Philosophy doesn’t only matter for the ivory tower
May 3, 2024 1:41 PM Subscribe
By leveraging a unique large dataset and new techniques for exploring this dataset, our paper highlights the diversity of moral dilemmas experienced in daily life, and helps to build a moral psychology grounded in the vagaries of everyday experience. from A Large-Scale Investigation of Everyday Moral Dilemmas, in which Philosophers are studying Reddit’s “Am I the Asshole?” [Vox]
Well that certai a philosophy paper.
posted by East14thTaco at 2:16 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]
posted by East14thTaco at 2:16 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]
Setting aside my desire to create fictional AITA scenarios related to philosophy, this is a thought provoking read on the importance of relationship to moral decision making. Worth a few moments of your time and thought.
"AITA for taking one philosophy course sophomore year of college and then spending the next 40 years acting like an expert on the mind-body problem?"
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:21 PM on May 3 [16 favorites]
"AITA for taking one philosophy course sophomore year of college and then spending the next 40 years acting like an expert on the mind-body problem?"
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:21 PM on May 3 [16 favorites]
I flipped a train switch to save my daughter: AITH???
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:36 PM on May 3 [13 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:36 PM on May 3 [13 favorites]
“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.” AITA?
posted by whatevernot at 2:47 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]
posted by whatevernot at 2:47 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]
This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors.
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:19 PM on May 3 [25 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:19 PM on May 3 [25 favorites]
Not a fan of the Vox article. Basically, it goes off track trying to talk about philosophy more generally rather than sticking to the results of the AITA paper. Its a psychology paper written by people trained in psychology. Why not run with a psychology angle instead of veering off into philosophy? Don't see how analysing the language of a relationship advice forum could be all that relevant to the larger questions of philosophical trends the article leaps into later. I'm no fan of Peter Singer but if he's wrong, the results of the AITA paper have nothing to do with it.
Yudkin et. al. just don't appear academically qualified to opine on the history and direction of moral philosophy. Their graduate training and research are in psychology. There are other people who've trained in and published on trends in moral philosophy, philosophy of interpersonal relationships, consequentialism, etc. Why not ask them? I appreciate the Pat Churchland criticism of utilitarianism at the end (she's the sort of person you should be asking about this stuff) but it's not really related to the AITA paper.
posted by Hume at 3:48 PM on May 3 [6 favorites]
Yudkin et. al. just don't appear academically qualified to opine on the history and direction of moral philosophy. Their graduate training and research are in psychology. There are other people who've trained in and published on trends in moral philosophy, philosophy of interpersonal relationships, consequentialism, etc. Why not ask them? I appreciate the Pat Churchland criticism of utilitarianism at the end (she's the sort of person you should be asking about this stuff) but it's not really related to the AITA paper.
posted by Hume at 3:48 PM on May 3 [6 favorites]
Why do people take that subreddit at face value? I could go over there and lie right now
posted by Selena777 at 3:49 PM on May 3 [21 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 3:49 PM on May 3 [21 favorites]
Has anyone told them how many of those "dilemmas" are made up?
posted by praemunire at 3:59 PM on May 3 [11 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 3:59 PM on May 3 [11 favorites]
You could go to anywhere on the internet (including this thread) and lie right now, but internet posts are usually pretty good for studying psychology behavior because there isn't normally a larger motivation to lie than you would get in any other situation where you ask people about contentious things. But I do agree the well known reputation of AITA posts being fake makes this trickier than normal. The article doesn't mention this as a risk other than a very generic "Finally, despite the anonymity and frankness of posters, the descriptions of moral experiences are self-reports and so are subject to the many well-known biases that pertain therein (such as those arising from self-presentational motivations)" which you would probably write in any research article that uses internet posts.
