Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸I figured I’d be bored, but really the mid-century styles make even the walls fun to look at. What a lovely time capsule. Where can I get one of those desk lighters?
And they got the guy from Mad Men. He somehow looks older in this though. 🧐
I’m kind of fascinated by what I call “benevolent manipulators.” Columbo is one. They exist in real love, too. Myles from season 6 of The Circle is one. The guy from Leverage might count. People who manipulate in a harmless way, or even to reduce harm. They seem pretty rare both IRL and in fiction, but I’ve just started looking for them, so I might have missed this archetype in other shows. Penn and Teller might count. That’s a side of the spectrum we’re veering into and that’s writers and other illusionists as art. 🤔
Moz@corbden I think there's a continuum between politeness and manipulation.
"I don't want you to think I'm rude". Most people have thoughts and impulses that aren't socially acceptable. Hiding them is both socially desirable and manipulative. Where do you draw the line? Is there a line? Where *should* it be if it exists?
Is lying about my inner monologue to make you like me manipulative? I mean, lying is bad, right?
(welcome to a common ASD thought pattern)
@moz Any social interaction when it gets down to it is manipulation. Persuasion is also on this spectrum. The morality of it comes down to informed consent, so the level of deception, and the level of fairness to the other person's needs, are both important. Also assuming the other person hasn't already violated these same principles themselves. I just made another reply here where I go into it more:
Mx. Luna Corbden (@[email protected])
@[email protected] Yes, informed consent is a big part of what makes manipulation ethical or not. We know a movie is fiction, so it's ethical. The other big part is, is the manipulator helping me achieve my own goal, or their own goal? An ethical therapist is manipulating me, but we've agreed on the same goal. Therapists who veer from that are not ethical. Unethical manipulators may fool themselves first, by telling themselves what they do is "for our own good," which comes out in cults quite a bit. This is why consent is so important. Back to Columbo, though. The man he's manipulating has committed a murder and has IMO given up any right to fair play. That's where us principled people need to take stock. If someone is not playing by the rules, then I don't have to play by the rules with them. It's a tricky line, though, wandering into "ends justify the means," and we have to *know* the person has broken the rules. Critical and moral reasoning needs to be pretty strong walking these paths.
@corbden interesting, and I wonder if it's even theoretically possible to make that consent explicit. Even in a one-sides model of consent (say, men have to ask women if it's ok not to be entirely truthful)
Sadly with children consent is completely irrelevant, modern society has decided that it's not just parents who are free to lie to children in order to manipulate them.
@moz When your model of reality includes the unconscious idea that other people can be your property and/or extensions of yourself, the concept of consent isn't even comprehensible. Consent is a radical anti-authoritarian idea that makes #AbuseCulture become clear like a fish realizing they are in water.
@corbden sadly a lot of people struggle with the idea that consent isn't just something women give and men ask for.
I use children as a less controversial example of the problem.
I've lived in an anarchist commune that practiced consent-based parenting and it was a bit of a shock.
But I also deal a lot with people who "just know" that I consent to what they're doing, sometimes despite my claims to the contrary.