In this case, I’m referring to the notion that we all make minor sacrifices in our daily interactions in service of a “greater good” for everyone.
“Following the rules” would be a simplified version of what I’m talking about, I suppose. But also keeping an awareness/attitude about "How will my choices affect the people around me in this moment? “Common courtesy”, “situational awareness”, etc…
I don’t know that it’s a “new” phenomenon by any means, I just seem to have an increasing (subjective) awareness of it’s decline of late.
I feel like I run into microcosms of this in a few online games.
Worlds like Sea of Thieves, The Division’s dark zone, and Stalcraft, are built with the idea that “anything goes” - players exist in the same world, with no rule to prevent them killing each other to steal their possessions - and even some decent rewards for doing so.
I actually mostly enjoy playing those games for all the times people don’t do those things. I don’t despair the moments that betrayal does end up happening - mostly, I just find it wonderous and satisfying anytime we manage to dismiss that possibility and treat each other peacefully.
This could be a poor effort to correlate my interests, but one thing I think affects this issue in places like America is cars. You don’t see 20 people out on the street. You see 20 cars on the street. Tinted windows, faceless metal grill. A lot of people have been burned by one poor experience with neighbors taking sidewalks or transit, and so they want to stay isolated in their own protected cabins.
I think the world really relies on chance interactions between strangers, for both parties to learn something about each other and the world - often leading people to “care more” and develop more of that social contract. The trick is, most people DO follow a social contract, but it might only be for the individuals they’re familiar with and that they feel similar to. The internet has unfortunately had its ill effects too - people can choose to stay in spheres where people specifically agree with their worldview, and won’t ever run into “randomized neighbors” the same way as they would walking down the street.
What you are describing is basically an application of game theory with a single game being played vs multiple games in repeated encounters.
In the video game there is anonymity and single unique encounters: see a player, kill him, loot him, move on. This results in chaos because it is an environment with no stability with everyone for themselves. Same with driving. Everyone has an incentive to drive like a prick to make themselves better off, even though everyone collectively would do a bit better by everyone following the rules.
The trick is…for the individuals they’re familiar with and they feel similar to
This is describing a game with repeated interactions where your actions have consequences in games played later.
If you play a game (a single interaction) then your best strategy is to defect, meaning, be an asshole, break the rules, loot everyone, move on.
If you play a game with repeated interactions over and over with the same players (friends, family, colleagues, business partners, foreign policy with other countries, and so on) your best strategy is to cooperate, play by the rules, and do best for everyone.
I participated in an experiment of this during undergrad. Twenty or so of us were put on computers to play a game, something to do with trade. If you defected and broke the rules you could make double. BUT, all the players in the game had complete information, so if you double cross player A, player X would see that and not do business with you. Within a few rounds we had all figured it out, everyone cooperated, everyone traded with each other, and everyone made a ton of money. The few players who were assholes made a good score off the players they cheated, but they made way less than everyone else who cooperated with each other long term.
If you want to read more you should google things like game theory, game theory N person games, prisoners dilemma, nash equilibrium, things like that. This is a good start: https://www.britannica.com/science/game-theory/N-person-games
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As an American: “How will my choices affect the people around me in this moment?” Is almost comical to see.
Most
assholesof my fellow Americans think “That nosey sonofabitch needs to get out of my way! I want to light fireworks off at 4am how dare he say I shouldn’t! FREEDUMB!”I used to live behind a gas station. 3am and almost every shithead going get gas had their subwoofers set to “shatter windows a mile away”
Personal liberty is so misunderstood and abused in this country. This is a fantastic post. I think everyone needs to refresh their understanding of personal responsibility within this system we’ve arranged for ourselves. Radical freedumb only works for so long.
Those fuckers that blast music out their windows are a scourge to society. Seriously, fuck them!
What genre of music do you find is most commonly blasted out of windows?
I’ll tell you what I haven’t heard: Brandenburg Concerto #3, or any other Classical music for that matter! No, it’s always something grating, angry, and awful to listen to.
Yeah I feel you. Americans think that they’re allowed to park their dodge ram on a sidewalk because it feels “unsafe” to park on a suburban street 20 feet away. God forbid their chance of being sideswiped is non-zero, because who cares about pedestrians or disabled folks.
I say this as an American. A lot of us are bonkers-selfish.