People have been saying "All the AITA posts totally fake" for like a decade now, and I would like to somehow know approximately what % is fake. I would personally say that the top 5% (or whatever) of posts by vote are very likely to be fake because the more outrageous ones are likely to get voted up. The posts with only a few upvotes are more likely to be true.
posted by JZig at 4:05 PM on May 3 [5 favorites]
People have been saying "All the AITA posts totally fake" for like a decade now, and I would like to somehow know approximately what % is fake. I would personally say that the top 5% (or whatever) of posts by vote are very likely to be fake because the more outrageous ones are likely to get voted up. The posts with only a few upvotes are more likely to be true.
posted by JZig at 4:05 PM on May 3 [5 favorites]
Really, the only time I notice anything's "fake" is if the logistics of the story being told just plain don't work out with reality, i.e. "it took you two days to get a court date" or that one recently where someone said a woman broke their arm and face bones, but they're out of the hospital and starting a new job soon.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:27 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:27 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]
Vox, re the trolley problem: "the trolley problem imagines a world where you have no special relationship to anybody. It doesn’t ask whether you should make a different decision if one of the people tied to the tracks is, say, your mother."
Oh my GOD, Vox, you morons, the original trolley problem proposed by Foot is specifically about how to think through abortion and has everything to do with making decisions about people close to you.
posted by mittens at 4:46 PM on May 3 [10 favorites]
Oh my GOD, Vox, you morons, the original trolley problem proposed by Foot is specifically about how to think through abortion and has everything to do with making decisions about people close to you.
posted by mittens at 4:46 PM on May 3 [10 favorites]
You could go to anywhere on the internet (including this thread) and lie right now, but internet posts are usually pretty good for studying psychology behavior because there isn't normally a larger motivation to lie than you would get in any other situation where you ask people about contentious things.
I would love to believe this, but the existence of an entire "attention economy" begs to differ. Your lies can reach far more people, and yield far more attention when they are published "wholesale" on a large platform, than when compared to just lying "retail" like at a party.
posted by butterstick at 5:14 PM on May 3 [11 favorites]
I would love to believe this, but the existence of an entire "attention economy" begs to differ. Your lies can reach far more people, and yield far more attention when they are published "wholesale" on a large platform, than when compared to just lying "retail" like at a party.
posted by butterstick at 5:14 PM on May 3 [11 favorites]
> praemunire: "Has anyone told them how many of those "dilemmas" are made up?"
Yes but so are trolley problems. I don't think there's any issue with analyzing the results of made-up dilemmas so long as the moral judgments about the dilemmas are not.
On the other hand, there would definitely be an issue in extrapolating from the pool of AITA dilemmas to say something silly like, say, 10% of all disputes are about relationships; but that problem already exists even if the dilemmas were all real due simply to sampling bias.
posted by mhum at 5:37 PM on May 3 [7 favorites]
Yes but so are trolley problems. I don't think there's any issue with analyzing the results of made-up dilemmas so long as the moral judgments about the dilemmas are not.
On the other hand, there would definitely be an issue in extrapolating from the pool of AITA dilemmas to say something silly like, say, 10% of all disputes are about relationships; but that problem already exists even if the dilemmas were all real due simply to sampling bias.
posted by mhum at 5:37 PM on May 3 [7 favorites]
AITA is fascinating and addictive reading, but I have problems with it. One is right there in the name: am I the asshole in this situation is zero sum thinking, implying that there is one very bad person and one very good person, but virtually every post is necessarily one-sided and we don't get the view of the other party. There is a judgement option of ESH, or "everyone sucks here," but I notice that it is pretty rarely employed.
So many posts are about people who are genuinely wronged in some way, but their reaction to being wronged is a completely inappropriate response, which makes both parties "assholes" to any third party. An example of something like this would be a post like "My boyfriend called me fat so I broke his nose. AITA?"
