This is kinda-sorta adjacent to a topic I’ve been wanting to write about, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. I agree there’s a better version of all of us, and that’s the direction we need to move There’s something bizarre and upside-down about wallowing in our imperfections.
We’re all imperfect. It’s nice to be self-aware. It’s great to accept ourselves, warts and all. But it’s weird to build an identity around our faults and… you know, basically brag about them….or, expect to be loved _for_ them and not in spite of them.
I think I missed that one? Sometimes stuff blurs together though. That’s another topic I want to write about. A lot of young adults who are finding their way out of the trans dead-end (even though they thought it “explained so much” at the time) are latching onto “being on the spectrum” because it, too, “explains so much.”
I’m leery in general of all the neurodiversity claims. We’re all “neurodiverse”— we all have a personality. Some people’s personality is really “out there” or striking or makes it so the person has a hard time functioning among more mainstream folks. That’s not the same as what we once knew as “autism.”
But anyway… I’m guessing you recommend that read, if you’re mentioning it?
I just scanned it. The first comment I saw was gold: “ They used to say that you wouldn’t be ashamed of a broken leg so why should you be of mental illness? Perhaps it now needs adding; you shouldn’t celebrate breaking it either.”
This felt like listening to a friend talk through some stuff, and I find it refreshing. Sometimes what's obvious to one person isn't obvious to another, AND every person has to learn this shit from scratch, so it needs to keep being said.
While I do think the virtue signalling (and much more going on besides here) is actually a problem for a wide variety of reasons about how we assess goodness (essentially if we start to think that what you say is what makes you good rather than what you do, it imposes far too few costs on the individual to gain moral status for moral status to matter) this was, funnily enough, my exact thought too: It's not really about the right or wrong of any of this. Do you want to be the person who is massively upset by this? It doesn't seem like a good way to live at all. Psychologically the idea that this is a healthy response to suffering and injustice is terrible. After all, the suffering and injustice is *infinite*.
"essentially if we start to think that what you say is what makes you good rather than what you do, it imposes far too few costs on the individual to gain moral status for moral status to matter"
That's a good point. I was just objecting to people who say that virtue signaling is bad on its own. I think people who make this objection haven't thought it through. What you said is true though: we need to focus on what we "do" rather than what we "are."
What I really grinded me gears was the full support she received from the board game community. I scrolled through that Youtube comments, and big name after big name was saying how she was "brave" or how they felt sorry for her. Meanwhile, if you add a Chrome extension that allows you to see dislikes, the video is at something like 5k dislikes to 2k likes. Big hitters are encouraging behavior that most people despise but are too afraid to speak against.
I swear, if just one channel said "chill out bro" in the comments I'd support their highest tier on Patreon.
I think you're absolutely right: people haven't thought it through. It's more just "Virtue signal bad". Of course, signalled virtue could often be good too: publicly doing thethe right thing is an example that encourages others to follow. It seems highly context dependent.
Although something I think about a lot these days is how much these kind of reactions might themselves have this sort of evolved social utility. For example maybe we have an innate suspicion about those who promote their own virtue because we know as a species they often have have bad motives. People can't necessarily explain it because its just a feeling for them, but it could be that they have unconsciously applied a pretty good social heuristic. I feel like there's much the same to be said about other instinctual reactions. I find myself thinking about humanity as a group organism a lot recently: where individual tribe members *must* optimise towards different personalities, bias, behaviour and beliefs for the thriving of the whole.
That's fascinating about the dislikes. I've not installed that extension but I really should because that right there is a *perfect* encapsulation of what is going on: An elite group publicly professes a unified moral response that is incredibly orthodox to an emergent elite morality: they are quietly supported by a reasonable size minority. A much larger group of "proles" with less social capital and power express their negative perception in a way that isn't tracked back to them. What individual elite really think - who knows? The proles have nothing to lose by smashing that dislike. The dissenting elite have *way* more to lose because their entire career is built in reputation and attention so even if they don't like this the game theory says there is much to be gained by publicly supporting and loss to be prevented by staying silent. So it *appears* all terribly unified when really there's just a lot of preference falsification going on. That's actually quite bad for stability because if so, it means things can suddenly massively change on a dime (because in reality they haven't changed - a cascade of changes in the social costs of opinion just changed).
