue I claimed to be in favor of! I’m guessing that there’s a different message tailored for each of the virtues, where everyone is offered some action that is actually the opposite of the virtue they claimed to endorse, to see how many people are consistent. Clever! Can’t wait to see what the opposite choice for the other virtues is.”
Now I’m slightly disappointed that this wasn’t the case.
Similar for me. I was very suspicious at first that the first message was a Scam and if I clicked I would blow up the website or something tricksy. Then with the second message I thought it might be customized to test my chosen virtue, “resisting social pressure”, so I didn’t click it.
I don’t think it’s inherently contradictory to apply social pressure while thinking that resisting social pressure is a virtue.
One possible reason for thinking that resisting social pressure is a virtue is if you think social pressure is generically bad, in which case applying it does indeed seem hypocritical. But it seems like there could be other reasons for considering that virtuous.
Perhaps you think that resisting social pressure shows personal strength and conviction, and that applying social pressure helps people to train their strength and conviction.
Or perhaps you think the world is made of a mixture of naturally-good people who can resist social pressure and naturally-bad people who can’t, and given that the bad people exist it’s pragmatically important to ensure that net social pressure points in a prosocial direction.
(In case it changes how you interpret my reasoning: I chose not to vote in the virtue poll.)
I picked “resisting social pressure” and then when I got the second message, I thought “Aha, I was asked if I value resisting social pressure, and now I’m offered the chance of applying social pressure to make things go my way, to see if I will defect against the very virtue I claimed to be in favor of! I’m guessing that there’s a different message tailored for each of the virtues, where everyone is offered some action that is actually the opposite of the virtue they claimed to endorse, to see how many people are consistent. Clever! Can’t wait to see what the opposite choice for the other virtues is.”
Now I’m slightly disappointed that this wasn’t the case.
I would be worried about opposite action for “avoiding to increase probability of doom”...
Similar for me. I was very suspicious at first that the first message was a Scam and if I clicked I would blow up the website or something tricksy. Then with the second message I thought it might be customized to test my chosen virtue, “resisting social pressure”, so I didn’t click it.
I don’t think it’s inherently contradictory to apply social pressure while thinking that resisting social pressure is a virtue.
One possible reason for thinking that resisting social pressure is a virtue is if you think social pressure is generically bad, in which case applying it does indeed seem hypocritical. But it seems like there could be other reasons for considering that virtuous.
Perhaps you think that resisting social pressure shows personal strength and conviction, and that applying social pressure helps people to train their strength and conviction.
Or perhaps you think the world is made of a mixture of naturally-good people who can resist social pressure and naturally-bad people who can’t, and given that the bad people exist it’s pragmatically important to ensure that net social pressure points in a prosocial direction.
(In case it changes how you interpret my reasoning: I chose not to vote in the virtue poll.)