There is the possibility that the other party is able and willing to punish you for refusing to engage. Aside from promoting them from “treat as Hostile Arguer” to “treat as hostile, period”, I’m not sure what to do about this.
You’re dealing with children[1], but you’re treating them like adults[2]. Throw your resentment away, stop arguing, and start manipulating with kindness [3].
[1] Children: Humans with certain mental blocks who nonetheless are good hearted. They might be better than you in some areas, but they can’t really think properly. When dealing with children, you have to extrapolate their volition to what they would do if they were adults when taking their preferences into account, rather than giving them full control.
[2] Adults: People above, on, or near your own level with respect to thinking. These are the folks who get better at pursuing their own interests the more information you give them and the more you talk to them.
[3] Act and speak as is in everyone’s best interests. That doesn’t mean you have to feel resentful towards them—it’s just that, there are certain things you do not say and certain freedoms you do not give to children, because they aren’t equipped to deal with it properly. You can still love them.
That’s my general protocol for dealing emotionally unstable / less intelligent / otherwise problematic individuals. The child/adult thing is just the most common case of rationality differential—children are sometimes adults and adults are sometimes children. It’s also not literally about intelligence—someone who is extremely smart, but who has a horribly temper or is a drug addict, is treated as a “child” for all cases where more information would trigger a bad behavior.
To add a little more nuance, most people can be children in certain settings and adults in other settings. For example, the addict can be treated as an adult in most situations, but is a child in situations involving the problematic substance. Remember, human rationality is bounded and different people are bounded differently. The very eldest and wisest adults have figured out where they are more bounded than others and allow others to take the lead in those scenarios, taking the child’s role willingly.
The problem faced by the study hall guy is that his/her parents are following the protocal I outlined, but they are misextrapolating his volition. That’s what “you’ll understand when you are older” means—they think that his extrapolated volition would agree with them. If he’s ready to be a grown up, he has to do the same to them...except he has to extrapolate their volition correctly. Prioritizing someone’s extrapolated volition over their true volition often means not being totally honest and not obeying dutifully. The drawback is that you might extrapolate wrong, and then we have an Unfriendly issue. If he does it correctly, they’ll both be fairly happy with the result.
(To an extent. Leading an elaborate double life or something in service of keeping the “children” happy is not recommended. It’s okay to disappoint them sometimes too, they’ll understand when they’re o-...well, I mean, they would understand, if they were somehow made smarter, better, stronger, etc versions of themselves.).
You’re dealing with children[1], but you’re treating them like adults[2]. Throw your resentment away, stop arguing, and start manipulating with kindness [3].
[1] Children: Humans with certain mental blocks who nonetheless are good hearted. They might be better than you in some areas, but they can’t really think properly. When dealing with children, you have to extrapolate their volition to what they would do if they were adults when taking their preferences into account, rather than giving them full control.
[2] Adults: People above, on, or near your own level with respect to thinking. These are the folks who get better at pursuing their own interests the more information you give them and the more you talk to them.
[3] Act and speak as is in everyone’s best interests. That doesn’t mean you have to feel resentful towards them—it’s just that, there are certain things you do not say and certain freedoms you do not give to children, because they aren’t equipped to deal with it properly. You can still love them.
That’s my general protocol for dealing emotionally unstable / less intelligent / otherwise problematic individuals. The child/adult thing is just the most common case of rationality differential—children are sometimes adults and adults are sometimes children. It’s also not literally about intelligence—someone who is extremely smart, but who has a horribly temper or is a drug addict, is treated as a “child” for all cases where more information would trigger a bad behavior.
To add a little more nuance, most people can be children in certain settings and adults in other settings. For example, the addict can be treated as an adult in most situations, but is a child in situations involving the problematic substance. Remember, human rationality is bounded and different people are bounded differently. The very eldest and wisest adults have figured out where they are more bounded than others and allow others to take the lead in those scenarios, taking the child’s role willingly.
The problem faced by the study hall guy is that his/her parents are following the protocal I outlined, but they are misextrapolating his volition. That’s what “you’ll understand when you are older” means—they think that his extrapolated volition would agree with them. If he’s ready to be a grown up, he has to do the same to them...except he has to extrapolate their volition correctly. Prioritizing someone’s extrapolated volition over their true volition often means not being totally honest and not obeying dutifully. The drawback is that you might extrapolate wrong, and then we have an Unfriendly issue. If he does it correctly, they’ll both be fairly happy with the result.
(To an extent. Leading an elaborate double life or something in service of keeping the “children” happy is not recommended. It’s okay to disappoint them sometimes too, they’ll understand when they’re o-...well, I mean, they would understand, if they were somehow made smarter, better, stronger, etc versions of themselves.).