My husband and I discuss this regularly. The loss of the social contract.
It is so sad to see so many people respond with “not my responsibility.” Why isn’t it? If you want to be a part of society then it is your responsibility. Part of being “civilized” is the strongest helping the weakest and most vulnerable. Our truest measure as humans is how we treat those who need the most.
Bringing other people up to a dignified level increases your value, not decreases. It doesn’t take away from you to let others have dignity and respect.
A great deal of people don’t view society as theirs. When someone stands outside the system, what is there to lose or care about? Personally, I believe i see your larger point, but many people don’t consider the social and responsibility this way.
I don’t know, but I just spent two days at an amusement park, so I’m in the sort of mood where I hate all people everywhere.
Like why the fuck are you just standing in the middle of a walkway? No, your group of 20 can’t jump the line to catch up with the one 6 year old who’s been alone for an hour. And double fuck everyone in the wave pool.
Family of 5 walks out of a busy door, takes two steps, stops to discuss their plans. There are literally a hundred people around coming and going. And that’s where you stop?
Happens on the daily in the city.
No one anywhere “cares” about anyone else. Don’t like it, deal. Or better yet keep quiet and leave me the fuck alone. Mentality of 95% of this world it seems.
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My favorite version of the large-group-stops-in-the-worst-spot is when they do that at the top (or bottom) of ESCALATORS. 🤦♂️
I have been known to spread my elbows wide and then barrel straight through these groups to make space for the escalator riders behind me.
With a quick “oh hey, sorry. I wasn’t expecting someone to stop here.”
I just went to two amusement parks in Japan this week (Universal and Disney). It’s a different world here. People form orderly queues. They wait their turn. They don’t make noise. We all say thank you at the end of an interaction.
I see 20 metre single-file queues for escalators. Back home it’s a chaotic meat funnel.
This comment gave me anxiety and reminded me precisely why I started vacationing to very quiet places
An amusement park seems like the perfect hellscape to make me detest the world. That’s a great reminder of a place to avoid.
I keep in mind that observation bias is a thing and I can’t remember the people around me who are constantly following it.
Many years ago I was walking out of Port Authority and a women, clearly mentally ill, ran up to me and wacked me in the back. There is zero doubt that I have passed well over 10k people in that area in my life. I only remember 1 of them because of what she did 1 time to me.
Common courtesy and following the rules and situational awareness are not the same thing as “how will my choices affect the people around men in this moment.”
Generally speaking, consideration for others is inversely proportional to the desperation of a given community. Think about how hard people have to work these days and still can’t afford a decent place to live and food to eat. It makes perfect sense that someone who feels that the system is keeping them down, and wearing them to the bone won’t be conscientious of how their actions will affect others. That mixed with Western ideals of extreme individualism, and a political climate that promotes divisiveness, it’s truly a wonder that anyone has any consideration at all for their fellow countrymen.
God damn you’ve verbalized so many things I’ve had in my head but haven’t had words for.
Yeah, desperation in a community does seem to break down a lot of social niceties, make people meaner, smaller, crueler. So focused on surviving personally that there’s no effort left to give to help anyone else or make things better for everyone.
(An aside below–but it’s related to survival turning people selfish and cruel.)
I follow Kamilkazani on Twitter. He’s a historian of Tatar descent (a minority in Russia), and I think did most of his scholarly studies on China and Chinese history originally, but when the Ukrainian war started, he did a lot of threads about Russia, and how we got here today from a historical standpoint.
He’s been very eye-opening for me, sort of demystifying what happened, and more importantly, laying out the historical and CULTURAL reasons behind it happening. Like, there’s cause and effect, even if it’s not the sort of cause and effect that I’m familiar with in my own country and culture. (His thread alone on “salt” is really astute.)
He looks at things from a very pragmatic historical background, and had a long thread that was the first thing that adequately explained to me why Russia was doing/saying the things it did, things that seemed quite bizarre if you’re looking at it from an American cultural lens.
Part of it is that there’s (and I’m paraphrasing my understanding–you guys should go back and read his threads for the original as I might have misinterpreted) an exaggerated individualism, far beyond what Americans do, in Russian culture.
Like, there’s a lot of “me and mine got ours, so you’re on your own”, or things like “sure, that guy is lying, but it’s MY guy lying so it’s ok.” Hyper-focused on the individual and their family and their local in-groups. And probably an artifact of how brutal the government has been for centuries.
