When I was 12, I got into an argument at summer camp with the kid whose bunk bed was below mine. I leaned down from my bed to make a point, and he punched me in the face.
I’d wrestled on the playground, but I had no framework for a punch. I didn’t know what to do: I couldn’t hit back at that angle, and I certainly wasn’t going to keep talking. Confused, I rolled over and went to sleep. I don’t remember the argument, but I guess I lost.
The Motto
I have two mottos. One is for self-improvement, adapted from Judith Shapiro:
Learning should make the inside of your head an interesting place to live.
I wrote about it yesterday.
The other is for acting in the world. It supposedly comes from Mike Tyson:
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
I wasn’t thinking of the summer camp kid when I chose it, but he’s still my only punch. Without him, maybe the quote wouldn’t have been salient. James — if you’re reading this, I owe you one.
Everyone had a plan
I mostly use the motto to help me appreciate other people.
Most of the “bad people” in our lives didn’t plan to be that way. Almost everyone wants security, love, and respect. And they want to get it the right way — working a useful job, attracting a partner, earning status through worthy deeds.
If a person’s life looks very different from that, it’s usually because something punched them in the face (drugs, abuse, a catchy wrong idea from an academic scribbler). And while I may never know the full story, I can at least remind myself that they didn’t want to be a liar, thief, or murderer at 12.
I don’t know many liars or thieves (much less murderers), but I do know people who are annoying or difficult in ways that make my life worse. That’s when I actually have to practice compassion — and the quote helps. Everyone had a plan: what looks like a bad trait might be a bad circumstance.1
But what if someone never had a plan? Some people don’t really think about the future.
“Never” is a long time. Are you sure?
And if you’re right, that means something punched them when they were too young to plan: another reason to feel compassion.
Which plans deserve punching?
If you can punch away someone’s plans, that implies two things:
- If someone has a plan you can’t abide, punch them.
- If you want to make plans with someone, no punching!
I know a lot of nice people. One thing that trips them up is poorly applied politeness. If someone mistreats them, they’ll complain in private, but they’ll go to crazy lengths to avoid confrontation. I’ve seen a close friend be pressured into working for ten hours to avoid a ten-minute showdown with the selfish person responsible. If someone clearly doesn’t care about your wellbeing, approach them with stern words and an iron will.2
But some people need the opposite advice. Communities I love (effective altruism, rationality) struggle with the narcissism of small differences. People who share nearly every important value, and could easily work toward common goals, too often become enemies. Sometimes, this happens after one bad interaction.
The irony is that EAs and rationalists are good at small jabs — public debates that bruise without breaking. But an accusation of bad faith or rumor of criminal deeds is a punch to the mouth. It disorients the other party and makes it hard to keep talking, much less make plans. Sometimes, that’s for the best (we’ve seen plenty of bad faith and the occasional crime). But it’s tempting to go too far, because the Internet loves a good punch.
Very convenient — sometimes punching is right, sometimes wrong. How do you actually distinguish the two?
If someone’s plans are fundamentally opposed to yours, stop them. Don’t let people steal from you, or be cruel to you. If you want to change their behavior, your justice should be fair — but also swift and certain.
But if there’s any chance your plans can coexist, explore that. Set up a private conversation. Be wary of actions you can’t reverse; it’s hard to un-punch someone.
Don’t be too punchable
Memento percuti — remember that you can be punched.
In one sense, this is the lesson I learned at summer camp: don’t assume that rules will protect you. To paraphrase a fellow Tyson acolyte:
“The pain isn’t usually what overwhelms the individual: it’s their new understanding of what the world looks like and how unprepared they are to deal with it. The laws, social conventions, and agencies that keep us safe aren’t present in this moment. That frightening realization catches most people when the first punch lands; people shouldn’t be allowed to do that, but they are, and nobody is going to stop them.”
It’s also a punchy way of saying “be flexible”: keep your options open, make lots of small bets, and insure what you can’t afford to lose.3
The world will change a lot over the next few years. Punches will come from new directions. Guard your jaw.
- Alicorn has more to say about this.
- Captain Awkward is my guiding star for this — she provides no-nonsense scripts for dealing with toxic behavior.
- If the insurance never pays out, congratulations!