Comment by Rayhem
3 years ago
> But of course it's as unreasonable for me to expect other people always to adapt to my preferences as it is for other people to expect me always to adapt to theirs.
I'm actually not quite so sure about this. Admittedly, as a lifelong member of the waiters, I find "interrupt culture" incredibly frustrating. But I also think there's a framework by which we can establish interrupt culture as ostensibly more rude, even if that's the custom you're used to and expect. Consider children at recess, all wanting to use the same toy. The children could
1. take the toy from whoever is using now when they want it, or
2. use the toy for a short while before returning it so someone else can use it.
You could cast the second a little differently,
3. use the toy until they're done with it before returning it
Assuming the kids can't simply prevent each other from playing and there's some moderation effect to ensure other kids can play at the next recess, both of the "wait culture" analogies seem less rude than the "interrupt culture" one. Of course, the toy represents the shared conversational resource. "The stage," if you will.
I think the societal trick is, then, not to "learn to adjust to wait/interrupt culture if you're used to interrupt/wait culture", but to encourage more mindfulness about using the shared resource and returning it if others want it.
> I'm actually not quite so sure about this. Admittedly, as a lifelong member of the waiters, I find "interrupt culture" incredibly frustrating. But I also think there's a framework by which we can establish interrupt culture as ostensibly more rude, even if that's the custom you're used to and expect.
I think you can definitely make this argument, and it will establish, conveniently, that everyone should do things our way. But then interrupters can make an argument about how, if only we could all agree to do things their way, then things would be so efficient, and no-one would need to waste time waiting for someone else to finish up a sentence whose content they've already guessed, or that they can already tell will be irrelevant to the discussion at hand, or … well, whatever the argument is. Of course, I find your argument more persuasive than the interrupters’; but … well, I would, wouldn't I? If it just so happens that the answer to a vexing societal question is for people to realize that I'm right and do things my way, then I have to become suspicious of whether I'm really arguing as logically as I think I am.
Yes, that's exactly my point. It's easy to say "I think X so X is right" but I'm trying to find more objectivity by drawing analogies/looking for asymmetries with other things. What happens if we perturb the system in a given direction? Of course, pronouncements of absolute moral certainty pretty much fall to unprovable religion - "murder is always bad because God doesn't approve, even if everyone agrees to it!" - but I find it likely that there are approximate moral certainties (like murder or theft generally being harmful, or, in this case, interruption culture being the more rude of the two).
> If it just so happens that the answer to a vexing societal question is for people that I'm right and do things my way, then I have to become suspicious of whether I'm really arguing as logically as I think I am.
I appreciate this position greatly and I think it's very noble. I try very hard to argue with myself along the same lines to arrive at better conclusions. My concern with the alternative - that people are hard, there are no answers, and all we can do is communicate - is that it means nothing is knowable with a side effect of supporting the status quo.
That's funny that he used that word, because waiters repeatedly come and interrupt our dinner to ask how we are doing :-P
Why can't they just have an app or a button to summon them like on an airplane? LOL
> Why can't they just have an app or a button to summon them like on an airplane? LOL
Life's hard enough for waiters even when they can visit all their tables in a rotation that's convenient for them; I don't think we need to add an additional hassle.