I think most people would agree that Scenario B is ideal. Unfortunately, many modern conversations about social justice look more like Scenario A. It’s common, for instance, for members of different groups to argue about who has it worse.
This failure mode is often deliberately induced, as part of a larger process called derailing. For example:
A: “I feel, as someone with a mental disability, that it is often difficult for me to have my desires and feelings respected by others.”
B: “LOL first world problems. Look at children in Africa and then tell me how bad you have it.”
C: “Brother, us C-types have had it far worse than you A-types for far longer. Wait your damn turn.”
D: “I think that your A-typeness gives you too much privilege to be complaining about people disrespecting your desires and feelings, and us D-types experience exactly the same rejection of our perspectives far more acutely than you ever will.”
At which point, A can try to show how their complaints are valid in comparison (which immediately buys into the “who has it worse” misery poker), or A can simply restate “nevertheless, I feel that my desires and feelings aren’t respected”—in which case, A themselves is accused of derailing, by drawing attention to their issues instead of falling into C or D’s coalition, or agreeing to participate in guilt for the plight of the people that B mentioned.
On top of that, you have an actual strategic game of ‘misery poker’ being played, where plenty of people DO pretend to have grievances just to shut up other people’s grievances, which corrupts the whole signaling playing field—since now everyone’s legitimacy is suspect. Once that happens, you enter a signaling arms race, and being a good signaller becomes far more important than actually having something valid to signal.
B: “LOL first world problems. Look at children in Africa and then tell me how bad you have it.”
Forgive me, but I actually think there’s a somewhat valid argument to be made along these lines. After having the thoughts that this post outlines, my response to social justice arguments are now something like “Oh, someone’s preferences aren’t being achieved. Well, I can’t please everyone all of the time, but I’ll try to keep their preferences in mind.” Doing stuff beyond changing my own behavior does have opportunity costs, and part of the reason I shared these thoughts is because once I had them, they allowed me to spend less cognitive bandwidth thinking about social justice issues (while also decreasing my overall resistance to hearing others’ complaints).
In the US, people often complain about how “special interest” or “lobbying” groups have so much influence on the government. Special interest groups work to achieve the preferences of US citizens, but they tend to work towards achieving the preferences of small groups of citizens that have really strong preferences. If a large group of citizens shares a weaker preference, or is poorly coordinated, it’s less likely they’ll have a powerful special interest group. In the same way, I’d prefer not to devote my time and energy to problems just because they involve group conflicts and are inherently interesting for that reason. Currently I estimate that there are more efficient ways for me to manufacture utility.
The validity of the argument depends on context. Sometimes it is: “sorry, I can’t help you now, because all my resources go to higher-priority cases”. Sometimes it is: “meh, I don’t care… but I can use a comparison with this other case (that I am not really contributing to) to make you seem pathetic”.
In other words, if someone says: “I don’t care about your problems, the children in Africa have it worse”, and the person does contribute to a charity for African children, then the response is valid (although we could discuss the optimum way to say the same message).
If someone says: “I don’t care about your problems, the children in Africa have it worse”, and the person does nothing to help children in Africa (or anyone else), then it’s just a convenient excuse and a move to gain relative status at the other person’s expense.
Forgive me, but I actually think there’s a somewhat valid argument to be made along these lines.
Of course it is. But so is “children in Africa have it really bad, so why are you bothering to buy Christmas presents instead of helping them?”
Unfortunately, past a certain point it just comes down to “hey, can we try being less of a dick to each other all the time?”, which everyone can agree with but which no one actually seems to be able to resolve into actual strategy.
Of course it is. But so is “children in Africa have it really bad, so why are you bothering to buy Christmas presents instead of helping them?”
I’m not a complete altruist. I do care more about the people I know than random other people. I don’t care about people more just because they live in the same country as me, though.
I think Ragen Chastain does a pretty good job of not being a dick.
She believes that people should work on the causes they care most about, and let other people work on the causes they care most about. She can be harsh about people she thinks are seriously wrong, but she doesn’t attack people for not being quite right.
Another option for A, if they have superhuman levels of compassion and understanding, would be to say something to C and D along the lines of “yeah, that sucks too. Is there anything I can do to help you with that?” The initial framing might also be a target: for example, A could give a specific story about a time they felt their desires and feelings weren’t being respected and focus on how much it sucks rather than getting others to change right off the bat. (Hopefully triggering empathetic cooperative behavior rather than zero-sum resource scrambling. Might require superhuman patience and restraint.)
Of course, I agree that B/C/D are the best targets for debugging.
Regarding deliberate derailing and strategic misery poker: I’d be interested to hear what you think of Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?
Another option for A, if they have superhuman levels of compassion and understanding, would be to say something to C and D along the lines of “yeah, that sucks too. Is there anything I can do to help you with that?”
Sure, but when A is expressing frustration specifically because they’re feeling their compassion and understanding breaking down, what then? We’re all human, and we all need help and forgiveness sometimes.
The initial framing might also be a target: for example, A could give a specific story about a time they felt their desires and feelings weren’t being respected and focus on how much it sucks rather than getting others to change right off the bat. (Hopefully triggering empathetic cooperative behavior rather than zero-sum resource scrambling. Might require superhuman patience and restraint.)
It often does, especially when A is describing processes that lead B, C and D to consider A as socially worthless. That’s a big part of the problem—we tend to not even bother thinking about whether A has a point if we don’t like A or need something from A to begin with.
