Who are these TSFHers who are sticking up for Nono? You make it sound like all TSFHers have banded together to hide what happened here
I have no quarrel with TSFH; I think it's on aggregate a vehicle for improving the experience of many players, as well as the value they derive from the game. Because the conversation has been stripped from its original context, it has become easy to mis-label as some sort of categorical accusation against TSFH.
Instead, it was a loosely economic counter-hypothesis to KG_3's claim that TSFH is some sort of unique force for worsening human behavior (unique not on just WZ but on the internet as a whole). My response was to point out that his observations about behavioral changes caused by TSFH, even if taken at face value, have a far simpler and less accusatory explanation: Humans enjoy acceptance, and this incentive to seek acceptance can outweigh the moral or social costs that generally make them less likely to try to belittle and diminish others. They furthermore create biases (both via information flow and just general cognitive biases) that make people, on aggregate, more likely to stick up for members of the in-group and respond aggressively to external threats, in ways that seem more reasonable to insiders than outsiders (e.g., Parsifal's "public shaming" argument, that likely made perfect sense to him and made
more sense to people who're friends with nonolet than to random observers, who in turn likely found it more reasonable than did people like investment and KG_3 and Smith who have prior reasons to dislike TSFH and/or nonolet; you can say the reverse for investment's murder & stealing arguments, which too were easier to see reason in for some of us than for others).
In short,
social identity undermines models of human rationality. At the micro level, we generally experience ourselves as reasonable beings coming to sensible conclusions and making defensible moral judgements. However, at the macro level, group trends emerge. For example, I
believe I have good reasons for my views on American foreign policy, while TheNoob also experiences rationality when he critiques American foreign policy in Israel and Palestine. But aggregate by identity and you'll notice that my views can be largely predicted from a demographic profile (privileged, American, in many social groups with disproportionate Jewish representation), as can TheNoob's (Palestinian).
I think this happens due to
marginal incentives that motivate
trade-offs. I am not interested in singling out TSFH; rather, this is part of my larger point that people aren't actually real (my broader argument against innate human worth). We have this individualistic model of "'human" that we think we are, but it's just a model. Rather, we're just vertices in a graph, roles in a play, parts of a system of systems. This doesn't mean that
all or most people (in some group) do something, or that some people (in some group)
always (or mostly) do something- clearly, there's even Israeli Jews who oppose Israel, and people of Arabic heritage who support it. Demographics aren't destiny. But there's marginal trade-offs, biases, network effects, etc., that lead to strong correlations between identity and behavior, especially on high-valence and polarizing issues.
I hope this makes it clear that I'm not interested in maligning any person or group or trying to undermine their reputation or character. I try to avoid reducing people to nouns ("sociopath", "social engineer") or simplifying them into adjectives ("manipulative", "deceptive", "extremely online"). Rather, I'm interested in describing and analyzing their behavior and tying it to systemic hypotheses that avoid the pitfall of personalization (on that note, I have no quarrel with Fizzer
as a person either; I think his behavior predictably reflects his position and incentives, rather than some innate tendency to do what he does. If you know Anon Mod's identity, you should understand this point: Anon Mod's behavior isn't due to some character traits on his part but simply how he fits in the system- from his vantage point, his behavior seems not only sensible but moral). I don't know if I've been consistent about it, but this is at least my intent. I'm not here to start clan drama or to bolster my reputation at others' expense or to make myself feel better by putting others down and trying to get everyone to point and laugh at the guy who types long paragraphs; I'm here to think about structures, how "people" fit within them, and how the outcomes affect the human experience. The thrill I get from playing the associated games is merely an incidental benefit of the contempt involved in the process (my view of the world is necessarily dehumanizing, but I find this to be practical).
You (not krinid, just the general reader) are probably reading this and drawing your conclusions about what kind of "person" I am, reducing me to adjectives and nouns as you read this. Maybe you're sharing this with your friends or talking about it to poke fun at me together and talk about how crazy or conceited or pathetic I must be. That's fine; it's human, and I won't pretend to be above it either. I'm made of the same meat as you.
But I've found more value in trying
not to resort to fundamental attribution.
you may in fact be what makes it happen in the end
This would be a quite positive outcome, no? I'm clearly not interested in 4 cents, so either outcome is great: either nonolet walks back on his word and corroborates my hypothesis about this "sincere apologies" thread being an insincere attempt to rehabiliate his image and tarnish mine, or he gives people back the coins they lost to his cheating. Both are great.
he will 100% have to either admit guilt (no intent to pay), agree to recompense, be the bad buy (elaborate some convincing scheme to either fool people that it's still on the way, or just accept the bad image), or quit WZ
Exactly.
Edited 10/15/2021 20:56:35
