Quick meta thought on talking about human nature

It’s surprisingly tough to talk about human nature in a venue with a comments section.

Why? Simple. Because the comments will almost always be dominated by “this doesn’t apply to me” comments. But the beauty is that almost always, the “this doesn’t apply to me” commenters will usually include a hilariously non-self-aware explanation for why this part of human nature doesn’t apply to them, and in my observation about 2/3 of the time that explanation will in fact contain clear evidence of how the thing does in fact very much apply to them.

This includes women who tell me they aren’t shallow on dating apps, by citing proof of how they didn’t even notice that their Abercrombie model boyfriend was good looking before they swiped, and of course people starting angry arguments about how they do not in fact allow Facebook to manipulate them into conflict.

I wrote this as a Facebook post before remembering it belongs here. On Facebook I’d leave it like this, but here I kind of feel inclined to expand. There isn’t really a whole lot more to say, except that this is something I have seen absolutely everywhere including IRL, and has been evident to my from the beginning of the couple decades I’ve spent studying human nature. It’s such a bad cliche that it isn’t really interesting to write about, and here and there television writers have left it to a quick joke. But it’s a real problem. You can’t improve outcomes without first changing behavior, and you can’t change behavior when the default reaction to learning about your own nature is vehement denial.

This isn’t just about Facebook but lately it’s mostly about Facebook. It’s also about a real world conflict I had recently between A and B. A and B have been feuding for years, and it long ago got to the point where they can’t have a normal conversation without overreacting to odd hair triggers. They got at it again recently and I talked to them individually about it. When I talked to A, he said “you know, I hadn’t realized that directly, but I did kind of question myself at one point and someone else pointed out that my response was disproportionate.” But when I talked to B, she said “I’m not like that at all. I know that most people are like that, but I’m not, because I’m self-aware.” I was floored and just couldn’t come up with any useful response at all besides to politely end the discussion, because there was nothing to be gained. You simply cannot advise someone who insists that they have nothing to learn from you because they believe that your observations don’t apply to special people like them.

You aren’t special. I’m not special either. You aren’t among the rare and special people who “aren’t racist,” you share the same latent bias as the rest of us and the fact that you choose to pretend you don’t actually makes you less able to compensate for it. You aren’t the rare and special person who is able to think calmly and rationally in absolutely every circumstance even with that family member who always triggers you, and the fact that you insist otherwise is the reason you aren’t going to get past the problem. And finally, you aren’t immune to social media’s manipulation of your emotions, and getting angry about it the way they want you to isn’t very compelling proof that you’ve got the upper hand.