Daniel Estrada

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> Cancerous cells are those that have lost all of those safeguards. As they grow into a functioning tumor, they need to evolve new mechanisms of cooperation, and so they do. But a couple million cells working for a couple months in your body aren’t going to do as well as all the animals in the world over 3 billion years of evolutionary history. So cancer’s cooperation enforcement mechanisms are much much worse than noncancerous cells’ cooperation mechanisms. Which is why you can live for a hundred years and have ten quadrillion cell divisions and not get cancer, but cancer can’t even take over one lousy section of a whale colon before it gets meta-cancer...

I wonder if a good definition for “social cancer” might be any group that breaks the rules of cooperative behavior that bind society together in order to spread more quickly than it could legitimately achieve, and eventually take over the whole social body.

// I love the comparison of jerks to cancer; it fits well with the analogy to 'viruses' that we already use to describe the dynamics of opinion.

It's worth noting a key feature of cancer that distinguishes it from viruses: a viral infection is an invasion by a foreign agent. A virus is a parasite looking for a host, which it infiltrates to take over the host's biological machinery for it's own nefarious purposes. Not all viruses are bad, but all viruses are outsiders trying to make their way in. Viral memes like hashtag campaigns are likewise designed to usurp the attention dynamics within social networks to make some political point. Not all memes are viruses in this sense; the doge meme, for instance, is not a parasite so much as just another member of the flora and fauna of our digital ecosystem.

But cancer is not a parasite. Cancer is not an invading agent with ulterior motives. Cancer is your own cells trying to do what they normally do, but just fucking it all up in the process. Cancer is like if your cells started showing up to work drunk, but for some reason instead of getting fired keeps getting promoted so as to keep fucking things up on larger and larger scales. This isn't a foreign infiltraror. This is a problem within our own rank and file. In this sense, jerkiness is a memetic analog of cancer, a species distinct from the viruses.

The article concludes by arguing that if we tolerate jerkiness within our ranks, then it might grow like a cancer does, eventually undermining the cooperative principles that make a social organization effective. But if we remind ourselves that jerks aren't an invasive species, then perhaps this conclusion is too strong. The argument is akin to arguing that if we allow a little cell growth in organisms, it might also grow like cancer, undermining the delicate balance of cells in the organism. Or if cancer is like the nonfunctioning alcoholic, the argument is that if we let a little drinking in our ranks we'll end up with another George W. Bush.

But these arguments are wrong. Cell growth is a good thing; the problem with cancer isn't the growth itself but the breakdown of the regulatory systems designed to constrain that growth. Alcohol is also a good thing; the problem with W is that no one was able to stop his nepotistic rise to power.

Similarly, jerkiness is also a good thing. It's a crucial part of opinion dynamics; basically, without jerks our social dynamics would not organize nearly as effectively. The problem isn't the jerks; the problem is the breakdown of the normal methods for constraining the role jerks play in the system. 

Liars are jerks. If everyone is encouraged to lie, then all trust breaks down and social organizations collapse. But I recently shared an article (http://goo.gl/k2iidb) that argues that some amount of lying is necessary to maintain a healthy diversity in the field of opinion. If no one ever lies, then the opinion field becomes homogenous, which makes it vulnerable to different kinds of epistemological errors. In the comments to that thread, I make the analogy to bacterial diseases:

> I'm thinking about the issue (of lying) as virtually analogous to the way we treat germs. Germs cause diseases, true, and if we are exposed a lot of the wrong kinds of germs we'll get sick. But that doesn't mean we should live in completely sterile environments either; some exposure to germs is healthy, and even necessary to build up a defensive immunity to disease. I think the same basic claim is being made here with respect to 'white' lies. 

// If the same goes for white lies, then it also goes for jerkiness: we need a few jerks around to keep the discourse healthy. We want our jerks to be integrated well enough into the system so that we all know how to deal with it in case they get out of hand. That means tolerating or even encouraging certain kinds of jerkiness within our social systems.

