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Notes -
There's 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?
The whole thing seems very weird, probably fake, and not primarily about "agency." What kind of weather situation were they in where he was actually cold, not just making idle chatter, and a "nice scarf" was going to fix that? And then he just went around wearing some random woman's scarf the rest of the evening? It sounds funny, I guess they could have a good laugh over it? Definitely manic pixie dream girl vibes.
But, also, I've been confused about how "agency" is being used lately. Assertiveness? Willingness to take action? It seems kind of new to hear that discussed in terms of agency, but seems to have become a thing lately.
Agency is literally "you just do things", as opposed to standing around like a deer in headlights, waiting for others to solve your problems, or sitting on your ass making excuses.
I wouldn't describe myself as highly agentic, but I have acquired the superpower (thanks Grandpa for being a role model here) of just talking to strangers in order to get things done, when my friends would rather shrink into themselves than talk to someone they have no mandate to establish contact with. Or just calling a restaurant to find out whether it's open, instead of a full commitment to whatever google says. Or walking into an office and loudly (though politely!) asking whether anyone has some particular bit of infornation. All of this seems exceptional around here because people in general seem to have developed an extremely atrophied sense of their own agency. You can in fact just go and talk to people.
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Modal men don't do that. If we're making idle chatter it's usually about shoes and ships and sealing-wax and cabbages and kings. "It's cold today" is idle chatter, "I am cold" means the dude is freezing.
One has to wonder if he was hoping she'd offer to warm him up by cuddling. Instead she got him a free scarf. 😀
>be me
>on second date with qt3.14
>flirty and even sometimes sexual banter all night
>bros... we're so going to make it
>we're walking outside when she complains how cold it is
>I say "haha yeah even my cock could use some warmth"
>nooo got overconfident and went too far
>why am I such a cringe retard?!
>she smiles and says "follow me"
>we start walking toward the nearest hotel
>what no way no way ron_paul_its_happening.jpg
>shes talking to the receptionist in the lobby
>I hover behind her awkwardly
>so nervous I can hardly breath
>vision blurry and ringing sound in my ears
>looking around trying to find the elevators so I can at least lead us there
>she suddenly turns around
>I hear a muffled "teehee this is for you" as she throws something to me
>something soft lands in my hands
>mfw my hands are rawdogging some guy's dirty compression shorts
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It is being used to describe out of the box thinking in this case, as most people wouldn't consider stealing a scarf from a hotel in that manner.
Is it out of the box, or is her box just one filled with low status grifting? Even if I valued out of the box thinking, I wouldn't value the kind of thinking I associate with the underclass or sociopaths.
I don't consider it a good thing to do either, I was just describing why @_brentbaum called it agentic in the first place. I presume he was ok with the status quo (feeling cold), and hadn't considered doing something to feel less cold (problem solving is agentic), let alone deceiving a hotel and taking other people's stuff.
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Is that how it's usually meant?
It seems like I've mostly heard it applied to women in a context I assumed was criticizing the tendency to want a man to take initiative, but maybe that's just my interpretation, and not the actual intent.
It's not usually meant like that, but sometimes people do consider doing things others wouldn't as more agentic.
I haven't noticed any gendered patterns of how the word is used yet. I have mostly heard it in context of it being promoted as a virtuous trait, for self-improvement and to improve society by believing you can do it (especially in tech-adjacent discussions).
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