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PaperclipPerfector  23d ago (text post)   23631 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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Fairness being something only autistic people want is something someone came up with here but it's not really correct in the sense that only autistic people care about fairness; autistic people merely care more about mechanical rules rather than things like inclusivity or reciprocity, but people still deeply care about their notions of what their deserts should be, that they get a decent deal.

I tend to agree with this. In public policy debates, we constantly hear arguments about fairness. The basic argument is either that fairness is good for it's own sake or that a fair system encourages people to put faith in the system.

In fact, it seems pretty common for fairness (explicitly or implicitly) to feature prominently in arguments about public policy. So much so, that when "don't bother me with fairness" is used to dismiss an argument about gynocentrism, patriarchy, and sex roles, to me it smacks of special pleading.

In fact, it seems pretty common for fairness (explicitly or implicitly) to feature prominently in arguments about public policy.

I think this may reflect that it's very common to convincingly appear as if one cares about fairness (even, possibly, to one's own conscious mind) in order to get advantages for oneself. It's a kayfabe that, by its very nature, must never be acknowledged or talked about, as doing so impacts how convincingly one appears to care about fairness. It's only weird autists like us on this website who either believe it or try to penetrate through the layers of deception to get at what people actually care about.

This seems backwards to me. Sure you might be right it’s laudable but if you can point out they aren’t being fair, then they either need to be fair or drop the kayfabe. Force the contradiction.

You can't, if they have the social standing, "they'll kick you and they'll beat you and they'll tell you it’s fair", and everyone will believe them.

Sure you might be right it’s laudable but if you can point out they aren’t being fair, then they either need to be fair or drop the kayfabe.

Either that, or they develop extra epicycles - and, in the long run, entire industries that generate more and more epicycles - for why all the people pointing out that they aren't being fair are actually wrong.

I think this may reflect that it's very common to convincingly appear as if one cares about fairness (even, possibly, to one's own conscious mind) in order to get advantages for oneself. It's a kayfabe that, by its very nature, must never be acknowledged or talked about, as doing so impacts how convincingly one appears to care about fairness.

I'm not sure I understand your point here.

Suppose a left-wing demagogue gets on the stage and says something like "The rich hardly pay any taxes at all while the rest of us pay through the nose!!" Alternatively, suppose a right-wing demagogue gets on the stage and says something like "Illegal immigrants have their housing and healthcare paid for by the government, while you and I must pay our own way!"

Both of these arguments are implicit appeals to fairness. And they could easily be made explicit by simply tacking on "How is that fair!?" to the end.

Moreover, these types of arguments are very common in public dialogue.

Ok, so are you saying that the people who make these arguments don't actually care about fairness, they are only pretending in order to enhance their credibility?

No, even pretending to care about fairness is a level above what I'm talking about.

In your hypothetical, a left-wing demagogue is complaining about the rich not paying taxes while the not-as-rich do. He or she might genuinely believe this. I'm not saying they're all actors. But this same demagogue will, even unconsciously, leave themselves out of the complaint, even if they themselves are one of the rich. What this person wants to do is attack the rich/gain points with their own side, the exact terms of the argument aren't important.

There are some true believers, some people who are rich and would call for higher taxes on themselves, and I'm saying those people are weird or have some consistent belief in equal laws and an equally applied moral system that makes them essentially aliens and outcasts.

There are some true believers, some people who are rich and would call for higher taxes on themselves, and I'm saying those people are weird or have some consistent belief in equal laws and an equally applied moral system that makes them essentially aliens and outcasts.

Would you be able to offer a test to distinguish between (1) an alien or outcast; and (2) everyone else (I guess you could say "normie" for lack of a better word)?

I don't know about a test, per se, but this is where I value the concept of a costly signal. Someone who is (1) will be able to (and, in practice, will do so) send a signal that they belong in (1) by engaging in an activity that benefits whatever principle they're pushing forward while it costs him something, i.e. causes him to suffer. This, too, can be faked, and so it's not a true test, but it's perhaps one piece of evidence among many that one can look at when trying to ascertain someone's categorization. E.g. a man who decides to castrate himself because he believes that the types of behaviors that testosterone tends to cause in men really are evil and toxic could likely be trusted as someone who truly believes in what feminists are saying, because castration is a very costly action that benefits this cause.

I don't know about a test, per se, but this is where I value the concept of a costly signal.

Based on that, it seems to me there's no way to know which category the OP falls into.

Ok, so are you saying that the people who make these arguments don't actually care about fairness, they are only pretending in order to enhance their credibility?

Something like that. Furthermore, the voters who find these arguments convincing and decide to vote for them (or vote for the demagogues' preferred politicians or policies, etc.) are also pretending to care about fairness, possibly even to their own conscious mind, so that they can honestly, genuinely believe that they care about some sort of higher order principles beyond naked self interest.

Something like that. Furthermore, the voters who find these arguments convincing and decide to vote for them (or vote for the demagogues' preferred politicians or policies, etc.) are also pretending to care about fairness, possibly even to their own conscious mind, so that they can honestly, genuinely believe that they care about some sort of higher order principles beyond naked self interest.

Ok, I pretty much agree with that. But I think the basic point still stands: The appeal to fairness of @Nerd appears -- to me -- to be fundamentally no different from those of anyone else.

(…) pretending to care about fairness, possibly even to their own conscious mind, so that they can honestly, genuinely believe that they care about some sort of higher order principles beyond naked self interest.

But that's passing the buck. Why do they need to lie to themselves in their own minds unless they actually have a real conscience somewhere in there that recognizes fairness is better than pure selfishness, and makes them feel bad if they recognize themselves to be falling short of that ideal?

Why do they need to lie themselves in their own minds unless they actually have a real conscience somewhere in there that recognizes fairness is better than pure selfishness

This is an excellent point, and, as with all things involving subconscious motivations, I don't think there's a real rigorous way to confirm any of this. My current hypothesis is that it feels better to believe oneself to care about being fair than to believe oneself to be purely selfish which is distinct from believing that fairness is better than pure selfishness. Of course, one could argue that "feeling better when one believes oneself to be X rather than Y means that they believe that X is better than Y," but I'd posit that believing that caring about something isn't a feeling, it's an action. When one acts in naked self interest while feeling really really bad about it and internally beating themselves up in their minds about how bad they're being for not caring about fairness or performing Olympics-level mental gymnastics to believe that they're actually being fair despite the naked self interest, one is clearly caring about naked self interest and basically not at all caring about fairness.

The thing with pretense is that humans are generally terrible liars, who can't credibly pretend to anything without gradually coming to actually believe it to some degree. The people pretending to care about fairness can be casually motivated by the most brazen self-interest, but the result of all the pretending tends to be that if you then take a sufficiently powerful psychological steamroller (argumentation, rhetoric, propaganda, ritual, fancy buildings with statues of blindfolded matrons) to persuade them that forfeiting their self-interest would be fair, they by and large give up.

This is why justice and organised society works at all. Without this mechanism you just get something that looks like Somalia, and even in Somalia I gather that the tribal courts actually talk people into a lot of self-destructive ingroup altruism.

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