I say this as an admitted, self-identifying jerk. (I'm sure +Jay Gordon  would agree with the characterization). Specifically, I tend to be jerky in discussions I find intolerable. For instance, consider a climate change denier, one who is not just passively ignorant but actively spreading disinformation to project the appearance of controversy. Refuting the position with careful analysis and empirical data is an exercise in demonstrating reasonableness to the unreasonable, which constrains its potential effectiveness. The deniers position deserves not just reason but ignominy: the social shaming that tags the beliefs not just as false but as suspicious and worthy of contempt. Generating this stigma means that at least some of us are going to have to be jerks, adding insult to the injury of reason. Being jerky to and around climate deniers gives the position a kind of social stench that serves this shaming role. 

Why generate a stench at all? Can't everything smell pleasant? Well, no. It's good that shit smells bad because it keeps us away from the dangers it carries. For the same reason, it's good that the climate deniers smell bad, because it will likewise keep those looking for reasonable discourse away. In an effort to get the crowd moving in the right direction, it will help if some of us are slinging shit the other way. 

Of course, this strategy can get out of hand and be abused. Shaming the climate deniers with jerky mockery is only laudable insofar as we're utterly confident that we know which way the wind is blowing. Without the careful analysis and empirical data to back that assessment up, the article is right to point out that we might just end up shitting on ourselves. 

But that doesn't mean that jerkiness is never appropriate, or that playing with the dynamics of social stench an inherently self-defeating strategy. It's really important that the social consensus goes against the climate deniers within a relatively narrow window of time. The jerks undoubtedly have a role to play in that process. That doesn't mean that jerks are the only role; we can't all be jerks. But we shouldn't be intolerant of jerks either; they can be an important ally in the quest for a healthy public discourse, especially when the opposition is likely to be armed with jerks of their own. 

#jerks   #extremism   #digitalculture   #attentioneconomy  

// This essay is part of my series on extremism in the social disocurse. You can read more here:

http://digitalinterface.blogspot.com/2013/11/tolerating-extreme-positions.html
http://digitalinterface.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-virtues-of-extremism.html
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Andreas Schou est l'auteur de ce post :
 
[S]omeone who will be a jerk for you will be a jerk to you.'[S]omeone who is a jerk to men will, by and large, also be a jerk to women. Someone who is a jerk to men’s rights activists will, by and large, also be a jerk to feminists. [...]

They may not do so immediately, if it doesn’t serve their self-interest to do so. But in private, or as soon as the chance comes up, jerkitude will out. If you defend them as long as they’re only being jerks to outsiders, then a few months later, when – shock! horror! – you realize they’re being jerks to insiders, you end up having to retreat and mumble something about how you were “kinda wary of them” all along.

But more importantly if you elevate jerkishness into a principle, if you try to undermine the rules that keep niceness, community, and civilization going, the defenses against social cancer – then your movement will fracture, it will be hugely embarrassing, the atmosphere will become toxic, unpopular people will be thrown to the mob, everyone but the thickest-skinned will bow out, and the people you need to convince will view you with a mixture of terror and loathing.
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Living By The Sword
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10 commentaires
Jochen Fromm
 
There is indeed a form of social cancer, and we have names for it, mainly the *-ism names like racism, fascism, militarism, communism, etc. In its simple form social cancer means something is going awry in a social system. For example a political party which is so radical that it threatens to destroy the entire system. I wrote about it here at http://blog.cas-group.net/2013/07/fascism-and-cancer and here http://blog.cas-group.net/2010/10/cultural-stem-cells/

