The world will never be just. But that's not germane -- doesn't matter what the world is to you anyway. It's not like you have to power to change or complain about it. It's like complaining about the spectrum of certain stars because you can't get a good tan from them.
The key question is how do you act in the world. I think many people confuse acting as if the world is a just place with actually believing that the world is a just place. When young, you may start out thinking the world is a meritocracy. Then, perhaps in school, you finally figure out that life's a bitch and then you die. Perhaps some smartass with a website or a teacher or some other authority figure takes you aside and tells you that life is shit.
What comes next is very interesting. Some folks internalize the unfairness of the world and chew on it. They hold grievances, complain about those who succeed, and feel oppressed and victimized. Other folks act as if the world is a fair place because they have decided that acting in such a way is the kind of person they want to be. They are happy, optimistic, and always looking for the good in life.
Perhaps these people always view people in pain or suffering as in some way deserving it. Perhaps the other people always view people in pain and suffering as never deserving it. Perhaps both groups secretly think of life as a meritocracy. This would be an interesting hypothesis to test.
But in either case, the world sucking is no reason for you to change your attitude one way or the other. In fact, once you figure out that you own your emotional responses to events, you move past whether the world sucks or not, because it's really not that important.
And then you find articles like this pointless or worse.
It's fallacious to think your fate has nothing to do with your actions, yet it's also fallacious to think that your fate is determined solely by your actions.
The real fallacy in action is the unspoken assumption that every effect has a singular cause, when the vast majority of the time there are a multitude of causes and contributing factors. Robert Anton Wilson called it "quantum causality": http://blog.est.im/archives/1158
While this outlook is seemingly more difficult to manage, it becomes a lot easier when one begins to think in terms of probabilities rather than certainties. In the example of the drunk woman in the bad part of town, she is responsible only for increasing the probability that that she would be raped, but she is not responsible for the rape itself.
the example of the drunk woman in the bad part of town, she is responsible only for increasing the probability that that she would be raped, but she is not responsible for the rape itself.
This assumes that it is easy to measure the probability of possible risk vs. possible benefit for every action that an individual makes. I'd say that something like that is very difficult to do, given that our desires don't always coincide with what is objectively rational.
Of course we could decrease the probability of bad things happening to us if we stay at home most of the time and don't break any rules/norms, but that would rule out acting on many of our desires.
The problem with the rape-example is that it's overly idealized - it's a tautology: If you're asking to get raped, then, yes, you're asking to get raped. But you're not. The majority of street-rapes (the actual majority of rapes are between people who already know each other) aren't of people "asking for it", it's of people who maybe didn't take all the precautions they could have, but all-in-all were just in the wrong place in the wrong time. And then it's not so simple - I don't think very many would think that a girl who walked three blocks alone deserved to get raped, even if it could have been avoided by taking a taxi or walking with a friend.
No one ever deserves to get raped (except perhaps a rapist, but that's another debate).
At the same time, someone who gets drunk by themselves in a bad part of town has to take responsibility for that choice, that it's more likely to lead to getting mugged/stabbed/raped, etc. That does not mean the event is their fault, because no event has a singular cause. Moreover, accepting a small piece of that responsibility does not in any way absolve the transgressor, nor does it imply that the victim "deserved" it.
Let's take a less visceral example: the tires on my car are somewhat worn, but not yet dangerously bald. My wife is driving on a rainy day, slowing down for the road conditions, but not by very much. The car skids and crashes into a tree, resulting in only minor injuries but a totaled car.
Is it my fault for not being more vigilant on the tires? Her fault for not driving slow enough? No one's fault, just an unfortunate act of God?
The answer to all three questions is "yes". Many couples would argue until they're blue in the face over who is at fault, until one gives up and backs down. The reality is that we both contributed to the situation, which potentially could have happened anyway. Acknowledging our personal contributions does not absolve the other party of theirs, nor does it mean the event is not simply an unlucky happenstance of the wrong time and place.
This is an excellent point. The whole thing becomes recursive pretty easily, at which point all of life succumbs to the halting problem. Most of the time we have to take our best guess and hope for the best.