Regarding derailing and misery poker being deliberate: I’d be interested to hear what you think of Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?.
I think it’s an incredibly accurate assessment of the situation, which just redoubles the tragedy. Even people who deliberately play misery poker and who deliberately derail aren’t doing it out of abject evil, they’re doing it because they’re part of a process that finds their actions advantageous.
I have a hard time calling people ‘evil’ simply because I tend to not see people as experiencing much agency in their lives.
This failure mode is often deliberately induced, as part of a larger process called derailing. For example:
A: “I feel, as someone with a mental disability, that it is often difficult for me to have my desires and feelings respected by others.”
B: “LOL first world problems. Look at children in Africa and then tell me how bad you have it.”
C: “Brother, us C-types have had it far worse than you A-types for far longer. Wait your damn turn.”
D: “I think that your A-typeness gives you too much privilege to be complaining about people disrespecting your desires and feelings, and us D-types experience exactly the same rejection of our perspectives far more acutely than you ever will.”
At which point, A can try to show how their complaints are valid in comparison (which immediately buys into the “who has it worse” misery poker), or A can simply restate “nevertheless, I feel that my desires and feelings aren’t respected”—in which case, A themselves is accused of derailing, by drawing attention to their issues instead of falling into C or D’s coalition, or agreeing to participate in guilt for the plight of the people that B mentioned.
On top of that, you have an actual strategic game of ‘misery poker’ being played, where plenty of people DO pretend to have grievances just to shut up other people’s grievances, which corrupts the whole signaling playing field—since now everyone’s legitimacy is suspect. Once that happens, you enter a signaling arms race, and being a good signaller becomes far more important than actually having something valid to signal.
Forgive me, but I actually think there’s a somewhat valid argument to be made along these lines. After having the thoughts that this post outlines, my response to social justice arguments are now something like “Oh, someone’s preferences aren’t being achieved. Well, I can’t please everyone all of the time, but I’ll try to keep their preferences in mind.” Doing stuff beyond changing my own behavior does have opportunity costs, and part of the reason I shared these thoughts is because once I had them, they allowed me to spend less cognitive bandwidth thinking about social justice issues (while also decreasing my overall resistance to hearing others’ complaints).
In the US, people often complain about how “special interest” or “lobbying” groups have so much influence on the government. Special interest groups work to achieve the preferences of US citizens, but they tend to work towards achieving the preferences of small groups of citizens that have really strong preferences. If a large group of citizens shares a weaker preference, or is poorly coordinated, it’s less likely they’ll have a powerful special interest group. In the same way, I’d prefer not to devote my time and energy to problems just because they involve group conflicts and are inherently interesting for that reason. Currently I estimate that there are more efficient ways for me to manufacture utility.
The validity of the argument depends on context. Sometimes it is: “sorry, I can’t help you now, because all my resources go to higher-priority cases”. Sometimes it is: “meh, I don’t care… but I can use a comparison with this other case (that I am not really contributing to) to make you seem pathetic”.
In other words, if someone says: “I don’t care about your problems, the children in Africa have it worse”, and the person does contribute to a charity for African children, then the response is valid (although we could discuss the optimum way to say the same message).
If someone says: “I don’t care about your problems, the children in Africa have it worse”, and the person does nothing to help children in Africa (or anyone else), then it’s just a convenient excuse and a move to gain relative status at the other person’s expense.
Of course it is. But so is “children in Africa have it really bad, so why are you bothering to buy Christmas presents instead of helping them?”
Unfortunately, past a certain point it just comes down to “hey, can we try being less of a dick to each other all the time?”, which everyone can agree with but which no one actually seems to be able to resolve into actual strategy.
I’m not a complete altruist. I do care more about the people I know than random other people. I don’t care about people more just because they live in the same country as me, though.
I think Ragen Chastain does a pretty good job of not being a dick.
She believes that people should work on the causes they care most about, and let other people work on the causes they care most about. She can be harsh about people she thinks are seriously wrong, but she doesn’t attack people for not being quite right.
Another option for A, if they have superhuman levels of compassion and understanding, would be to say something to C and D along the lines of “yeah, that sucks too. Is there anything I can do to help you with that?” The initial framing might also be a target: for example, A could give a specific story about a time they felt their desires and feelings weren’t being respected and focus on how much it sucks rather than getting others to change right off the bat. (Hopefully triggering empathetic cooperative behavior rather than zero-sum resource scrambling. Might require superhuman patience and restraint.)
Of course, I agree that B/C/D are the best targets for debugging.
Regarding deliberate derailing and strategic misery poker: I’d be interested to hear what you think of Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?
Sure, but when A is expressing frustration specifically because they’re feeling their compassion and understanding breaking down, what then? We’re all human, and we all need help and forgiveness sometimes.
It often does, especially when A is describing processes that lead B, C and D to consider A as socially worthless. That’s a big part of the problem—we tend to not even bother thinking about whether A has a point if we don’t like A or need something from A to begin with.
I think it’s an incredibly accurate assessment of the situation, which just redoubles the tragedy. Even people who deliberately play misery poker and who deliberately derail aren’t doing it out of abject evil, they’re doing it because they’re part of a process that finds their actions advantageous.
I have a hard time calling people ‘evil’ simply because I tend to not see people as experiencing much agency in their lives.