They’re free to quit in the sense that nobody will stop them. But they need money for food and shelter. And as far as moral compromises go, choosing to be a cog in an annoying, unfair, but not especially evil machine is a very mild one. You say you don’t expect the shouting to do any good, so what makes it appropriate? If we all go around yelling at everyone who represents something that upsets us, but who has a similar degree of culpability to the gate attendant, we’re going to cause a lot of unnecessary stress and unhappiness.
The mercenaries might have a legitimate grievance against the government, or god, or someone, for putting them in a position where they can’t survive without becoming mercenaries. But I don’t think they have a legitimate grievance against the village that fights back and kills them, even if the mercenaries literally couldn’t survive without becoming mercenaries.
And as far as moral compromises go, choosing to be a cog in an annoying, unfair, but not especially evil machine is a very mild one.
Shouting at them is a very mild response.
You say you don’t expect the shouting to do any good, so what makes it appropriate? If we all go around yelling at everyone who represents something that upsets us, but who has a similar degree of culpability to the gate attendant, we’re going to cause a lot of unnecessary stress and unhappiness.
If the mercenary band is much stronger than your village and you have no realistic chance of defeating them or saving anyone, I still think it’s reasonable and ethical to fight back and kill a few of them, even if it makes some mercenaries worse off and doesn’t make any particular person better off.
At a systemic level, this still acts as an indirect incentive for people to behave better. (Hopefully, the risk of death increases the minimum money you need to offer someone to become a mercenary raider, which makes people less inclined to hire mercenary raiders, which leads to fewer mercenary raids. Similarly, shouting at a secretary hopefully indirectly increases the cost of hiring secretaries willing to stand between you and a person you’re harming.)
Though I also kinda feel it’s a fair and legitimate response even if you can prove in some particular instance that it definitely won’t improve systemic incentives.
I’m inclined to agree, but a thing that gives me pause is something like… if society decides it’s okay to yell at cogs when the machine wrongs you, I don’t trust society to judge correctly whether or not the machine wronged a person?
Like if there are three worlds
“Civilized people” simply don’t yell at gate attendants. Anyone who does is considered gauche, and “civilized people” avoid them.
“Civilized people” are allowed to yell at gate attendants when and only when the airline is implementing a shitty policy. If the airline is implementing a very reasonable policy—not just profit maximizing, but good for customers too, even if it sometimes goes bad for individual customers—“civilized people” are not allowed to yell at gate attendants.
“Civilized people” are allowed to yell at gate attendants when they feel like the airline has wronged them.
...then (broadly speaking) I think right now we live in (1), but I think I’d prefer to live in (2). But I’m worried that if we tried, we’d end up in (3) and I tentatively think I’d like that less.
I think we already live in a world where, if you are dealing with a small business, and the owner talks to you directly, it’s considered acceptable to yell at them if they wrong you. This does occasionally result in people yelling at small business owners for bad reasons, but I think I like it better than the world where you’re not allowed to yell at them at all.
The main checks on this are (a) bystanders may judge you if they don’t like your reasons, and (b) the business can refuse to do any more business with you. If society decides that it’s OK to yell at a company’s designated representative when the company wrongs you, I expect those checks to function roughly equally well, though with a bit of degradation for all the normal reasons things degrade whenever you delegate.
(The company will probably ask their low-level employees to take more crap than the owners would be willing to take in their place, but similarly, someone who hires mercenaries will probably ask those mercenaries to take more risk than the employer would take, and the mercenaries should be pricing that in.)
They’re free to quit in the sense that nobody will stop them. But they need money for food and shelter. And as far as moral compromises go, choosing to be a cog in an annoying, unfair, but not especially evil machine is a very mild one. You say you don’t expect the shouting to do any good, so what makes it appropriate? If we all go around yelling at everyone who represents something that upsets us, but who has a similar degree of culpability to the gate attendant, we’re going to cause a lot of unnecessary stress and unhappiness.
So do the mercenaries.
The mercenaries might have a legitimate grievance against the government, or god, or someone, for putting them in a position where they can’t survive without becoming mercenaries. But I don’t think they have a legitimate grievance against the village that fights back and kills them, even if the mercenaries literally couldn’t survive without becoming mercenaries.
Shouting at them is a very mild response.
If the mercenary band is much stronger than your village and you have no realistic chance of defeating them or saving anyone, I still think it’s reasonable and ethical to fight back and kill a few of them, even if it makes some mercenaries worse off and doesn’t make any particular person better off.
At a systemic level, this still acts as an indirect incentive for people to behave better. (Hopefully, the risk of death increases the minimum money you need to offer someone to become a mercenary raider, which makes people less inclined to hire mercenary raiders, which leads to fewer mercenary raids. Similarly, shouting at a secretary hopefully indirectly increases the cost of hiring secretaries willing to stand between you and a person you’re harming.)
Though I also kinda feel it’s a fair and legitimate response even if you can prove in some particular instance that it definitely won’t improve systemic incentives.
I’m inclined to agree, but a thing that gives me pause is something like… if society decides it’s okay to yell at cogs when the machine wrongs you, I don’t trust society to judge correctly whether or not the machine wronged a person?
Like if there are three worlds
“Civilized people” simply don’t yell at gate attendants. Anyone who does is considered gauche, and “civilized people” avoid them.
“Civilized people” are allowed to yell at gate attendants when and only when the airline is implementing a shitty policy. If the airline is implementing a very reasonable policy—not just profit maximizing, but good for customers too, even if it sometimes goes bad for individual customers—“civilized people” are not allowed to yell at gate attendants.
“Civilized people” are allowed to yell at gate attendants when they feel like the airline has wronged them.
...then (broadly speaking) I think right now we live in (1), but I think I’d prefer to live in (2). But I’m worried that if we tried, we’d end up in (3) and I tentatively think I’d like that less.
I think we already live in a world where, if you are dealing with a small business, and the owner talks to you directly, it’s considered acceptable to yell at them if they wrong you. This does occasionally result in people yelling at small business owners for bad reasons, but I think I like it better than the world where you’re not allowed to yell at them at all.
The main checks on this are (a) bystanders may judge you if they don’t like your reasons, and (b) the business can refuse to do any more business with you. If society decides that it’s OK to yell at a company’s designated representative when the company wrongs you, I expect those checks to function roughly equally well, though with a bit of degradation for all the normal reasons things degrade whenever you delegate.
(The company will probably ask their low-level employees to take more crap than the owners would be willing to take in their place, but similarly, someone who hires mercenaries will probably ask those mercenaries to take more risk than the employer would take, and the mercenaries should be pricing that in.)