Haha - Yeah sadly, the theory above would suggest that "chill out bro" wouldn't happen!
Oh wow I forgot about Paw Patrol. Yes indeed - we can but hope.
I suspect its true across the culture: especially English-speaking countries. But it seemed to me boardgames changed very fast indeed and its interesting to see you see that too. I wonder if its because the specialist media aspect of the space came of age really recently? Before YouTube there just wasn't enough audience anywhere for much dedicated media: just the odd magazine here or there. At the same time the market has grown a lot. A lot of people I know in games are highly agreeable (in big 5 terms) and I wonder if that's part of it.
It wasn't that long ago that certain activities like tabletop RPGs and PC gaming were coded for your archetypal "tech bro" or "neckbeard." I don't associate those archetypes with basically any hobby any more, and it's completely unremarkable to see a neon-haired young woman or 12% bodyfat "Chad" talk about their graphics cards or custom DnD campaigns. This is almost entirely a positive change, I think, but it will lead to some culture shocks.
I have a galaxy brain theory about agreeableness as well. It seems to me that that there's been a huge growth in low-interaction games. Ironically, I think this stems from a rise in agreeableness. Tabletop RPGs, wargames, etc were often ways for low-agreeableness guys to force themselves into social interaction. Now that designers and publishers know that more high-agreeableness people will play their games, they can release multiplayer solitaire games and know the players will still be able to "vibe" during the playing experience.
I agree abt fat acceptance. People I know who are overweight have a lot more medical problems and it seems more joint replacements. They are often "mad" when told it can't be done until weight is lost. Not for looks, but for health.
Romance is a difficult one. I think you have to do it w/o much thought or you won't. That might seem crazy, but it is my experience. If you think too much abt it, you wouldn't couple up. Sure there are challenges that crop up but no one is going to be a real perfect match and even rocky relationships have positive aspects.
You don't mention religion. Lapsed Catholic here, but still 16 years of practice and thinking through one's sins each week (for confession) makes a person dwell on these all during life.
This is kinda-sorta adjacent to a topic I’ve been wanting to write about, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. I agree there’s a better version of all of us, and that’s the direction we need to move There’s something bizarre and upside-down about wallowing in our imperfections.
We’re all imperfect. It’s nice to be self-aware. It’s great to accept ourselves, warts and all. But it’s weird to build an identity around our faults and… you know, basically brag about them….or, expect to be loved _for_ them and not in spite of them.
Did you see deBoer's recent article on the neurodiversity movement in UnHerd?
I think I missed that one? Sometimes stuff blurs together though. That’s another topic I want to write about. A lot of young adults who are finding their way out of the trans dead-end (even though they thought it “explained so much” at the time) are latching onto “being on the spectrum” because it, too, “explains so much.”
I’m leery in general of all the neurodiversity claims. We’re all “neurodiverse”— we all have a personality. Some people’s personality is really “out there” or striking or makes it so the person has a hard time functioning among more mainstream folks. That’s not the same as what we once knew as “autism.”
But anyway… I’m guessing you recommend that read, if you’re mentioning it?
I just scanned it. The first comment I saw was gold: “ They used to say that you wouldn’t be ashamed of a broken leg so why should you be of mental illness? Perhaps it now needs adding; you shouldn’t celebrate breaking it either.”
This felt like listening to a friend talk through some stuff, and I find it refreshing. Sometimes what's obvious to one person isn't obvious to another, AND every person has to learn this shit from scratch, so it needs to keep being said.
Thanks! I think I excused too much shitty behavior from myself as "just being different" or whatever, and it's bullshit.
I really like your angle here!
While I do think the virtue signalling (and much more going on besides here) is actually a problem for a wide variety of reasons about how we assess goodness (essentially if we start to think that what you say is what makes you good rather than what you do, it imposes far too few costs on the individual to gain moral status for moral status to matter) this was, funnily enough, my exact thought too: It's not really about the right or wrong of any of this. Do you want to be the person who is massively upset by this? It doesn't seem like a good way to live at all. Psychologically the idea that this is a healthy response to suffering and injustice is terrible. After all, the suffering and injustice is *infinite*.
"essentially if we start to think that what you say is what makes you good rather than what you do, it imposes far too few costs on the individual to gain moral status for moral status to matter"
That's a good point. I was just objecting to people who say that virtue signaling is bad on its own. I think people who make this objection haven't thought it through. What you said is true though: we need to focus on what we "do" rather than what we "are."