Still, when attempting to learn from the past, usually after more information has become available, assessing how one did or did not affect those probabilities can be highly valuable in making better guesses in the future.
Other folks act as if the world is a fair place because they have decided that acting in such a way is the kind of person they want to be. They are happy, optimistic, and always looking for the good in life.
In my experience, they're generally confused and miserable, because they have an incorrect mental model of the world, so they mispredict the behaviors of others, and the outcomes of situations.
If you want to believe that the world should be fair, and would be better if it were fair, that's fine. You can believe that, and simultaneously recognize that the world is not, as it currently exists, fair. Only then can you attempt to change things. (Whether or not success is possible is a completely different question.)
I am continually amazed at how easy it is to be misunderstood. It's almost not worth commenting.
People act in such a way as if the world is fair -- they are fair to others. They expect others to be fair to them.
They do not think the world is fair. When others act unfairly, or life reminds them that it sucks, this is nothing new for them. There is no gap in the model. In fact, they have a better grasp of the model than others. These are the people lobbying for change, because they know that lobbying for change is the right thing to do in a fair world when presented with something that needs changing. NOT that the world is fair.
You are confusing actually believing the world is fair with understanding that it is not and still acting in good faith and with common decency and courtesy towards others.
The just world fallacy isn't bad because of how it changes your motivation or happiness or anything like that. It's bad because of how it causes you to act towards those around you.
People don't respond to homelessness when they've convinced themselves that homeless people deserve it. "the world sucking is no reason for you to change your attitude one way or the other" is of course absurd. If the world sucks, there's a reason to change it.
> People don't respond to homelessness when they've convinced themselves that homeless people deserve it.
Stereotype much?
"Deserve" is a loaded term.
Homelessness is often a consequence of choices made by the homeless person. For example, SF has both homeless and shelters that go unused. In other words, there are folks who prefer to be homeless to living in those shelters.
Is it really unreasonable/wrong/immoral for folks to respond with "okay - I've done enough" wrt those homeless? If it is U/W/I, what do you want said folks to do? Build nicer shelters? Force those homeless into the shelters? Be precise - what will it take for you to be happy with the response to those homeless?
You're misinterpreting the sentence. It's not a statement that people (in general) think homeless people deserve it, it's a statement about people who think that.
Actually, I'm inferring that the sentence was written by someone who is assuming the reason why folks don't do as he'd like wrt the homeless and responding to that reason.
The reason that I say that he's assuming (in most cases) is that people typically don't explain themselves, they just do.
More to the point, that sentence expresses a dissatisfaction with said "do", regardless of reason. Is it beyond the pale to question that dissatisfaction?
I understand what you're saying but it seems like you're looking for a place to pick a particular argument rather than actually responding to the comment. I agree with what was said in the comment, but I don't have a dissatisfaction with how people do or do not respond to homelessness, so I would question the justification for making the inference that the other would -- maybe he does, maybe he doesn't.
You've missed the point of the article. The world sucking makes people change their attitudes and err on the side of believing that people who are unfortunate are in their situation due to character flaws (rather than bad luck or bad starting conditions). A more objective evaluation of these individuals should take instead into account these additional features.
I've noticed a different dichotomy between people than what you describe. Some really pretend that the world is a meritocracy, and really go to extreme lengths to attempt to explain away differences from this position. They may be personally very compassionate to their close circle of friends and family, but have no "intellectual compassion" for third parties in bad situations. They do not contribute to charities, and feel cheated that "their money" is being "stolen" in tax dollars and redistributed to others.
On the other hand, others realise that the world is not a strict meritocracy, and can extend at least "intellectual compassion" to third parties in bad situations, recognising that bad luck and unfair starting conditions are the biggest part of how they're in these situations. They're more likely to treat these people as individuals, are more socially progressive, and favour redistributive social policy.
This article explains a fundamental bias that many people use in their judgements of others, especially the disadvantaged. As with other biases, if we are at least aware of it we can attempt to use this awareness to recalibrate our thinking slightly on social issues.
