DeterminateJacobian comments on Rationality Quotes October 2014 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Tyrrell_McAllister 01 October 2014 11:02PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (236)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: DeterminateJacobian 31 October 2014 09:51:10PM *  3 points [-]

Or what your skills are. People who are poor at soliciting the cooperation of others might begin to classify all actions which intend to change others' behavior as "blame" and thus doomed to fail, just because trying to change others' behavior doesn't usually succeed for them.

What could the woman in the harassment video do? Maybe she could start an entire organization dedicated to ending harassment, and then stay in NY as a way to signal she is refusing to let the harassers win. Or if the tradeoff isn't worth it to her personally, leave as Adams suggests. She isn't making it Scott Adam's problem, she's making it the problem of anybody who actually wants it to also be their problem. That's how cooperation works, and people can be good or bad at encouraging cooperation, in completely measurable ways. Assigning irremediable blame, or refusing to encourage change at all are both losing solutions.