A very informal little experiment

ChaosWotan

It's not often but some times, perhaps once a year or six months, I like to start a small and very informal social experiment, in the tradition of Milgram, Asch and Zimbardo. It's not meant to be scientific, only anecdotal, to just see for myself if people react in the way many social scientists predict. Of course, such informal experiments must have a very serious core, or else it will just be playing with people, something I don't support.

Did a tiny experiment on this forum yesterday, after reading posts where some people complained about how replies in zone chat and our forum can occasionally be too nasty and vicious, in their opinion. Obviously, one doesn't have to be a scientist to know that, because almost everyone is aware that the anonymity of the Internet give some people the freedom to communicate in a way they would not have done when talking to others face to face.

The hypothesis yesterday was that the majority of commentators would be negative in some way if they read a post that is ambiguous despite having a very honest and sincere core regarding a relatively controversial topic. Many, but not all, would jump to conclusions, interpret it in the worst way, or engage in personal attacks. And others will just make funny remarks and only participate in the discussion because they find it a bit amusing. A minority would show sign of humility, empathy and open curiosity. What was the result? You can take a look at it here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/322982/eso-is-too-vulgar-and-liberal-for-conservatives-and-classical-rpgers/p1

I think it's against the rules to continue debating a topic that has already been closed, so here I will not discuss whether conservative sensitivities are justified or not. This post here is only about how we choose to interpret things when we read online messages. How willing are we to understand those who are truly different from ourselves? If a person writes something that triggers negative emotions, how willing are we to give that person the benefit of the doubt? Do we want to see things from his or her perspective, to walk a few miles in his or her shoes?

Does the empath have enough empathy to understand the psychopath? Can the vegan hippie ever understand the brain of a so-called "narcissistic" CEO of a multinational company? Will he or she read books which show all the advantages of free market capitalism, and will the CEO ever read books in favour of the hippie lifestyle? And if they read it, will they try to take it seriously and really consider how it feels to live in such a different way?

I think not, in the large majority of cases. The lamb and the lion will probably never coexist in some future happy world. One better be a realist about that. So if one wants to participate in public debates one better develop thick skin, or for example learn a bit from the raw and humerous spirit of Tibetan debating contests:

http://kopanmonastery.com/about-kopan/monastic-education/what-is-a-debate

Draqone

*yawn*

If your "experiment" is not scientific and you don't aim to draw any conclusions from it (as seen by this post) then you are not a scientist but a mere forum troll. Basically, as you correctly identified, it's just playing with people.

This "experiment" would be much more interesting if you actually put some effort into it, used a scientific method, researched, made comparisons and then drew conclusions that would then be debated.

For example:

Record a zone chat conversation at peak hours.
Hire real life actors (can even be your friends to keep the costs down) to act out this conversation.

Then have 2 groups of people evaluate on the scale of 1 to 10
1) How offensive is the zone chat
2) How offensive is the scene when played out by real people

Afterwards switch the 2 groups and see how their perception changes.

Now, this would be interesting, not some bait-and switch post that pigeonholes entire groups of people but also has whole lot of loaded and leading words.

ChaosWotan

Thank you for your input. Interesting to read your interpretation

Jim_Pipp

You have made me aware of how much our emotional reaction depends on how we relate to the author. I saw your thread yesterday and decided not to post because I couldn't think of anything to write that wasnt offensive or baiting. Honestly I was offended by yesterday's post and how someone seemingly couldn't separate their real life beliefs from a video game, and yet I didn't reflect on how I was offended because of my real life beliefs.

I wondered about what sort of person would write a post like the one yesterday, and I am relieved it is just someone who has a mischievous sense of curiousity.

Keep_Door

Tl;Dr: not really about eso move along

Ch4mpTW

Pretty interesting stuff. Bookmarked just in case if I need to read over this material again and reference it.

ChaosWotan

Jim, a part of it was driven by curiosity, but the core content was serious, regarding how many conservatives and traditionalists (not right-wing libertarians) will react to some of the themes, language and player options in ESO. But this thread here is not about that topic (since it was closed).

What if I had been a 100% old-school traditionalist, and not just a messenger of how many conservatives feel about our liberal entertainment culture, would you have the curiosity and willingness to understand how a truly different person thinks and feel? If not, that's ok, just asking.

