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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4083 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 5, 2023

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I've noticed what I think is the strongest source of Russell conjugations in my life: road rage, specifically with regard to cutting off people. It's amazing how strongly I feel it, even after I've noted the hypocrisy in myself. It's just the first and most basic instinct I feel in any of these situations. And I've even noticed a gendered component of how I think, informed by the political climate.

I merge into the lane, because I need to get into that lane, but they're stubbornly not letting me in.
He cuts me off, because he's a selfish dick who thinks he's a better driver than me and thinks I suck as a driver.
She cuts me off because she thinks that I'm a patriarchal male who thinks he's entitled to the road, which ultimately leads to her acting like an entitled bitch.

On the topic of road rage, I'm a prolific road rager myself. Russel conjugations included.

However, I did fix the problem with one simple trick. Just.. drive like an "asshole" and don't think too much about it.

Game theoretically it makes sense. There's no way for you to be punished for cutting someone off or just merging in at the last second, especially in a large enough city/town where your reputation can't be at stake. All the rewards with none of the punishments.

Really, I can't convince myself any good reason to not "drive like an asshole".

It's hard to get that mad when you leave the house with the express intent of being a menace. You are the danger, take pride in the fact.

Is this Molochian? Yes. But the way to defeat Moloch is to devise a system where he has less influence not hopelessly holding onto the old system kicking and screaming and begging everyone to just not give into him.

Really, I can't convince myself any good reason to not "drive like an asshole."

You'll get there if you keep thinking. Apart from the danger to other people's lives (and also your own life and the lives of your passengers when your unstoppable force meets its immovable object), the most compelling reason to not be an asshole (on the road at high speeds in a 2 ton metallic box, in line at Lowe's, at the table at Red Lobster, or, yes, online): is that it's contagious. Your zooming in front of a frazzled mother shakes her up, she gets so rattled she snaps at her daughter, who is then a little bitch to her brother, who then storms out and throws a rock at a window. It's a cycle of destruction and human misery that is a microcosm of hell on earth. Sure, you get wherever faster and mildly more smug, but you've fucked over your fellow men and women to do so. If explaining why that is not ideal is necessary, it is probably also pointless.

That said, I understand you may have been going for hyperbole.

Here's the thing.

What you said is just about the worst-case scenario of driving like an asshole. And on net that is still probably still morally less worse than.. Using your phone while out on a dinner with friends. The cost is far too diffuse.

Although I am a big fan of thinking about and being mindful of nth order effects, nth order morality not so much. You can just about create a case for not doing anything ever because somewhere down the chain of events, someone gets harmed a non 0 amount.

And driving "like and asshole" isn't much more risky than not driving like an asshole. Certainly orders of magnitude less than um... texting and driving. Speed kills, not cutting in line at 20 mph.

What you said is just about the worst-case scenario of driving like an asshole

I see you've never driven on I-880.

What you said is just about the worst-case scenario of driving like an asshole.

No, it's not, not even close. The worst-case scenarios are low-probability events like cutting off the wrong guy and getting shot in the face or overestimating your own competence, killing someone, and being charged with negligent homicide.

Hmm. Do you get pissed off when someone cuts you off (and succeeds...Presumably with your view you're not going gently into that good shoulder)?

Mind you if we're talking about reasonably aggressive driving we may be of the same mind--too cautious drivers are also a hazard, which is one reason I enjoy driving the Osaka Loop (especially at night, like being in a sci fi film) and my wife hates it. But that's minus the assholery and maliciousness that "driving like an asshole" suggests to me. Maybe I need examples.

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