Nazism for example came from within the system. It was an official party which took over the whole system. The world consists of many different evolutionary systems which have their own code. If systems start to expand aggressively into other systems one can speak of social tumors. The most basic social system is the ideology or religion. Religion is based on a set of cultural genes to construct a group which is held together by common beliefs, rules and rituals. The social stem cell is either the group which shares common beliefs or the family which shares common genes. The root of evil can therefore be found in assembly rooms like churches, synagogues or mosques or in the family itself (for example for some forms of organized crime). Remember Hitler started his antisemitic ideology in a beer cellar, the 9/11 terrorists met in mosques, etc. 
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Gouthum Karadi
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The real cancers are those that choose to do things which cause gain for themselves while hurting the human organisms.  For example all philosophies that say "Me Me Me," and only think about one generation are causing huge issues.  In the past we had responsibilities to match our rights.  Men, served and died to protect the body politic, while women risked their lives in childbirth.  Now, little is asked of Western citizens, in fact, nearly nothing.  It is all about fulfilling your own needs for yourself.  That is cancer.
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Jochen Fromm
 
+Gouthum Karadi selfishness and extreme egoism are good points. Since Dawkins' great book we know this is a basic property of genes. In order to spread, all genes and memes need to replicate themselves. In social systems this is done by imitating and following other people, you need to convince other people to follow you, and if you teach them your ideology, then you have successfully spread your cultural genes so to speak. Demagogues and radical parties are very successful in doing that, without respecting the rules of society sometimes. 
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Daniel Estrada
 
// Archiving comments from the OP

>  +Deen Abiola That's right. The point here is that populations are healthy when they occupy a balanced position in light of all the forces pushing them in extreme directions. Cells have programs for how to grow and when to die, and when these programs are properly coordinated you have a healthy organism. When the programs are off balance, then you have a problem. 

In opinion dynamics, claims that are made push people's opinions in various directions too, some more extreme than others. When I make an extreme claim (eg, "God is dead!" said by one of history's most successful professional jerks), I'm not just claiming some neutral proposition which others evaluate on its truth or falsity in objective isolation. They are evaluating that claim in light of everything else they (think they) know, and updating their beliefs according the results of that evaluation. 

That doesn't mean you'll always get people to agree and cooperate. Some people will have a set of beliefs that, when this new claim is given as input, react strongly in the opposite direction, reinforcing their confidence in an incompatible set of beliefs and further isolating it from others. In this case, the extreme claim has acted as a wedge to make explicit the way these two belief communities diverge; it forces people to pick a side. 

That doesn't mean everyone should endorse the extreme claim, or that everyone should be extremists. All I'm saying is that the extremists are serving an important social function. They force the organization of culture; they make our set of beliefs an issue that we must constantly consider and revise. 

In this way, jerks aren't a cancer; they are a feature of the program that decides how a set of beliefs grow. Social cancer is when the jerks are allowed to set the terms of a discourse without restraint. We can all admit that's bad while still leaving room at the table for a good professional jerk or two. 
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Daniel Estrada
 
// moar

> Not everyone who disagrees is a jerk. The jerk is the person undermining certain forms of cooperation through attacks and insults that take the form of rhetoric beyond what is usually considered reasonable and civil. Civil people can disagree; the jerk is the one who throws on the insult after the argument has been won. 

I disagree that the optimal number of jerks is zero, for the reason mentioned in my comment, and for the same reason that the optimal number of liars is also nonzero. 

Saying "there should be no jerks" is like saying "there should be no germs". It sounds right on a naive picture, but it's a simplification of the story. 
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Daniel Estrada
 
// more

>That's right. I'm disagreeing with the conclusion of the article, that there's no place in our social discourse for jerks. I'm trying not to be a jerk myself here, but I do recognize that sometimes jerks are a helpful part of the discourse. 

I referred to the climate change denier as an example. In some cases, comments along these lines deserve not just refutation but derision: in other words, they deserve to be mocked by jerks. The more jerkiness that clouds the claims of the deniers, the less likely that any moderate people will find the discourse useful for settling their beliefs. In other words, the jerks help to isolate these opinions from the mainstream. 

That's a good thing. It means that we aren't so crippled with politeness that we feel obliged to keep giving the deniers the platform to spout their views. 