Rohamad_Ali

I am a Khajiit .

ChaosWotan

I am legion: 2 cats, a reptile, two vamps, a wolf, an orc, a bosmer ... and a human

But is there an "I" in the first place? Hume, Buddhists and many neuroscientists think not. But who knows?

Rohamad_Ali

ChaosWotan wrote: »

I am legion: 2 cats, a reptile, two vamps, a wolf, an orc, a bosmer ... and a human

But is there an "I" in the first place? Hume, Buddhists and many neuroscientists think not. But who knows?

You just need a little Moonsugar and all these things will go away and being content . There is no "I" , there is only "This One" ...

ChaosWotan

Only with a tint of Ayahuasca, because I got offended and it hurt my feelings the last time I drank regular Moonsugar

Ch4mpTW

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

ChaosWotan wrote: »

I am legion: 2 cats, a reptile, two vamps, a wolf, an orc, a bosmer ... and a human

But is there an "I" in the first place? Hume, Buddhists and many neuroscientists think not. But who knows?

You just need a little Moonsugar and all these things will go away and being content . There is no "I" , there is only "This One" ...

ChaosWotan wrote: »

Only with a tint of Ayahuasca, because I got offended and it hurt my feelings the last time I drank regular Moonsugar

Wait... Wait what? You can DRINK moonsugar!? Well I'll be. I've been doing it wrong all this time. *Wipes moonsugar from nose.*

ChaosWotan

Damn, I have been trying to drink it, no wonder I got hurt...

anitajoneb17_ESO

This explains a lot with regards to yesterday's thread ! Which, frankly said, reeked of manipulation, tricks and provocation.

Not sure you can evaluate people's readiness to learn about different opinions, lifestyles, beliefs, etc. , that way. Open-mindedness and curiosity are best triggered by sincerity. If many people reacted agressively yesterday, it might well be because they sensed and felt the manipulation - and not because of the topic itself.

I'd say your experiment was quite biased

ChaosWotan

Social sciences and the humanities are generally biased in some way, unlike maths, and too a much larger degree than physics for example.

Anyway, pls put emphasis on the words "very informal" when reading this thread. Obviously I would not have conducted a real scientific experiment by posting such a message.

And please keep in mind that the core content of the post yesterday was not manipulative at all. If you bother to read the post sentence for sentence, you will see that it's just a very short summary and analysis of how many genuine conservatives will feel about some of the content in ESO.

I just made it a little ambigious, not making it entirely clear were I personally stood in this case, though I did mention the central word "Zen", which several people seemed to ignore.

However, if I was just trolling, why not have some empathy with trolls too? And here I'm talking about real empathy. If you read something in chat zone or this forum which is full of anger, vulgarity or snide remarks, why not try to understand where all this is coming from? Why is that person communicating in this way? And what's the best way to respond? Is it wise to get upset? Or is it better to just be genuinely friendly, to have some patient kindness when relating to individuals who have a completely different horizon than you have?

AhPook_Is_Here

So there i was sitting in my pile of qualitative things... quantifying them.

ChaosWotan

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are valuable, ofc, like big data in complex systems. But the little experiment of this one is mostly about how we choose to communicate and interpret posts when we are online.

Myrrah

ChaosWotan wrote: »

Jim, a part of it was driven by curiosity, but the core content was serious, regarding how many conservatives and traditionalists (not right-wing libertarians) will react to some of the themes, language and player options in ESO. But this thread here is not about that topic (since it was closed).

What if I had been a 100% old-school traditionalist, and not just a messenger of how many conservatives feel about our liberal entertainment culture, would you have the curiosity and willingness to understand how a truly different person thinks and feel? If not, that's ok, just asking.

we can find out these things about ourselves from travelling with the intent to honestly experience the culture we've travelled into. Due to the internet-we travel everyday. But lack the respect for what we are encountering that we would have if we were in a different culture irl. Smack talkers aside-i really liked what you had to say in this post

ZOS_Ragnar

This forum is for the discussion of our game The Elder Scrolls Online. We have closed this thread as the subject has nothing to do with ESO.