TimS comments on LW Women Entries- Creepiness - Less Wrong

7 [deleted] 28 April 2013 03:43PM

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Comment author: TimS 30 April 2013 04:51:02AM *  4 points [-]

And many may also feel genuinely unsafe, but the advice given by many is to improve social skills or courting behavior, and this doesn't mitigate any real harm.

This is not true. Actually creepy folks use unwillingness to reflect on social skills of society in general as camouflage. When called on their behavior, they can say something like "I was only joking" and escape most of the consequences.

But if society as a whole was more explicit about social norms, then (1) people who have trouble picking up social norms would be happier because the norms would be easier to learn, (2) people who want others to follow the norms without being required to follow themselves would have less room to operate, and (3) people who want to change the social norms would have an easier time communicating the case for a change of the norms.

Comment author: drethelin 30 April 2013 05:22:01AM 3 points [-]

In general the stricter the social norms the less room for trying to change them.

Comment author: TimS 30 April 2013 03:10:26PM 0 points [-]

In small groups, social norms can seem very resilient and yet actually be very fragile.