And that “sheer struggle to survive turning people cruel, petty, and mean” has sort of been circling around my head, over and over.
It doesn’t need centuries. Just look at the nineties in Russia and you can easily see how someone would decide to not care about the greater good.
Is it not true that struggling groups of people form the strongest communities?
Usually, but that’s what the fierce individualism, and divisiveness prevents.
Yeah but it’s often in contrast to that which causes it. When everyone feels fucked by society they don’t feel a strong community with society as a whole.
Yes and no and also the people being “rude” or “not following the rules” see the people they are offending as not in their community, as they feel their community has been shrunken or destroyed
It seems to go either way, depending on all the little local variables. Strong communities, or dog-eat-dog.
Also, you can have situations where if you “conform”, you’re protected by the growing-together, but if something makes you different, that community comes after you, out of fear that you being different will bring even more hardship down on everyone’s head.
My social group is made up of basically goths, queers, nerdy weirdos who grew up in fundamentally conservative and religious towns and families, and are (now as adults) generally very supportive and chill with differences–but we got a hell of a lot of bullying from our natal families/cultures growing up. Based on individual personalities, there’s honestly little reason we were rejected…we don’t go out committing crimes, or bully, or be mean. But the differences we do have seem to scare or make our families feel ashamed of us–so, rejection. And so we lose the protection that the community offers others.
I recognize communities supporting each other is important–but the bit where perfectly good people who are kind and smart and aren’t committing crimes are just thrown on the curb like trash because we don’t believe in religion like others do, or because we ask questions when things don’t make sense…I struggle with that bit, for obvious reasons.
My spouse and I talk about this often. A very obvious example is how rude (and recklessly dangerous) people are while driving. And myriad minor things out in public in general. No sense of community and a complete lack of consideration for others is the new normal. It got worse during and after the pandemic.
Yes, driving, parking–all manner of auto-related behavior are prime examples of this. But I would add that pedestrians are not faultless. Can’t count the number of times I’ve had to wait for a young, healthy pedestrian just taking. their. time. in the crosswalk while a bunch of us are waiting to complete a turn, for example. I always double-time it in a crosswalk–it’s not only courteous–it diminishes the likelihood of me getting run down by someone looking at their phone while they’re driving.
I can’t say I e ever been impatient at someone crossing the street. Unless they were purposely being spiteful, they should be able to go at their own speed. Then again, my street has a lot of elderly, so I know they can’t always speed walk
Actually, one of my most embarrassing cringe moments …. A jackass van driver parked diagonally across our street , blocking the whole thing. I imagine he thought it was a quiet street and he could get the van door slightly closer for his pickup. Effing rude as hell and there was no reason for it. So I was pissed off and using my horn to try to get him to move his effing vehicle ….,until I saw him go to the house and try to rush the disabled person he was picking up. Now I look like the asshole. Although I have to say he never did that again
You’re sitting down and they are walking, you can wait
I’m sorry, but when I’m walking 2 miles to the nearest store, I’ll adopt a steady pace. When it’s my turn to go at the intersection, I’ll take the time I need to go through.
All these impatient drivers are sitting in their air-conditioned car anyway, I’m not breaking a sweat just so they can save a few seconds.
So what you’re saying is that you don’t care about others people’s time or convenience. Which then raises the question, why should others care about yours?
This attitude is the breakdown of the social contract being discussed right now lol
I guess it could be construed that way, but there’s a fairness element to it, too. I have waited for my turn, I’d like my time to be respected, especially by people who will be less inconvenienced than me. They will most likely make it to their destination way before me, too… Which only makes their impatience more frustrating.
So when ur a pedestrian cars should behave like you want them to and when youre the driver pedestrians should behave the way you want them to. Nice.
I hear you but is really that big of a deal? Out of all the many challenges in life, slow pedestrians affects maybe like 15-25 seconds of my day at most lol. Who cares if they trot or stroll?
In a larger sense, you’re right of course–but it’s another one of the “death by a thousand cuts” that I encounter every day…
Have you considered that it feels like this because of how you look at it? I used to feel like you do, aggravated at something that shouldn’t be aggravating. It took a lot to realize that these little things are just that. Little.
