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TimS comments on The Power of Reinforcement - Less Wrong
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I find the idea of endorsing manipulative behavior if and only if I remain unaware of the fact that it's manipulative behavior deeply troubling.
It strikes me as similar to saying that hurting people is OK as long as I don't know I'm hurting them. No, it isn't. If hurting people is not OK, then it follows that I ought not hurt people, and learning to recognize when I'm hurting people is part of that, and I ought to learn to recognize it. The behavior doesn't suddenly become "not OK" the moment I learn to recognize it... it never was OK, and now I know it and can improve.
Conversely, if hurting people is OK, then it's OK whether I know I'm doing it or not.
The same goes for manipulating people. Whether I know I'm doing it or not isn't the determiner of whether I'm doing good or ill.
To my mind, the determiner of whether I'm doing good or ill is whether, when I'm done doing it, we're all better off or worse off.
I agree with your point, but I think that "manipulate" needs to be tabooed. If we define manipulate as "acts that tend to change the behavior of others" then I agree with your implicit point that it is impossible to interact with others without changing their behaviors, and there is nothing wrong with thinking about how I would like someone else to behave when considering how I interact with them.
That said, there are connotations of manipulate as the word is ordinarily used that are not captured by the way you (and I) are using the word.
Sure. I'm perfectly happy to drop the word altogether and instead talk about changing the behavior of others.