A lot of people sneer at AITA claiming the posts are fake. Even if some of the posts are the product of fantasy, who cares? The fun part is going through the comments and seeing how people respond and apply moral weight to a situation, real or not. Do we think all those Dear Abby letters were completely real? It just doesn't matter. We learn from fiction as well as from non-fiction.
posted by zardoz at 5:56 PM on May 3 [11 favorites]
So many posts are about people who are genuinely wronged in some way, but their reaction to being wronged is a completely inappropriate response, which makes both parties "assholes" to any third party. An example of something like this would be a post like "My boyfriend called me fat so I broke his nose. AITA?"
A lot of people sneer at AITA claiming the posts are fake. Even if some of the posts are the product of fantasy, who cares? The fun part is going through the comments and seeing how people respond and apply moral weight to a situation, real or not. Do we think all those Dear Abby letters were completely real? It just doesn't matter. We learn from fiction as well as from non-fiction.
posted by zardoz at 5:56 PM on May 3 [11 favorites]
Metafilter: I could go over there and lie right now
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 8:31 PM on May 3 [8 favorites]
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 8:31 PM on May 3 [8 favorites]
One is right there in the name: am I the asshole in this situation is zero sum thinking, implying that there is one very bad person and one very good person
I sometimes respond to AITA posts with "you aren't _the_ asshole but you are an asshole." Especially when multiple parties messed up.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:42 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]
I sometimes respond to AITA posts with "you aren't _the_ asshole but you are an asshole." Especially when multiple parties messed up.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:42 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]
I stopped reading AITA when I realized that it was making me more of an asshole. Passing judgement on the behaviour of internet strangers is entertaining but it made me more likely to do it in real life and that was not healthy for me or my friendships.
That said, I have made a couple if posts there so at least two of them are true.
My also true letter to Ask A Manager was also flagged by the AAM critics on Reddit as definitely fake, so you know, take "they are all fake" with a grain of salt.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:03 PM on May 3 [12 favorites]
That said, I have made a couple if posts there so at least two of them are true.
My also true letter to Ask A Manager was also flagged by the AAM critics on Reddit as definitely fake, so you know, take "they are all fake" with a grain of salt.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:03 PM on May 3 [12 favorites]
Even if people are making up the stories, their attempts to hit a goal can be pretty informative about the moral standards they expect. Either writers trying to get the most disagreement among readers, or writers trying to justify something they want to do.
posted by clew at 10:52 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]
posted by clew at 10:52 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]
so a bunch of dudes looked at AITA as a worthwhile dataset for analysis
and discovered, as the Vox article says, "what a sister or manager" could tell you
CaptainAwkward's approach to "[hypothetical] situations" is that even if it is not true, a situation can expose issues that you need to address. So I am not that fussed if the details do not line up with actual events.
Will I direct my three sons to this research? Not in this universe.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 11:37 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]
and discovered, as the Vox article says, "what a sister or manager" could tell you
CaptainAwkward's approach to "[hypothetical] situations" is that even if it is not true, a situation can expose issues that you need to address. So I am not that fussed if the details do not line up with actual events.
Will I direct my three sons to this research? Not in this universe.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 11:37 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]
AITA is fascinating and addictive reading,
I find it really depressing. It just seems so sordid. After two or three posts I start having Dr. Manhattan's internal monologue.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 4:05 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
I find it really depressing. It just seems so sordid. After two or three posts I start having Dr. Manhattan's internal monologue.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 4:05 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
so a bunch of dudes looked at AITA as a worthwhile dataset for analysis
and discovered, as the Vox article says, "what a sister or manager" could tell you
Can anyone make me a chrome extension that hides all comments on scientific papers that complain when research doesn’t come to a conclusion that surprises them? Like do you know, at all, how science works? You ask questions and use evidence and theory to answer them. We shouldn’t only be discussing works with suprising results. That will lead to bad science.
Also this paper is making the rounds because it is incredible innovative and clever. The effort on collecting and cleaning the data is impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the authors were reading these comments.