To be clear, I'm not defending any particular instance of jerkiness, nor am I advocating that we should be jerks. I also don't want to support the MRA crowd in any way. But the article argues that we shouldn't be jerks to the MRA crowd because it will corrupt our own organizations. I'm saying that's not the case. I'm a feminist, and I think the MRA guys deserve derision. Their views deserve not just refutation but marginalization. 

I don't think this conflicts the psychological evidence on cooperation; in fact, I think I'm trying to explain the prevalence of jerkiness despite the apparent utility of cooperation.

Again, it's like diseases. If we think that kids should never get dirty and protect them from all contaminants, then their immune system will be so weak that the attempt at health has been undermined. That doesn't mean that cleanliness isn't good, but we need to learn to tolerate the dirt. 
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Daniel Estrada
 
> I mostly agree; the problem is that really malicious agents can come across as genuinely civil interlocutors. So if our only tool is reasonable cooperation, we're likely to succumb to their tricks. 

I'm thinking of a jerk like a bouncer at a club. In most cases it is completely inappropriate to act the way a bouncer does, asking questions, inspecting their personal things, throwing certain people out. It's a jerky thing to do. On the other hand, it's really good to have a professional jerk around, especially if it's likely that there will be other jerks around trying to do the same things. 

The point is that not everyone is capable or interested in having a genuinely reasonable conversation, but if the only way we have to manage our opinions is through reasonable conversation than we'll be vulnerable to coordinated attacks from jerks. 

If, on the other hand, we have jerks around throwing insults, and these jerk-wars can siphon off the unhelpful agents from the mainstream discourse, it actually helps the rest of us have a reasonable discussion.

Again, I'm not saying "we should be jerks". Maybe we shouldn't be jerks. All I'm saying is that "jerks are a feature, not a bug". We shouldn't try to strip the feature out, we should understand what it's there to do in the first place, so we know how to manage it when it gets out of control. 
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Daniel Estrada
 
> +Pat Gunn My concern is not that people will win in a civil way. Instead, my concern is that people will take advantage of the apparent good will of open interlocutors by framing their malicious positions in a similarly civil tone. 

For instance, consider the debate between Ham and Nye a few months ago. Nye received some criticism for engaging Ham at all; the worry was that any direct engagement would give undue credibility to the opposition, and have the opposite of the intended consequences. I'm sympathetic to this criticism; I think it follows from the analysis I'm giving here. Although I don't think Nye did anything wrong by engaging, we probably shouldn't get in a habit of it. Part of the problem with pseudoscience is that it distracts us from doing actual science. Ham-style creationism is nonsense dressed as civil discourse; their apparent civility doesn't mean a conversation with them will be productive or beneficial at all. We should waste as little time as possible engaging them because they aren't reasonable interlocutors and they aren't interested in the open exchange of ideas. They are only looking for a platform to spout their ideology, and if we indulge their civility every time we're just feeding their position. This is a case where too much civility is ultimately a bad thing. 

In contrast, consider the well-spread mocking of the attendants to the debate (see for instance here http://goo.gl/Km4rwh). I'd say that most of the responses to the creationists are jerky responses: they mock the speaker, belittle their beliefs and opinions, and generally make fun of their ignorance and dogma. Although these are responses to questions, there is no pretense that these answers are going to be reasonably considered by the questioner as a good faith participant in a civil conversation. In fact, the tone of response pretty much take for granted that the creationists it addresses are a lost cause. Providing answers is not meant to engage the opposition in conversation, so much as make clear who the opposition are. By mocking them, we strengthen our ranks and identity. This is a good kind of social cohesion, made possible by the insulting aggression of jerks. 
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AdmiralLadyPaula Rizzuto
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"we need a few jerks around to keep the discourse healthy"
This rang more true than I thought it would.  Possibly everyone has their own personal upper limit on jerkitude, however.  Some people can handle a mixed political discussion group, and others prefer a dedicated progressive or conservative group (depending on their views) where jerks still exist but the opposing views are at a different level.
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