When you work at a college you’d be amazed at how much time that takes up. Or kids just darting into the middle of a four way stop intersection on skateboards, or skating down the yellow line in the middle of the road. Or stepping out in front of a car without looking because they’re heads are bent down looking at their phones (which also happens when they almost walk right into you on campus). Or the people who rev their engines and drive as fast as possible through parking garages to see how many car alarms they can set off. I saw that twice just last semester. Or every single day dodging the people who drive on the wrong side of the road in parking lots and garages because apparently they really need those lines to tell them what side to be on. Living in a major city is even worse. And it doesn’t matter if the person deliberately runs out in front of you, it’ll be your fault because you’re the one in the car. At least in my state. Yeah, I’d say pedestrians are a great example.
Lol yeah I mean college pedestrians are the worst pedestrians by far, but that’s part of working at a college from my experience (as student and faculty).
This is the whole point of the post. Everyone should have an intrinsic desire to get out of each other’s way, be courteous, be thoughtful of other’s time, etc. The flip side is we ask our neighbors to be patient as we do our best in our day, and may have things slowing US down.
So the 1-2 punch is: be courteous to avoid bothering others, and be patient to understand that others are trying their best.
If everyone genuinely tries on both those topics, everyone feels pretty good about their public interactions.
I think people really only started noticing it during and after the pandemic.
I have always hated people’s lack of consideration. I have always been very aware of it and it has always stayed the same (at least since the 27 years I am here).
Big time on the pandemic front! I made the insane move to travel to Norway during the pandemic and (being a born-and-raised Idahoan) I was SHOCKED and delighted to see 99% of people there wearing their masks at all time. The sense of community is so powerfully present there, it was a big wakeup call, seeing just how shitty people are to each other here.
It really has gotten worse since the pandemic, and I see it retry much every time I’m out. Earlier today I was out walking with my dog and kid. At one point we needed to cross the street at a four way stop. However, three cars in a row didn’t even slow down for their stop sign. It’s dangerous out there
I recognize what you’re saying. I’ve accepted it to some degree but I don’t like it. I think it also comes down to different views, morals and values. It’s easy to look at a person that misbehaves according to your own values and feel disappointed by them. One thing to remember is that they have their own views about what’s right and wrong and your own views aren’t necessarily the right ones.
A lot of things are pretty universally considered to be wrong
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I love this! I posted it a few weeks back an no one replied. I love talking about it. It genuinely did alter my personal philosophies when I saw it back in 2017 or whenever.
One thing I had forgotten until going through it again was how important Nicky says the environment is to forming trust. A Everything about being a copycat is moot when we are in environments without repeat interactions and without non zero sum games.
This was really neat, thank you for sharing it.
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Thanks for linking that! I really enjoyed it.
Not enough people were taught that they should treat other people how they, themselves, would like to be treated.
Well, it’s that or they just have zero self-respect.
Unfortunately, there are lots of situations in life where being a piece of shit gets you rewards.
That person cutting you off in traffic, grabbing the last item on the shelf when you were there first, cutting in line, cheating on their taxes, stealing the job you were in line to get, along with the infinite examples of this in the business and political world.
The vast vast majority of assholes never face real consequences, and those consequences rarely outweigh the benefits they’ve enjoyed from being an asshole.
I think about the “zero consequences” thing a lot. I help run the local farmers’ market, and recently our city has stepped up parking enforcement. (As a “rule-follower”, I celebrated the change.) Our customers are howling at the parking tickets they’re getting. They come to the market Info Booth to complain to us–as if it were our responsibility somehow.
Yeah there is a reason why stories or videos or movies showcasing justice are so popular. It’s because very rarely in your life do you see real justice.
You need those movies and videos to show you the good guys winning because most times in life the bad guy wins.
Holy shit this is so true.
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I wish more people would engage with this at the cinema
It’s about trust. In a low trust society people show no regard for the society as a whole and will only act in their own interest.
There are various reasons why people loose any sense of belonging to a society, but the outcomes are always the same and you will see what you are describing.
I wanna say today it’s mainly caused by inequality and cronyism that’s been skyrocketing over the last 50 years.
Inequality at the levels we’re at destroys society from multiple angles, from making life completely unaffordable, to making dating harder to making different demographics blame each other for all the problems.
If you don’t feel your investment into the society is reciprocated, then you feel no need to follow any of its rules or make any sacrifices for it.