Maybe spend a little more effort or just don’t comment if not?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:46 AM on May 4 [11 favorites]
and discovered, as the Vox article says, "what a sister or manager" could tell you
Can anyone make me a chrome extension that hides all comments on scientific papers that complain when research doesn’t come to a conclusion that surprises them? Like do you know, at all, how science works? You ask questions and use evidence and theory to answer them. We shouldn’t only be discussing works with suprising results. That will lead to bad science.
Also this paper is making the rounds because it is incredible innovative and clever. The effort on collecting and cleaning the data is impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the authors were reading these comments.
Maybe spend a little more effort or just don’t comment if not?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:46 AM on May 4 [11 favorites]
Most of the AITA posts I read are on the BORU subreddit where the OP will post updates. The updates almost always make things even more interesting or wild, but some do result in good outcomes. On occasion the other party will even post an update.
Do we think all those Dear Abby letters were completely real? It just doesn't matter. We learn from fiction as well as from non-fiction.
They are nothing compared to the Penthouse letters I remember from my younger days. I’m not sure all those experiences were real but they were educational. You can still find examples of these kinds of stories on other Reddit subreddits that I won’t mention.
posted by jvbthegolfer at 5:42 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
Do we think all those Dear Abby letters were completely real? It just doesn't matter. We learn from fiction as well as from non-fiction.
They are nothing compared to the Penthouse letters I remember from my younger days. I’m not sure all those experiences were real but they were educational. You can still find examples of these kinds of stories on other Reddit subreddits that I won’t mention.
posted by jvbthegolfer at 5:42 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
Journalism has become copy/pasting people's tweets and science has become algorithm math-washing people's fanfic.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:46 AM on May 4 [6 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 5:46 AM on May 4 [6 favorites]
science has become algorithm math-washing people's fanfic.
What is this supposed to mean?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:51 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
What is this supposed to mean?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:51 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
The thing is, whether or not any given the AITA posts is true is mostly irrelevant from the standpoint of evaluating people's philosophy based on their responses. The trolly problem isn't true either, but despite being turned into the butt of a lot of philosophy jokes it was a useful tool for analyzing people's moral philosophy.
And, having known some truly horrible people in my life, I think a lot of people are making a mistake in assuming some of the really bizarre AITA posts are fake.
posted by sotonohito at 7:04 AM on May 4 [7 favorites]
And, having known some truly horrible people in my life, I think a lot of people are making a mistake in assuming some of the really bizarre AITA posts are fake.
posted by sotonohito at 7:04 AM on May 4 [7 favorites]
Journalism has become copy/pasting people's tweets and science has become algorithm math-washing people's fanfic by Fall Out Boy
posted by brook horse at 7:31 AM on May 4 [4 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 7:31 AM on May 4 [4 favorites]
This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors.
You can't possibly judge us harder than we judge ourselves.
Why virtue ethics professors hate utilitarian professors: just thinking about trolley problems is unpleasant, something people with bad character dream up and inflict on others (evidence: the good place)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:03 AM on May 4 [6 favorites]
You can't possibly judge us harder than we judge ourselves.
Why virtue ethics professors hate utilitarian professors: just thinking about trolley problems is unpleasant, something people with bad character dream up and inflict on others (evidence: the good place)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:03 AM on May 4 [6 favorites]
Advice columns (which is what AITA is) are useful in what they tell you about people's obsessions. I've noticed FB serving me a lot of third hand AITA stories about evil mothers in law, people doing mean shit at weddings, and cheating partners. I guess because I'm a woman and therefore that's what I'm supposed to care about.
posted by emjaybee at 10:50 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 10:50 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
The thing is, whether or not any given the AITA posts is true is mostly irrelevant from the standpoint of evaluating people's philosophy based on their responses.
