Nov 14, 2017
When you wish upon a Weinstein — The Bystander Effect in Hollywood
Today we’re running things a bit differently. We’re going to get all topical up in here in light of the morbidly fascinating (and sobering) implosion of part of the Hollywood bubble. I know there are literally tens of thousands of hot (and medium) takes already out there. Journalists will be better suited to uncovering salacious details and (hopefully) unraveling the mysteries than I could be from the comfort of my home. Instead of adding to that, I’m going to talk about the weirdest thing in all this — why did it take so long for the literally dozens of claims to be taken seriously?
The typical scandal involves a victim going to the police and the press with their case, The details unfold based on evidence, public interest in the parties involved, other victims coming forward, some public statements, and eventual implosion. In the Weinstein case, everyone already knew he was a predator, almost cartoonishly so. He was known to be powerful enough to ruin a career and did so often enough to be taken seriously. Women in Hollywood would warn one another how he could be if you caught his eye, but a once-in-a-lifetime chance isn’t named that because you can do it every other Tuesday.
The guy was a mob boss and everyone knew it. So why did it take so long for this to matter? There are plenty of reasons we can give, many of them valuable contributors, but I’ll focus on the one that might be the most concerning on a large scale.
The Bystander Effect
Put simply, the bystander effect, being surprisingly well-named for a psychological phenomena, describes the observed tendency for humans to consider themselves mere bystanders when they could be actors. In other words, when people see themselves as part of a group, they tend to be more prone to watching than doing. The reason this occurs can be intuited — if there are a lot of people around to help, the chance that I would need to help is relatively low. Not only that, but surely there must be people better suited to helping than I would be. And these intuitions are technically correct (the best kind of correct!).
Of course, I’m sure you’ve already seen where this can go awry. Because if everyone arrives at the same conclusion, you get, well, Hollywood. And school bullies. And general indolence. But don’t worry: it’s not your fault. It’s everyone else’s fault!
But first, a little Godwin never hurt anyone
Here I go with Nazi Germany. You and I both knew this would have to happen eventually. The time has come. Let us go forth.
I recently listened to a chilling interview between Thomas K. Metzinger and Sam Harris, in which the former described his experience growing up in post-WWII Germany. In talking about the survivors, Metzinger described how his and every other adult seemed to answer the question of their knowledge of concentration camps and ghettos the same way: “We didn’t know what was really happening”. And it’s technically true and they were technically not actively participating in genocide. Read that sentence again and tell me that’s not a strong case.
Now do it to yourself. You’re aware there are genocides occurring right this moment, right? And that there are millions of people starving and dying of preventable diseases, correct? Yet here you are reading this, you bystander you.
Sorry sorry sorry, I don’t mean to guilt. It’s not very useful and even worse, it would make me a terrible hypocrite and we mustn’t allow that to happen. The point is that we’re all bystanders on some level. It’s okay because a human being free from all bystander tendencies would be stuck trying to save the ants in her yard for the rest of her life (which wouldn’t be long without water, the fetching of which would jeopardize the lives of her beautiful anties). Even in a less extreme case, someone without the ability to stand by (as a bystander, you see) would probably be miserable and work himself to an early death. Self-preservation and a bias toward friends and family are useful in that they keep us going so we can be non-bystanders when we find ourselves in situations where someone is in need and we are reasonably well-equipped to meet that need.
Back to Hollywood, where stars are born with stripes
As should be clear by now, Weinstein’s rein of deranged sexual exhibitions and acts benefitted from some powerful bystanding. We understand the effect but how did it get so bad? Like any good ex-KGB agent would know, poisoning by degrees. Weinstein would do something, threaten the victim, and the victim would or wouldn’t clam up. If the victim started talking, Weinstein’s money would talk louder and the criminal case would wither. Everyone around would be vaguely aware of what happened, then move on.
So Weinstein would do it again and again but every subsequent incident would cause smaller ripples. Everyone learned that’s how Weinstein does his thing. Too bad — wish it weren’t the case, but that’s Hollywood. Or now it is.
Besides the Bystander Effect, it’s worth noting that the human hunger for narrative also played a criminal role. It’s a big deal when your kindly old neighbor goes postal (unlike actual postal workers, who have never actually gone postal) but much less of a big deal when Harvey “Scarface” Weinstein does the thing he does for a living. This narrative effect softens the bystanders even more. Now it’s not even interesting enough to gawk at.
Thanks for depressing us, now give us the good news
The good news is that there’s currently a powerful counter-attack going in in Hollywood and that we’ll get a handful of Harvey’s gang. Justice does feel pretty good, even if most of us don’t deserve the catharsis it brings. We still get it and it’s a non zero-sum reward, so enjoy!
The other good news is that it’s getting people talking. I mean, here I am tap-tap-tapping away instead of doing something stupid like sleeping. That’s valuable.
And what about AI?
There isn’t an obvious solution that arises from AI. Sure, we could say there’s an AI whose job is to oversee society and step in where needed. But that benevolent God AI is very far away if it is in fact possible.
We could go a small part of the way and develop a system where people in need of help submit their requests (“Siri, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”) and anyone subscribed to the reluctant bystander network would get a notification and a summary. It could be couched as a sort of quest-granting support system and regulated by user reviews and tiered responsibilities. The AI would be responsible for figuring out who to notify and quantifying difficulty and culling abuse from either side — that sort of thing.
I think this idea holds promise and isn’t too far off. People have good intentions, even the bad ones. The big asks would be keeping people engaged and preventing abuse. Because there would be abuse. The first ask (engagement) is something good machine learning and smart humans can work around. The latter (abuse) is what would make or break the system. And most unfortunately, such a system would of course fail in a Weinstein-esque situation, as the events that lead to a city of bystanders were far too subtle and insidious to fit into the rough model outlined above.
That said, I do think that the key to preventing similar situations must necessarily involve societies getting better at staying engaged. This won’t prevent shady lawyers from doing their thing or power dynamics from being abused, but I think it’s a necessary step toward prevention. And technology, while currently obsessed with stealing our attention to sell ads, could take what it has learned and get us to pay attention to the right things.
In conclusion, to summarize, so it goes
I don’t know that there’s sure way to get around the Bystander Effect, as it’s something that’s generally useful and deeply ingrained. However, there’s a lot of power in knowing about it. The next time you see someone wandering on the side of the freeway, I reckon you could take a closer look and see if you can’t make a difference. Also, do so responsibly because it’s amazingly dangerous to stop on the freeway. And don’t tell them I sent you. Please direct all complaints to my highly trained legal department. And I plead the fifth. Yes, I can do that and no it doesn’t apply and no that won’t stop me.