What I really grinded me gears was the full support she received from the board game community. I scrolled through that Youtube comments, and big name after big name was saying how she was "brave" or how they felt sorry for her. Meanwhile, if you add a Chrome extension that allows you to see dislikes, the video is at something like 5k dislikes to 2k likes. Big hitters are encouraging behavior that most people despise but are too afraid to speak against.
I swear, if just one channel said "chill out bro" in the comments I'd support their highest tier on Patreon.
I think you're absolutely right: people haven't thought it through. It's more just "Virtue signal bad". Of course, signalled virtue could often be good too: publicly doing thethe right thing is an example that encourages others to follow. It seems highly context dependent.
Although something I think about a lot these days is how much these kind of reactions might themselves have this sort of evolved social utility. For example maybe we have an innate suspicion about those who promote their own virtue because we know as a species they often have have bad motives. People can't necessarily explain it because its just a feeling for them, but it could be that they have unconsciously applied a pretty good social heuristic. I feel like there's much the same to be said about other instinctual reactions. I find myself thinking about humanity as a group organism a lot recently: where individual tribe members *must* optimise towards different personalities, bias, behaviour and beliefs for the thriving of the whole.
That's fascinating about the dislikes. I've not installed that extension but I really should because that right there is a *perfect* encapsulation of what is going on: An elite group publicly professes a unified moral response that is incredibly orthodox to an emergent elite morality: they are quietly supported by a reasonable size minority. A much larger group of "proles" with less social capital and power express their negative perception in a way that isn't tracked back to them. What individual elite really think - who knows? The proles have nothing to lose by smashing that dislike. The dissenting elite have *way* more to lose because their entire career is built in reputation and attention so even if they don't like this the game theory says there is much to be gained by publicly supporting and loss to be prevented by staying silent. So it *appears* all terribly unified when really there's just a lot of preference falsification going on. That's actually quite bad for stability because if so, it means things can suddenly massively change on a dime (because in reality they haven't changed - a cascade of changes in the social costs of opinion just changed).
Haha - Yeah sadly, the theory above would suggest that "chill out bro" wouldn't happen!
Oh wow I forgot about Paw Patrol. Yes indeed - we can but hope.
I suspect its true across the culture: especially English-speaking countries. But it seemed to me boardgames changed very fast indeed and its interesting to see you see that too. I wonder if its because the specialist media aspect of the space came of age really recently? Before YouTube there just wasn't enough audience anywhere for much dedicated media: just the odd magazine here or there. At the same time the market has grown a lot. A lot of people I know in games are highly agreeable (in big 5 terms) and I wonder if that's part of it.
It wasn't that long ago that certain activities like tabletop RPGs and PC gaming were coded for your archetypal "tech bro" or "neckbeard." I don't associate those archetypes with basically any hobby any more, and it's completely unremarkable to see a neon-haired young woman or 12% bodyfat "Chad" talk about their graphics cards or custom DnD campaigns. This is almost entirely a positive change, I think, but it will lead to some culture shocks.
I have a galaxy brain theory about agreeableness as well. It seems to me that that there's been a huge growth in low-interaction games. Ironically, I think this stems from a rise in agreeableness. Tabletop RPGs, wargames, etc were often ways for low-agreeableness guys to force themselves into social interaction. Now that designers and publishers know that more high-agreeableness people will play their games, they can release multiplayer solitaire games and know the players will still be able to "vibe" during the playing experience.
Oooh. I really like this. Very, very interesting. I'm going to be thinking about that a lot: I think you've got something there.
I agree abt fat acceptance. People I know who are overweight have a lot more medical problems and it seems more joint replacements. They are often "mad" when told it can't be done until weight is lost. Not for looks, but for health.
Romance is a difficult one. I think you have to do it w/o much thought or you won't. That might seem crazy, but it is my experience. If you think too much abt it, you wouldn't couple up. Sure there are challenges that crop up but no one is going to be a real perfect match and even rocky relationships have positive aspects.
The fat activist Cat Pause died at 42. Not trying to laugh at her, but it really shows the dangers of that idea
You don't mention religion. Lapsed Catholic here, but still 16 years of practice and thinking through one's sins each week (for confession) makes a person dwell on these all during life.