There's a whole subfield of "reception theory" in literary studies and it's a good bit more complicated than that. If you just got a bunch of volunteers together, read them some hypotheticals, and asked them to comment, you'd see the limitations on those responses as reflections of their actual beliefs, right? Now imagine also that some of them are bots and some of them are teenagers who are really, really high and some of them are people who deliberately volunteered just to fuck with you, and you have no idea which any of them are.
posted by praemunire at 11:37 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
There's a whole subfield of "reception theory" in literary studies and it's a good bit more complicated than that. If you just got a bunch of volunteers together, read them some hypotheticals, and asked them to comment, you'd see the limitations on those responses as reflections of their actual beliefs, right? Now imagine also that some of them are bots and some of them are teenagers who are really, really high and some of them are people who deliberately volunteered just to fuck with you, and you have no idea which any of them are.
posted by praemunire at 11:37 AM on May 4 [2 favorites]
I'd peg AITA somewhere around 90% fake. Close on 100% of the posts that contain details I have the expertise and experience to evaluated are bogus, so I have to assume that's true of the ones where I lack that insight. People love attention, and Reddit karma can be monetized, so there you go.
posted by MattD at 11:48 AM on May 4 [3 favorites]
posted by MattD at 11:48 AM on May 4 [3 favorites]
Anyone care to connect the dots between “many of the stories in AITA are fake” to “this specific claim the authors are making is wrong”?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:09 PM on May 4 [1 favorite]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:09 PM on May 4 [1 favorite]
Anyone care to connect the dots between “many of the stories in AITA are fake” to “this specific claim the authors are making is wrong”?
It's not "this claim is wrong," it's that "this claim is based on evidence that is often, but unpredictably, fabricated, so it's not that useful to either prove or disprove this claim."
posted by praemunire at 5:18 PM on May 4 [1 favorite]
It's not "this claim is wrong," it's that "this claim is based on evidence that is often, but unpredictably, fabricated, so it's not that useful to either prove or disprove this claim."
posted by praemunire at 5:18 PM on May 4 [1 favorite]
that’s like saying that since fiction is made up any interpretation of that fiction is wrong. I really think people are simply not reading the paper.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:28 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:28 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
My main complain with the Vox article is this rhetorical flourish:
The trolley problem looks at things like agency and how it changes our intuitions in ways that violate utilitarian instincts. Philosophers also discuss relationships and webs of obligations and how that changes what we do. Even utilitarians will explain why it's OK to worry more about your own kids. (That was part of going on in the recent FPP about effective altruism, though IIRC it didn't enter the discussion at all.)
Don't see how analysing the language of a relationship advice forum could be all that relevant to the larger questions of philosophical trends the article leaps into later.
These researcher may be from psychology departments, but this was definitely a thing among philosophers when I took an undergrad class a decade or so ago. I have no idea if it's a trend that's died down. On the one hand it doesn't seem like ethics should be determined by popular vote. But if you have a bunch of literature talking about principles that is based on people imagining a problem and how "people" would respond, it does open the door to papers trying to figure what people actually think.
posted by mark k at 5:33 PM on May 4 [1 favorite]
That [the trolley problem] is a pretty weird way to study moral decision-making. In real life, the trade-offs we face often involve people we actually know, but the trolley problem imagines a world where you have no special relationship to anybody. It doesn’t ask whether you should make a different decision if one of the people tied to the tracks is, say, your mother.The point of the trolley hypothetical is that it is something like a single variable problem. Saying it's "weird" that they don't make it more complicated is really dumbing things down to pander to your audience and play up the novelty of the paper. It's like noticing scientists test drugs in test tubes and pretending they don't ever think about organs and tissues. Which people do; both strikes me as a lazy and vaguely anti-intellectual way to engage the reader. You imply they are getting in on some insight on the ground floor, for a topic that is (in this case) thousands of years old.
The trolley problem looks at things like agency and how it changes our intuitions in ways that violate utilitarian instincts. Philosophers also discuss relationships and webs of obligations and how that changes what we do. Even utilitarians will explain why it's OK to worry more about your own kids. (That was part of going on in the recent FPP about effective altruism, though IIRC it didn't enter the discussion at all.)
Don't see how analysing the language of a relationship advice forum could be all that relevant to the larger questions of philosophical trends the article leaps into later.
