Today I have seen a nugget of purest evil
Nov. 17th, 2014 02:09 pmToday I saw an act of pure evil (and an act of pure good).
If you're in a stationary queue of traffic, and and a vehicle wants to turn through (not into) it, into or out of a side road, there is absolutely no benefit to you in preventing it, and negligible harm to anyone else. It's physically impossible for the queue ahead to accelerate so fast that waiting 20 seconds to let someone through means you may be left behind, unless they have psychic powers. And even if they do, you're still only losing 20 seconds.
As far as I can tell, the only possible downside is that way at the back of the queue, the cars are being held up by 20 seconds, and someone *may* be slowed down by the queue from reaching the turning they want. But the person in the vehicle that would like to turn in front of you is *definitely* being prevented, so letting them through seems like it would always be better. There's not even any mental effort, since letting someone turn out of a side road is pretty boring, but it's less boring than sitting in a queue of traffic :) Is there any other downside I'm missing? Even if the queue is only moving slowly, it's still usually better, but sometimes it's actually rolling forward a few metres at a time between stopping again.
It's basically free karma. Completely free: not "clearly better to do more good, at the expense of a smaller downside", not "put in a bit of effort now and it will make a greater return later", just "no downside, take the gold pill and make the universe slightly better, or take the green pill, and don't". Pure positive-sum, a small microcosm of positive-sum-interpersonal-interactions which are what make society.
So why do people NOT do this? It's pure evil.
Except, even if that analysis of the pros and cons are accurate, that emphasises the difference between evil intent and evil outcome. Most people haven't thought it through, just "must get to the red traffic light AS SOON AS POSSIBLE just in case something delays me". As with big things, for small things, "evil" intent is poorly correlated with evil outcome -- obliviousness is at least as common.
Which feels more wasteful, but might be easier to fight.
If you're in a stationary queue of traffic, and and a vehicle wants to turn through (not into) it, into or out of a side road, there is absolutely no benefit to you in preventing it, and negligible harm to anyone else. It's physically impossible for the queue ahead to accelerate so fast that waiting 20 seconds to let someone through means you may be left behind, unless they have psychic powers. And even if they do, you're still only losing 20 seconds.
As far as I can tell, the only possible downside is that way at the back of the queue, the cars are being held up by 20 seconds, and someone *may* be slowed down by the queue from reaching the turning they want. But the person in the vehicle that would like to turn in front of you is *definitely* being prevented, so letting them through seems like it would always be better. There's not even any mental effort, since letting someone turn out of a side road is pretty boring, but it's less boring than sitting in a queue of traffic :) Is there any other downside I'm missing? Even if the queue is only moving slowly, it's still usually better, but sometimes it's actually rolling forward a few metres at a time between stopping again.
It's basically free karma. Completely free: not "clearly better to do more good, at the expense of a smaller downside", not "put in a bit of effort now and it will make a greater return later", just "no downside, take the gold pill and make the universe slightly better, or take the green pill, and don't". Pure positive-sum, a small microcosm of positive-sum-interpersonal-interactions which are what make society.
So why do people NOT do this? It's pure evil.
Except, even if that analysis of the pros and cons are accurate, that emphasises the difference between evil intent and evil outcome. Most people haven't thought it through, just "must get to the red traffic light AS SOON AS POSSIBLE just in case something delays me". As with big things, for small things, "evil" intent is poorly correlated with evil outcome -- obliviousness is at least as common.
Which feels more wasteful, but might be easier to fight.