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Notes -
There a fun dramatic little scissor statement happening in the rationalist / post rationalist corner of twitter at the moment. Started by @_brentbaum talking about his girlfriend's high agency:
I, and many others, chimed in saying hey wait a second... this is actually kind of concerning! Some of the negative responses:
and my personal favorite:
As I said though, this is apparently a scissor statement because a ton of people also had the OPPOSITE reaction. Some examples:
etc etc.
Now the reason I find this fascinating is that it's one of the clearest breakdowns between consequentialists and virtue ethicists I've yet seen in the wild. Most people defending the girl of 'scarfgate' are basically just saying "what's the harm? nobody ever goes back for those scarfs. besides they're like $20 most of the time anyway."
Unfortunately a lot of folks get drawn into this argument, and start saying things like well, what if somebody comes back for it later and it's gone? Or what if someone's grandma knitted them that scarf?
To me, going down the consequentialist route is doomed to fail. You can justify all sorts of horrible things in the name of consequentialist morality. (Same with deontology, to be fair.) My take is that this is wrong because she directly lied to someone's face, and then proceeded to steal someone else's property. The fact that most people think it's cute and quirky is probably down to a sort of Women are Wonderful effect, imo, and then they use consequentialism to defend their default programming that women can't be bad.
Either way, curious what the Motte thinks? Is scarfgate just salty sour pusses hating on a highly agentic women? Or are there deeper issues here?
Personally I think it's extremely poor form for a man to expose a vulnerability on the second date. I also don't think I'd wear someone else's scarf, that seems like a pretty personal object. I've heard of people doing this with phone chargers and I know I'd never go back for a lost charger, so that hasn't bothered me vis a vis the other people's stuff angle.
Depends a lot on the aims for the date, imho. If the main goal is to have sex with her, then being the perfect and tough guy who is of course not whining about the cold and will in fact lend miss little princess his jacket if she should feel cold could be the winning strategy.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a long term relationship and don't want to keep the princess/servant dynamic in the long term, you might want to show a bit of imperfection and vulnerability just to see how she will react. Will she ignore your plight? Will she be willing to go into a clothing store with you and let you pay for a scarf? Will she gift you a scarf? Will she do something completely unexpected, like conning a receptionist? Will she dump you on the spot?
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Why is it extremely poor form?
Because it seems like weakness or poor planning, to me, nother of which are attractive in men?
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