These researcher may be from psychology departments, but this was definitely a thing among philosophers when I took an undergrad class a decade or so ago. I have no idea if it's a trend that's died down. On the one hand it doesn't seem like ethics should be determined by popular vote. But if you have a bunch of literature talking about principles that is based on people imagining a problem and how "people" would respond, it does open the door to papers trying to figure what people actually think.
posted by mark k at 5:33 PM on May 4 [1 favorite]
Fake or not, what I've learned from AITA is that anyone who plays "pranks" or worse yet calls themself a "prankster" is always a psychopathic asshole.
I've never once seen "my boyfriend loves to play pranks, so he hid 100 rubber ducks around my BFF's house!". It's always, always "...so he hid my mother's insulin and she had to go to the hospital and now everyone's mad at ME for saying it was just a prank.
Also, and again even if 90% fake (for the record, I think it's about 50/50), got DAMN do people get stupid about weddings.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:56 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
I've never once seen "my boyfriend loves to play pranks, so he hid 100 rubber ducks around my BFF's house!". It's always, always "...so he hid my mother's insulin and she had to go to the hospital and now everyone's mad at ME for saying it was just a prank.
Also, and again even if 90% fake (for the record, I think it's about 50/50), got DAMN do people get stupid about weddings.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:56 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
that’s like saying that since fiction is made up any interpretation of that fiction is wrong.
No, it's like saying that since fiction is made up, treating fiction as actual psychological case studies, or as thinly-disguised philosophical argumentation, is a mistake.
posted by praemunire at 8:05 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
No, it's like saying that since fiction is made up, treating fiction as actual psychological case studies, or as thinly-disguised philosophical argumentation, is a mistake.
posted by praemunire at 8:05 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
Just looking at the abstract:
Dilemmas involving the under-investigated topic of relational obligations were the most frequently reported, while those pertaining to honesty were the most widely condemned. The types of dilemmas people experienced depended on the interpersonal closeness of the interactants, with some dilemmas (e.g., politeness) being more prominent in distant-other interactions, and others (e.g., relational transgressions) more prominent in close-other interactions. A longitudinal investigation showed that shifts in social interactions prompted by the “shock” event of the global pandemic resulted in predictable shifts in the types of moral dilemmas that people encountered.
I find that interesting whether the scenarios are mostly made up or not. One could ask other questions like what kinds of posts are up or down voted most, patterns in the comments, etc, and it wouldn't matter whether the posts are made up. We're still learning something about how people respond.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:47 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
Dilemmas involving the under-investigated topic of relational obligations were the most frequently reported, while those pertaining to honesty were the most widely condemned. The types of dilemmas people experienced depended on the interpersonal closeness of the interactants, with some dilemmas (e.g., politeness) being more prominent in distant-other interactions, and others (e.g., relational transgressions) more prominent in close-other interactions. A longitudinal investigation showed that shifts in social interactions prompted by the “shock” event of the global pandemic resulted in predictable shifts in the types of moral dilemmas that people encountered.
I find that interesting whether the scenarios are mostly made up or not. One could ask other questions like what kinds of posts are up or down voted most, patterns in the comments, etc, and it wouldn't matter whether the posts are made up. We're still learning something about how people respond.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:47 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
I'm not quite understanding how people just kind of...know how a particular AITA post is fake. It seemingly comes from a place of worldly experience, as in "I know how the world works and people would never do/say/be in a situation like that." But it's a two-edged sword: claiming a post is fake because you can't imagine someone would do/say/be in a situation like that could also be a sign that maybe your inexperience is showing.
posted by zardoz at 8:51 PM on May 4 [4 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 8:51 PM on May 4 [4 favorites]
Exactly. In my experience there's two ways people tell, or think they can tell, if a post is fake. The first is if the post makes fundamental errors in the way systems factually work. The classic example in AitA is when the posts have the legal system moving far more quickly than it can possibly move. The second type is the one you identify: People say "this is fake because nobody would act like that".
