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mwengler comments on Behavioral psychology and buying a warranty at Menards - Less Wrong
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Comments (38)
Well he was employing a technique to take your money away from you, some of which would go in to his pocket. He was not selling you the warranty altruistically and he was not at all interested or concerned that you be conscious of what you were doing.
Whether he would consciously think of this as trying to screw you is an interesting question but I don't think the most important one. In the same sense we say a peacock is trying to get laid by parading in front of peahens with his tail up, we can say he was trying to screw you. The peacock likely doesn't consciously know he's trying to get laid, he's just doing what comes naturally. Similarly this salesman is lining his pockets with your money, no matter what he thinks he's doing.
If there is an interesting interpretation of what is going on that is NOT the salesman trying to screw you, please let me know. I tend to be a bit negative about some things, and maybe this is one of them.
It's probably just the connotation of the phrase that caused me to be hesitant. Perhaps selling a warranty isn't equivalent with the class of deed I'd call "screwing." I get your point though -- action X and action X committed with awareness of action X don't necessitate separate names.
I'll have to think more about why I'm hesitant to attribute that word to what happened. Perhaps (and I guess I've already said this more or less) I'm just not able to think he was acting with malice. But maybe that's not a requirement of "screwing."
Interesting. My threshold for screwing is not malice at all, but self-serving disregard. It seems clear he is willing to take your money against your informed will. Whether he is consciuosly aware of that and whether he enjoys anticipating the harm to you that comes from that may be interesting and even important questions, but I think very secondary and very separable from any consideration about effective ways to react.
If we can attribute motivations to unliving objects, water seeks its own level, that kind of thing, then we can attribute motivation to people taking our money, and have it be meaningfully valuable regardless of what those people are feeling.
On the other hand, I probably do assume the guy is malicious because of the way I think/talk about these transactions, and your posts make me wonder if that is usually the case.