Perplexed comments on Offense versus harm minimization - Less Wrong

60 Post author: Yvain 16 April 2011 01:06AM

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Comment author: Perplexed 16 April 2011 01:56:14PM 2 points [-]

In a world where people make decisions according to this principle, one has the incentive to self-modify into a utility monster who feels enormous suffering at any actions of other people one dislikes for whatever reason.

The incentive is weaker than you seem to suggest. Surely, I gain nothing tangible by inducing people to tiptoe carefully around my minefield. Only a feeling of power, or perhaps some satisfaction at having caused inconvenience to my enemies. So, what is the more fruitful maxim to follow so as to discourage this kind of thing?

Don't feed the utility monster.

Poke the utility monster with a stick until it desensitizes.

Somehow I have to think that poking is a form of capitulation to the manipulation - it is voluntary participation in a manufactured drama.

Comment author: florian 16 April 2011 03:59:25PM 10 points [-]

The incentive is weaker than you seem to suggest. Surely, I gain nothing tangible by inducing people to tiptoe carefully around my minefield.

Yes, you do. If everything unpleasant to you causes you a huge amount of suffering instead of, say, mild annoyance, other people (utilitarians) will abstain from doing things that are unpleasant to you as the negative utility to you outweighs the positive utility to them.

Comment author: Perplexed 16 April 2011 05:18:16PM 4 points [-]

What you say is certainly true if the utility monster is simply exaggerating. But I understood VM to be discussing someone who claims offense where no offense (or negligible offense) actually exists. Or, someone who self-modifies to sincerely feel offended, though originally there was no such sensitivity.

But in any case, the real source of the problem in VM's scenario is adhering to an ethical system which permits one to be exploited by utility monsters - real or feigned. My own ethical system avoids being exploited because I accept personal disutility so as to produce utility for others only to the extent that they reciprocate. So someone who exaggerates the disutility they derive from, say, my humming may succeed in keeping me silent in their presence, but this success may come at a cost regarding how much attention I pay to their other desires. So the would-be utility monster is only hurting itself by feeding me false information about its utility function.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 17 April 2011 11:27:52PM 15 points [-]

But I understood VM to be discussing someone who claims offense where no offense (or negligible offense) actually exists.

The crucial point is that the level of offense at a certain action -- and I mean real, sincerely felt painful offense, not fake indignation -- is not something fixed and independent of the incentives people face. This may seem counterintuitive and paradoxical, but human brains do have functions that are not under direct control of the conscious mind, and are nevertheless guided by rational calculations and thus respond to incentives. People creating drama and throwing tantrums are a prime example: their emotions and distress are completely sincere, and their state of mind couldn't be further from calculated pretense, and yet whatever it is in their brains that pushes them into drama and tantrums is very much guided by rational strategic considerations.

Comment author: Perplexed comment score below threshold [+] (6 children)

Comment author: Vladimir_M 18 April 2011 12:48:42AM * 21 points [-]

You are now sneering instead of making an honest attempt to understand what I'm writing. (Although, just to be clear, it wasn't me who downvoted your comment.)

My point is not some arcane insight open only to a superior intellect. On the contrary, examples of it can be seen everywhere in regular life. Kids will throw more tantrums if it always gets them what they want -- and a kid throwing a tantrum is not acting, but under genuine distress. Similarly, when you have to deal with people who create drama over petty things, do you think a better strategy is to appease their every whim or to ignore their drama (and thus disincentivize it)? Again, people of this sort are typically not consciously calculated manipulators who fake their distress when they create drama.

Comment author: steven0461 18 April 2011 11:42:45PM 2 points [-]

So perhaps in these situations a good way to reduce hostility is to emphasize that while you're opposed to what the other party's subconscious status calculations are trying to do, you have no beef with their conscious selves. (Though often their conscious selves aren't completely innocent either.)

Comment author: drethelin 27 December 2014 01:43:45AM 1 point [-]

I think this is probably a great way to increase hostility if you say it like that, equivalent to "I know it's your time of the month but you should try to look at this reasonably"

Comment author: TobyBartels 18 April 2011 03:58:35AM 7 points [-]

And you feel that you can create disincentives against their performing this self-modification by making the annoyances even more common.

Even as a snide caricature, this is wrong. A lot of commenters here don't seem to acknowledge three responses possible to claims of offence: to capitulate to them, to ignore them, and to flout them. The last two should not be conflated; the difference between them is the difference between illustrating an article on Muhammad with pictures (scroll down, since this example leans a little bit in the direction of capitulation) and participating in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.

Comment author: Perplexed 18 April 2011 02:29:01PM * 5 points [-]

Respectfully, I do not conflate ignoring and flouting. In a g-g-grandparent, I call these responses 'not feeding the utility monster' and 'poking it with a stick'. Capitulation would correspond to 'feeding the monster'. I implicitly advocated not feeding the monster; i.e. ignoring the claims of offense.

What I may have done, though, is to conflate VM with one of the many people here who advocate 'poking them'. If so, I plead guilty with extenuating circumstances; I was seduced by the formal beauty of a side-by-side comparison of two diagnoses of mental malfunction:

They dislike us; we dislike them.
They therefore gain utility by annoying us; we gain utility by annoying them.
They annoy us by inducing us not to draw Mohammed; we annoy them by drawing Mohammed.
But that only annoys if we want to draw Mohammed; and the other only annoys if they despise having people draw Mohammed.
So we self-modify to want to draw Mohammed; and they self-modify to feel real pain when people draw Mohammed.
We accomplish this self-modification by convincing ourselves using arguments involving slippery slopes, lines in the sand, and the defense of freedom, together with an intuitive understanding of their devious psychology and a grasp of game theory. They accomplish this self modification using arguments involving slippery slopes, lines in the sand, and defense of the faith, together with an intuitive understanding of our Satanic psychology and a grasp of game theory.
And a jolly time is had by all.

Comment author: TobyBartels 20 April 2011 08:37:32PM 0 points [-]

What I may have done, though, is to conflate VM with one of the many people here who advocate 'poking them'.

I think that this is what happened. There are people here who have advocated poking them, and I agree with you about that. But VM is not one of them.

I like your comparison.

Comment author: Strange7 17 April 2011 11:38:56PM 1 point [-]

Only in the sense that a country with secure borders is hurting itself by forfeiting potential gains from trade. If what they want is to avoid being contaminated by your ideas, to avoid being criticized, that minefield is doing it's job just fine.

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