I don't think that the nurse is implying that he is not annoyed.
If you go sufficiently upthread, you'll find that it started with a post by Swimmer963 who is a nurse and is relating her own experience. In particular, she says:
There are certain lies that I tell over and over again, where I'm 99% sure lying is the morally correct ... When it's 4 am and I desperately want to go on break and eat something, none of these things are true.
Sorry, I should clarify. I was saying that:
"Taking care of you is my sacred duty. I care about you. It is important that you tell me if there is something wrong."
Is precisely something that Swimmer963 could say even though she's annoyed. She doesn't have to deny that she's annoyed, or even imply it. In fact it's probably futile to try... of course she's annoyed, and the patient suspects that. That is exactly the motivation for her lie in the first place.
The statement above nevertheless conveys her overall commitment to the patient's wellbeing, and encourages the patient to understand that "Obviously, my nurse is annoyed about the crap in the bed, but there are more important factors at play here."
As an extra bonus, I don't think it's a lie, hence providing a response to Eliezer's implied challenge.
On the contrary, her claimed standard response:
"This doesn't bother me. I've got plenty of time. I just want you to be comfortable, that's my job."
Contains three lies, none of which will probably even be believed by the patient:
"This doesn't bother me." (Obvious lie.)
"I've got plenty of time." (Obvious lie.)
"I just want you to be comfortable." (True in spirit but obviously literally false - she also wants to eat or sleep or socialise or get out of this room that stinks of crap, etc.)
"That's my job." (The patient knows that, but it's cold comfort to them and saying it might suggest that's the only reason the nurse is helping them, which erodes patient-nurse rapport.)
My point is that Swimmer963's strategy probably doesn't really achieve her goals, lying or no lying, and in my original post I was suggesting a possible (honest) alternative.
I would count it as a white lie. It's literally accurate, but it implies a number of things. Some of those things are correct (you consider it important to care for the patient and be informed of any problems), but some of those things are incorrect (you are not annoyed). It isn't disqualified as a lie just because you believe that your annoyance is not important.
I don't think that the nurse is implying that he is not annoyed. Both the patient and the nurse recognise that the 'crapping the bed' situation is an annoying one, and the nurse is not denying that. The nurse is simply making it clear that his annoyance is a secondary concern, and that instead the welfare of the patient is the primary concern. The nurse genuinely believes that his own annoyance is relatively less important, and he is conveying that literally to the patient. This is actually the true situation, so I am confused about how you think he is lying, even implicitly.
Upvoted for a rare case of lying where I find myself unable to suggest a good alternative way to not lie, even for people with high verbal SAT scores.
"Taking care of you is my sacred duty. I care about you. It is important that you tell me if there is something wrong."
This is true literally and in spirit.
I feel it, but it's a weak emotion. I could easily imagine going without it.
Do you find any slapstick or dark comedy funny? I'm curious.
How?
If a rival in some competitive domain (think work, or romance) is falling behind me, instead of feeling happy about this (schadenfreude) I feel sad and I tend to dissipate my own relative advantage by trying to bring my rival up to my level.
I also have limited emotional motivation to take revenge or even strategic retribution (because I don't enjoy the suffering of those who wrong me). I get angry or morally outraged, but anger can only take you so far - you need to be able to follow through with the punishment. So when I play real life zero sum prisoner's dilemma style games, I tend to cooperate far too long before punishing defecting opponents.
Basically, lacking schadenfreude makes it so that I don't feel any strong desire to defeat or punish anyone, even direct rivals or wrongdoers.
That's an emotion humankind can do without, but that idea makes me wonder about the ethicality of genetically removing the potential for specific emotions.
Removing the schadenfreude response from humanity as a whole would - I think - be a beautiful thing, but lacking this emotion has certainly been damaging to my own personal fitness.
I don't think I've ever experienced schadenfreude. As in, I'm not even sure what that emotion is supposed to feel like, from the inside. I get the impression that the few people I've said this to think that I'm lying about it for signalling purposes.
Is it common just not to feel schadenfreude, like not ever, for any reason? Lately I've started to wonder if I've been committing the typical mind fallacy on this.
Are there any Australians here who have done this? Recently? Is the situation different for residents rather than worker/tourists?
60% Introvert. At least, I used to think of myself as an introvert, but recently I've come to wonder if that really is what I am. My hometown is Adelaide, Australia, but I'm currently in Hangzhou, China. I'm 24.
For the first 23 years of my life I lived with my family. I used to think that I loved being by myself, because I never really felt the need to make any special effort to see friends. Also, I loved the times I was 'home alone'. However, I think that I may actually have been mistaken - I think I just took the company of my parents for granted, and for most of that time I was also at school and then university, which meant that I had no choice but to have a fair amount of social contact anyway.
Within the last year I have moved out of home. I now live alone, and I don't like it - I'm basically permanently lonely when at home. I've noticed a very strong correlation between my long term wellbeing and the frequency of unavoidable contact with a few people who I like and trust. The happiest times of my life have been when I have had very frequent contact (many hours almost every day) with a few close friends. As a side note, this situation seems only ever to arise with those you live or work with. There are entire years when I have been very happy where I can trace that wellbeing to those close friends, and a few years where I was quite unhappy almost entirely because of loneliness. It seems to be the strongest determinant of my long term wellbeing.
So... the secret seems to be (and I hope it is obvious that I'm thinking while I write, and I have no certainty of what I'm saying) to have many interactions of the kind "it's a given". If you are already in love, then that interaction is a given. If you work at adjacent desks, that is a given. Most importantly for the topic, if you live in the same house, it is a given. There is no social tension, no need to consult your mental model of hierarchies. You are interacting with that person because you live together which is completely legit. You don't need to be proving yourself and testing them all the time.
I agree with this.
As an additional note, I have found that incidental contact with acquaintances and strangers does basically nothing to alleviate loneliness. I teach at a university now, so I have interactions with hundreds of students a week, but this doesn't make me feel any less lonely after I leave the classroom.
Finally, I have always wondered why it is that everyone fears so much to tell other people that they are lonely (I fear breaking this taboo as well). I think that it is probably because they sense that the person they tell will feel burdened as the one who has to 'fix' their loneliness, but personally that wouldn't be how I would feel if someone told me that they were lonely. Does anyone have thoughts about this?
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If a nurse started talking to me about her "sacred duty", I certainly would not believe her.
What about if she just said: 'duty'?