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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2854 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 12, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker (1998). The main premise is that if you have a negative gut feeling about a person or situation, go ahead and follow it out of the situation, don't try to come up with a bunch of justifications for why things are actually alright, there's no reason to worry. There probably is a reason to worry, you're picking up on something, even when you aren't able to articulate what or why in the moment. He says he's spent a lot of time interviewing victims, or close misses after violent incidents, and they usually eventually tell him details that explain some of the signals that made them nervous after the fact, and sometimes do manage to get out before the going gets bad -- for instance a man who asked into a convenience store, and then immediately out again shortly before a shooting.

It seems plausible enough. I've never been in a really bad situation, but every time I haven't liked someone immediately, tried to make up excuses for them in my head, thought and thought about it, tried to like them, it turned out that, no, we actually could not live or work together. Probably most people, most of the time, do really have reasonable instinctive boundaries.

Read it, enjoyed it, bought a copy for the daughter of a friend of mine who was leaving Japan for university on the east coast of the US. She left it on the shelf. But apparently her uncle in the US also got her a copy. No idea if she ever read it.

Notably for those responding doubtfully, de Becker by no means limits his focus to females. I found it a good read, and its basic message of "be aware of your surroundings/trust your instincts" invaluable.

I wasn't very far in and probably haven't described it very well. Maybe I'll try again next week when I've read more of it.

There's a risk of conflating serious danger with personal discomfort and using the first to justify the second, and also a parallel risk of using the second to dismiss the first.

In the first case you end up avoiding everything that isn't immediately pleasant and personally gratifying, and in the second case you fail to avoid a dangerous situation because you haven't given it the chance to prove your intuitions wrong right.

It's not without merit but I think the advice to "trust your fear instinct" is another one of those messages that is more likely to appeal to and reach the wrong audience and reinforce their fearfulness rather than attenuating their fearlessness.

I really liked Scott's Different Worlds post, and wish that he (or someone) would investigate that further.

De Becker seems to think there are people who are always being stalked, and have to be super cautious all the time, and may often be in dangerous situations. He worked with celebrities and abuse victims, so maybe that's true for them.

I'm not that far in, but de Becker just mentioned that if someone is jogging in the park and gets an uncomfortable feeling, they shouldn't try to use peripheral vision, they should take their headphones off, stop for a second, turn, and make eye contact with anyone looking at them. I'm not subtle at all, and probably give off that vibe anyway.

every time I haven't liked someone immediately, tried to make up excuses for them in my head, thought and thought about it, tried to like them, it turned out that, no, we actually could not live or work together.

I would encourage you to decouple "person I dislike" from "person who could pose a threat to me personally", for the reasons I outlined here. I agree with you that when you take an instinctive snap dislike to someone, no amount of "evidence" is likely to dissuade you from said judgement. But I don't think that instinctive snap judgement offers much useful guidance on whether they're likely to pose a threat to you or bring you harm. There are people I consider morally upstanding individuals who I happen to personally dislike for reasons that have nothing to do with their moral character. Conversely, there is no shortage of people who are likeable on an interpersonal level but completely lacking in moral fibre (e.g. charming con artists who'll butter you up before absconding with your life savings).

I'm reminded of an article I read on Cracked years ago, in which one of their staff writers made a list of five concepts for which no word currently exists in the English language, but for which a word is required. He describes a scenario in which you meet someone and take an instant dislike to them for some trivial reason (annoying laugh, inability to correctly pronounce the word "specifically"), but you're aware that this is kind of silly. But then some time later, you learn something about them that proves they're a shitty person (cheated on his wife, assaulted someone), and you feel vindicated that your instinctive snap judgement of them steered you so well.

I must stress that I don't often find myself in a situation in which I would have a need for this word: to reiterate, there are plenty of people to whom I took an immediate dislike who have yet to give any indication of being anything other than honest, decent people. I think decoupling "I like him" and "he's a good guy" (and by extension, "he poses no threat to my wellbeing") is a sorely underpractised skill, and one which just about everyone would do well to better interrogate.