Your advice reminded me of the Solidarity movement in Poland under communism, and the movement to act "as if" they were already free. "As soon as they started to act 'as if,' the 'as if' started to melt away." (http://tinyurl.com/2a9l7b8)
In that case, the argument is that acting as if the thing were present will encourage it. I think, although you may disagree, that the same argument applies here--act like the world is just, and act in a just manner yourself, and you may make the world a more just place. (Or is that naive?)
Well, my belief is that the world is fair, most of the time. Otherwise, we cannot have a functional civilization and a reality that can be controlled by humans to some extent.
Human are pretty fair and don't engaged in criminal behaviors much or otherwise society would disintegrate.
But the world can also be totally unfair at a moment notice or in some major ways. Voters being irrational in elections, quite often assuming politicians are benevolent, and politicians themselves have no incentive to think through problems. People being afraid of airplane accidents when they should focus more of their energy on car accidents. Major negative externalities that is not internalized. Unreliable eyewitness being used as court evidence and various parts of forensic science being total pesudoscience.
However, the world is not totally unfair to the point that problems like these can't be solved.
But there is one kind of unfairness that I couldn't shake. Sometime people support or do things that I find morally bankrupt but I knew these people to be otherwise good people. They have blood on their hands but yet have their own reasons.(Reasons that I find misguided nonetheless)
And, in some rare cases, you find the mental fortitude to embrace your inner psychopath and bend the world to your will. You find a way to cast aside morality, while at the same time convincing the rest of the world that you haven't. You do, or do not find happiness by doing this, but you know that you would have never been happy by not trying.
To the (I assume) idealist that downvoted me; can you provide your rationale? The above is an actual response of rare people facing a moral dilemma. I did not mean to encourage anyone to do this, I was merely providing an antithesis to the parent.
This "fallacy" is existential in nature and entirely subjective to the world-view that one holds.
In just one example, how one defines "losing at the game of life" is completely subjective, so this article really isn't grounded in true logic, and calling it a fallacy is a bit of a misclassification.
Oh I agree wholeheartedly! I usually don't comment much anymore, but this one was egregious enough to make me login and post a warning.
The unfortunate thing is I've seen an increasing amount of this garbage on HN that purports to be "scientific" or "logical" but is clearly just pop pysch or just the ruminations of someone who sounds intelligent.
Of course everyone dismisses that as "Oh, it was at least interesting and thought provoking"... to which I say that there's no point in wasting time eating garbage in the kitchen when there's a dinner table full of steak in the next room...
I want to know where the dinner table is (no joke, I really don't know a good resource for an "honest" version of the same material). Any sites you know of? :-)
I recall learning about the exact same thing 10 years ago in Psych 280. This is a Psychological phenomenon that is actually studied academically. So, "Pop Psychology" probably isn't accurate. Okay if you think it's BS, though :)
The fact that these cognitive biases exist does not preclude the possibility that people's actions also influence what occurs in their lives.
The question is really how much of your circumstances are due to randomness, versus your behaviors.
And regardless of how much of it is due to chance, I'm not surprised that these cognitive biases exist, because basically only the parts of our lives that we control are relevant to our cognitive processes.
That is to say, if you want to avoid getting raped, the parts that are not under our control are irrelevant to our minds, for the very fact we can't control them. It makes sense to be hypersensitive to any factors that might be under our control.
It is a mistake in logic, specifically the part where people see someone in an unfortunate situation and think "They must have done something to deserve that".
The fallacy isn't the idea that the world is just (it may or may not be), it's making the assumption that the just-world idea is actually true.
It would be better if it weren't for the dumb pseudo-logic and false facts that are constantly present in each of the blog's entries... I posted about it before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1411398), but I can't spend all day arguing with blog entries on the Internet.
The mechanism is presumably that one article get on the front page, someone reads it, visits rest of the site, thinks "hey this is nice too", and submits it. Happens quite often that pages from the same site end up on the front page in bursts.