The first type is often legitimate. People who don't understand how systems work often make pretty easy to spot mistakes. But lots of folks will call out the second type of "error" on any post where everybody doesn't act like, I dunno, logic worshipping vulcans. I think a lot of 'em are kids who haven't experienced how incredibly weird people behave in the real world.
posted by Justinian at 9:13 PM on May 4 [5 favorites]
The first type is often legitimate. People who don't understand how systems work often make pretty easy to spot mistakes. But lots of folks will call out the second type of "error" on any post where everybody doesn't act like, I dunno, logic worshipping vulcans. I think a lot of 'em are kids who haven't experienced how incredibly weird people behave in the real world.
posted by Justinian at 9:13 PM on May 4 [5 favorites]
Sure. A lot of the (probably fake) "everyday moral dilemmas" on AITA tend to fall into various categories of ragebait, involving tropes that come up again and again, in various combinations, such as:
- blended families
- twins
- improbable inheritance
- suspected poisoning
- evil queer person (trans people in particular are often villains in these)
- evil childfree relative/friend
- cheating wife/girlfriend (these are often full of manosphere fears, such as false paternity, men losing disproportionate assets in divorce, a woman trading up for someone more muscular/tall/rich/whatever)
- a good sprinkle of ableism, fatphobia, and/or a disdain for neurodivergence. often a person is asking for some reasonable accommodation and OP paints them as flying off the handle, causing a scene, turning the family against them, whatever.
It's easy to spot patterns because so many of these stories are just barely altered copy/paste posts from past AITA or from other similar subreddits. And because the OP will typically sound like they have a real axe to grind. There are also big tells in the narration, like "...I calmly explained" or "[line of dialogue] she smirked" or frankly even transcribing large portions of conversations. It reads as fiction. It is fiction. It's a bad sample to pull from.
posted by knotty knots at 1:06 AM on May 5 [3 favorites]
- blended families
- twins
- improbable inheritance
- suspected poisoning
- evil queer person (trans people in particular are often villains in these)
- evil childfree relative/friend
- cheating wife/girlfriend (these are often full of manosphere fears, such as false paternity, men losing disproportionate assets in divorce, a woman trading up for someone more muscular/tall/rich/whatever)
- a good sprinkle of ableism, fatphobia, and/or a disdain for neurodivergence. often a person is asking for some reasonable accommodation and OP paints them as flying off the handle, causing a scene, turning the family against them, whatever.
It's easy to spot patterns because so many of these stories are just barely altered copy/paste posts from past AITA or from other similar subreddits. And because the OP will typically sound like they have a real axe to grind. There are also big tells in the narration, like "...I calmly explained" or "[line of dialogue] she smirked" or frankly even transcribing large portions of conversations. It reads as fiction. It is fiction. It's a bad sample to pull from.
posted by knotty knots at 1:06 AM on May 5 [3 favorites]
Shopping trolleys are presuppositional and the basis for all possible wheeled conveyance so there is no need at all to tie people to the tracks in the first place.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:04 AM on May 5
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:04 AM on May 5
Utilitarianism deals with relationships pretty easily; for example, even absent any emotional attachment, my wife and I would feed our kids because no one else is going to. (Also it's really easy- they live in my house, I can make sure that every dollar I spend towards food actually goes toward feeding them, etc.)
As a fairly annoying person, I was thinking about how many people I must have annoyed in my life, and thought that it's not at all clear from a utilitarian perspective whether I've caused more utility for the world than what I've cost others. But imagine a galaxy of untold trillions of people that are, by the work of some terrible philosopher, given daily the smallest just-noticeable quantum of annoyance, transmitted through the fabric of spacetime from some annoying person- call them Percy McFlugelhorn. How many people must be subjected to the daily quantum of annoyance before it is better from a utilitarian perspective that Percy be killed?
