Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

I think absolutes are silly to use as arguments, and sure, there are certainly some people for whom it's really difficult to proactively cancel plans. Sometimes I'm that person. But I choose to suck it up and act like a human instead of (if I were to use this app) hiding behind a computer to let it do my dirty work for me. I certainly grant that there are some people who just can't do that sometimes, or even more often than sometimes.

It's hard to believe that there are enough people like that for an app. My feeling is that most people who use this would actually otherwise actively cancel plans, but will use the app instead just to be socially lazy or to avoid even a hint of confrontation, and the effect will be to lower the quality of social interaction between people overall.

Like let's say I have drinks plans with my friend, and I want to bail using this service. How to I tell her to install the app?

Wouldn't asking her to install it be pretty rude? It would basically be saying "Hey, FYI I like to bail on stuff a lot. So you probably shouldn't make any plans involving me."

I could see that stigma as a critical roadblock against growing the kind of user-base you'd need for this to get popular.

It's completely normal -- and expected -- from good friends to join you for a beer or for some other activity they are not thrilled about in order to make you happy. And then you reciprocate, because that's what friends do.

Your friends help you move not because they have nothing better to do, because they are your friends. It's silly for both parties to pretend they like to help each other move, and if you have a solid relationship they'll tell you how much they hate moving but you know they'll still show up.

Lets say you have plans with someone. But then, you decide fundamentally: if the other person would still like to do this, I am happy to. But if not, I'd prefer not to. This is the game theoretic situation this app attempts to solve.

Now lets figure out a way to solve this problem through direct communication. The problem with trying to do so, is often when someone expresses a change to preferences, if you assume that person is empathetic, they will likely be diluting the degree to their change insofar as that change could negatively affect the recipient of the news. Why?

It's because there's a catch-22 in this situation between empathy and honesty. Empathy dictates we try to maximize utility between the parties. When expressing this new preference, if one is empathetic, one expresses it in a way to try to maximize the likelihood that the other party interprets it in a way they can still act selfishly to the maximally acceptable degree. However, the recipient of the information, if empathetic, can anticipate this, and hence may interpret the person's statement as pre-diluted, so in order to maximize utility from their perspective (out of empathy) they in turn may yield due to the imperfect information and assume the preference expressed is stronger than implied by the statement directly. In other words, if I hear this from someone, I put even odds that the person is being completely honest (out of valuing honesty), or, that they actually would really want to skip this plan if it would not cause me emotional pain, and have chosen to continue to express it in a way that leaves the option open (out of valuing empathy.) I know people who would do one or the other, and I don't consider either approach a sign of a moral failure.

In reality, both sides of the communication wrangle with the conflict between empathy + utility maximization in framing their expression, and honesty, which (despite its virtue) runs the risk of being misinterpreted given the other party may assume it is being diluted to maximize utility out of their empathy. Diluting the statement or being direct about it are both rational, depending on how important maximizing utility is due to empathy vs expressing honest preferences.

This app neatly solves this problem. It's not about reducing social awkwardness, it's about preventing the need for mutually-empathetic individuals to have to make trade-offs between the competing desires for objective communication (out of the value of honesty) and trying to maximize utility (out of the value of empathy and selflessness.) If one could be certain another party is being honest, this kind of technique would not be necessary, but since dishonesty in this situation falls out of empathy, its potentially virtuous and comes down to a preference of one's values in how to deal with the situation.