Most humans think about the world in a framework of justice. I believe this innovation started with Zoroastrianism and then spread to post-exilic Judaism which, of course, led to Christianity and Islam. One of the defining characteristics of Zoroastrianism was its emphasis not just on accountability, but on individual accountability. More info: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Zoroastrianism
Vedic religions have different historical roots (although both Vedic religions and Zoroastrianism share a common Aryan heritage). Vedic religions, therefore, have less of a sense of justice and I wonder if there is less of the Just-World Fallacy there. If you think that the concept of karma is the Vedic religions' take on justice, then you may be misunderstanding karma. Vedic religions don't have a strong concept of the individual self, so "you reap what you sow" doesn't quite capture the concept because there is no definite "you".
I disagree with the term 'fallacy'. Perhaps 'mental map' might be better, or perhaps learned bias.
It's true that many of us use this type of thinking to navigate our way through life. Stereotype thinking and heuristic using allows a person to go through massive information without stopping to process each part.
There's no doubt people see homelessness as something brought onto a person by themselves. There's no doubt that this is not true in all cases. However, having a mental map like this allows one to get through life without getting bogged down in negative thoughts.
You need a mental map which says something like 'bad shit happens to good people' and just get on with your life. Trying to parse all the worlds injustices is like staring at the stars and working out how insignificant you are, fun for stoned undergrad students but utterly useless in moving your life forwards.
I'll struggle to word this correctly, but here goes.
It's not a fallacy because the person makes these judgements based on their experience on the best way to deal with these situations. It's not a false or mistaken idea, rather a rational way to deal with the lopsided injustices and contradictions of the world we live in.
What matters is whether you place yourself in a culture that seems fair (or whatever attribute you enjoy). I surround myself with people who I admire and want to learn from. Sure, if your friends are always down on their luck and miserable, then you may get caught up in their dilemmas too. If your friends are happy, ambitious, successful, then some of that drive might rub off on you too. Peer pressure isn't always a bad thing!
The articles comment about social justice and a desire to change the world reminds me of a TED talk I watched a while back which is about the differences in "conservative" and "liberal" outlooks and the ways in which individuals in each group measure morality.
I don't know about causal determinism or whatnot, but the idea of just or not just is a human judgment applied to the state of the world. Its a subjective observation which is secondary to reality.
I happen to agree with you, (and you may all of this,) but don't think that this position is widespread. There are droves of people who will challenge the idea of an objective, morality-free reality. For example many religious people are determined that what is just and what is not just is fixed.
This being said I don't even know the Catholic church's (in which I was nominally raised) dogma on this, let alone that most practitioner would be expected to know about the 'official' ideas on these issues. It would be interesting to haven an AMA with a theologist on here methinks :)
When reading this article, I was reminded of the social wellfare debate. I see a lot of similar arguments where it is assumed that if someone falls behind it's their own fault...
Your comment says nothing which actually supports the case that the article said nothing which actually supports the case that the "just-world fallacy" is fallacious. Hence, I down-voted it.
The world will never be just. But that's not germane -- doesn't matter what the world is to you anyway. It's not like you have to power to change or complain about it. It's like complaining about the spectrum of certain stars because you can't get a good tan from them.
The key question is how do you act in the world. I think many people confuse acting as if the world is a just place with actually believing that the world is a just place. When young, you may start out thinking the world is a meritocracy. Then, perhaps in school, you finally figure out that life's a bitch and then you die. Perhaps some smartass with a website or a teacher or some other authority figure takes you aside and tells you that life is shit.
What comes next is very interesting. Some folks internalize the unfairness of the world and chew on it. They hold grievances, complain about those who succeed, and feel oppressed and victimized. Other folks act as if the world is a fair place because they have decided that acting in such a way is the kind of person they want to be. They are happy, optimistic, and always looking for the good in life.
Perhaps these people always view people in pain or suffering as in some way deserving it. Perhaps the other people always view people in pain and suffering as never deserving it. Perhaps both groups secretly think of life as a meritocracy. This would be an interesting hypothesis to test.
But in either case, the world sucking is no reason for you to change your attitude one way or the other. In fact, once you figure out that you own your emotional responses to events, you move past whether the world sucks or not, because it's really not that important.
And then you find articles like this pointless or worse.