I don't think Percy should die no matter how many people he annoys. There are a couple ways to modify utilitarianism if I wanted to capture this feeling. One way would be to assert that utility uses nonstandard arithmetic, in which utility values can have unbridgeable gaps of magnitude such that things like rape and murder cost a sort of infinitely-larger amount of utility than things like farting in public. Another way that is harder to mathematically characterize is to try to account for the extra power each individual has to cope with hardship. That is, people are adaptive and it takes very little time for a person to return to equilibrium after receiving a quantum of annoyance, while some harsher circumstances may permanently disturb a person's emotional homeostasis. And that probably makes the summation of utility across people more complicated, though I haven't worked out exactly how.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 8:32 AM on May 5 [3 favorites]
As a fairly annoying person, I was thinking about how many people I must have annoyed in my life, and thought that it's not at all clear from a utilitarian perspective whether I've caused more utility for the world than what I've cost others. But imagine a galaxy of untold trillions of people that are, by the work of some terrible philosopher, given daily the smallest just-noticeable quantum of annoyance, transmitted through the fabric of spacetime from some annoying person- call them Percy McFlugelhorn. How many people must be subjected to the daily quantum of annoyance before it is better from a utilitarian perspective that Percy be killed?
I don't think Percy should die no matter how many people he annoys. There are a couple ways to modify utilitarianism if I wanted to capture this feeling. One way would be to assert that utility uses nonstandard arithmetic, in which utility values can have unbridgeable gaps of magnitude such that things like rape and murder cost a sort of infinitely-larger amount of utility than things like farting in public. Another way that is harder to mathematically characterize is to try to account for the extra power each individual has to cope with hardship. That is, people are adaptive and it takes very little time for a person to return to equilibrium after receiving a quantum of annoyance, while some harsher circumstances may permanently disturb a person's emotional homeostasis. And that probably makes the summation of utility across people more complicated, though I haven't worked out exactly how.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 8:32 AM on May 5 [3 favorites]
I'm not quite understanding how people just kind of...know how a particular AITA post is fake. It seemingly comes from a place of worldly experience, as in "I know how the world works and people would never do/say/be in a situation like that."
There’s a third way. There are several repeat trolls who post on AITA. There’s an obesity troll who makes up stories about being out upon by an obese sibling, there’s an MIL troll. There were, for a while at least, a nipple troll and a period troll. I personally am convinced that there’s a stepmother troll, because there simply cant be that many psycho childless women trying to replace their spouse’s dead wife.
Once you see enough stories about situations that are essentially the same, and begin to recognize the writing style (tone and typos), bells start to go off.
There are also several repeat posters who continuously retell their own evolving stories hoping for a positive judgment that are also recognizable due to tone and consistent typos (see PS4 Dad and Psycho MIL). I’m more likely to believe those are real (for certain values of real).
ETA: also an autism troll. If you are interested in learning more start reading AmITheDevil and AmITheAngel, they have a pretty good read most of the time.
posted by bq at 7:42 AM on May 6 [2 favorites]
There’s a third way. There are several repeat trolls who post on AITA. There’s an obesity troll who makes up stories about being out upon by an obese sibling, there’s an MIL troll. There were, for a while at least, a nipple troll and a period troll. I personally am convinced that there’s a stepmother troll, because there simply cant be that many psycho childless women trying to replace their spouse’s dead wife.
Once you see enough stories about situations that are essentially the same, and begin to recognize the writing style (tone and typos), bells start to go off.
There are also several repeat posters who continuously retell their own evolving stories hoping for a positive judgment that are also recognizable due to tone and consistent typos (see PS4 Dad and Psycho MIL). I’m more likely to believe those are real (for certain values of real).
ETA: also an autism troll. If you are interested in learning more start reading AmITheDevil and AmITheAngel, they have a pretty good read most of the time.
posted by bq at 7:42 AM on May 6 [2 favorites]
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posted by mhoye at 2:09 PM on May 3 [4 favorites]