I'm reminded of an article I read on Cracked years ago, in which one of their staff writers made a list of five concepts for which no word currently exists in the English language, but for which a word is required.

You should read The Meaning of Liff. It's the oldest exercise of this kind that I know of.

I've never heard of this before and I like Douglas Adams, thanks for the recommendation.

There are definitely people that I don't particularly like or get along with, who seem to be doing the best they can, and them and I clashing is not due to anything nefarious on their part. I might use words like annoyed, irritated, clashing, or something but not afraid, apprehensive, or nervous.

Conversely, there is no shortage of people who are likable on an interpersonal level but completely lacking in moral fibre (e.g. charming con artists who'll butter you up before absconding with your life savings).

I think de Becker agrees with this, to some extent. He talks about people who are trying to get something their mark doesn't want to give, and describes various strategies of being extra nice, offering unsolicited help, using "we" a lot, and being generally nice and charming. The main difference is that he says that people feel apprehensive anyway, but try to explain it away because "he's so nice and helpful." I'm not sure how to evaluate that claim, he seems to be mostly be making it based on his own experience and interviews.

The main difference is that he says that people feel apprehensive anyway, but try to explain it away because "he's so nice and helpful." I'm not sure how to evaluate that claim, he seems to be mostly be making it based on his own experience and interviews.

Yeah, this is a difficult one to square. I definitely think the basic thesis (that people should be more willing to trust their gut and not "rationally" explain away their instinctive discomfort or apprehension) is sound. But I also suspect that if I surveyed a bunch of people who'd been scammed by a con artist (or whose romantic partners were unfaithful to them or otherwise suffered some kind of betrayal), there would be a significant number of people who insisted that they never suspected a thing, that they trusted the person in question completely and were wholly blindsided by their betrayal.

He says he's spent a lot of time interviewing victims, or close misses after violent incidents, and they usually eventually tell him details that explain some of the signals that made them nervous after the fact,

That seems...very prone to hindsight bias. Obviously after a terrible thing happens, you're going to sort through events and find a bunch of things that seem like potential red flags in full context. But that's very different from saying that every time you have a negative feeling about someone or something, you should believe it. It may well be true, at least for well-calibrated people. But I think you would need more complex experimental techniques to be sure: perhaps you could mix in fictional testimonies with the real ones and see whether third parties can pick out the real from the fake, or something.

every time I haven't liked someone immediately, tried to make up excuses for them in my head, thought and thought about it, tried to like them, it turned out that, no, we actually could not live or work together

Mostly, if I don't like someone fairly quickly I'll stay not liking them. But there are definitely people I've disliked and then got closer to as I got to know them better, or people who improved over time.

I would guess that some people have very different baseline tendencies to be generous to strangers; some people are far too prone to ignoring danger signals and need to be more careful and listen to their gut. But 'when you're nervous about somebody, probably there's something wrong with them' sounds very close to other causes of misery in the past like 'if you have a bad relationship with your father, probably he raped you and you suppressed the memory' or 'any young man who expresses interest in you and doesn't pick up the subtle signs that you're not interested is a potential stalker or rapist'.

Obviously I have a dog in this fight: as a young and well-mannered but unfortunately incel-ish man, female paranoia (I can't think of a less charged term, sorry) is something I'm nervous about encouraging.

I'm probably misrepresenting him somewhat, since I had read less than a quarter of the book at that point (and still less than half). Not dealing with fake "repressed" memories does seem like a weakness -- what if they just made some of the details up subconsciously? I haven't read far enough to know if he deals with this.

He says things like: if you are a woman putting groceries in your car or something, and a man comes up to help you, and you feel even a little bit uncomfortable about it, stand up, face him, and say "no" definitively and forcefully. If he's a decent guy, his feelings will be a bit hurt, and you will get no help. If he isn't, he'll keep testing your boundaries, be very firm about them, insisting and not just going away is a sign that he's up to no good. There's probably someone who needs to hear that? I don't really have opinions about it, but am a bit curious to see where he's going.

I think all this is fair. Scott’s essay on how some people need to hear diametrically opposite advice always struck me as one of his more insightful essays.

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