A Unified Theory of A**hole Behavior

Summary

The speaker proposes a “unified theory” of asshole behavior: an action is asshole behavior when it benefits the person taking it while removing more value from the world than it adds. The focus is on the consequences of the behavior, rather than on whether the person feels entitled or intends to cause harm.

How the idea works

• Saving a restaurant table before ordering: In a crowded café, putting a jacket on a table while still waiting in line keeps the table unavailable to everyone else. The person may eventually get a seat, but the restaurant loses capacity in the meantime. By contrast, if two people have both ordered and one takes an available table, one person gains and the other loses, but the overall situation is essentially zero-sum.
• Abandoning a rental car at an airport: A comedian’s story about leaving a rental car at a departure drop-off illustrates how an apparent shortcut can create security risks and extra work for many people. The inconvenience imposed on others greatly outweighs the person’s benefit.
• Littering: The harm may be small, but the litterer gains so little that the action feels especially inconsiderate.
• Scams: Scams take money from victims while imposing broader costs on society. The speaker cites an unnamed study estimating that email scammers might earn around $200 million while causing roughly $20 billion in costs—about 100 times as much in societal losses as they take in.
• Rules and safeguards: Scams and other exploitative workarounds can make everyday life more burdensome. The speaker compares the resulting precautions and added complexity to a kind of social “tax” imposed on everyone.
• Political corruption: A corrupt leader may gain millions while damaging public trust and undermining the credibility of an entire country. The wider loss can be vastly greater than the personal gain.

Limits and complications

• Responsibility can be hard to assign. The speaker raises factory farming as an example: many people might see the suffering imposed on animals as outweighing the benefits to consumers, but the harm may be hidden. Responsibility could lie with consumers, businesses, those who conceal the conditions, or governments that permit them.
• Some actions are difficult to evaluate. People may disagree about whether a particular behavior fits the definition.
• Normalization does not erase harm. A behavior can become accepted and stop being recognized as asshole behavior while continuing to make the world worse.

The counterforce: ordinary cooperation

The speaker argues that society would quickly fall apart if everyone consistently took more value from the world than they added. Everyday, ordinary behavior—the counterpoint to asshole behavior—usually creates more value than it destroys. This positive contribution is easy to overlook because it is simply how people commonly act.

Social norms also help prevent harmful behavior. Many rules are informal rather than written into law, but people sometimes enforce them. In the café example, an older customer tells someone that tables cannot be saved before ordering; the person picks up the jacket and waits. The speaker’s broader point is that people build and maintain social norms together.

The video begins with a brief promotion for the Awesome Socks and Undies Clubs and a warning that the episode will include profanity.

Speakers and sources featured

• Hank Green — The speaker, addressing his brother John.
• John Green — Addressed by Hank, but does not speak in the subtitles.
• Aaron James — A philosopher at UC Irvine, mentioned for his account of asshole behavior as repeatedly granting oneself special advantages in a cooperative society.
• An unnamed stand-up comedian — Referenced in the rental-car story.
• Unspecified researchers and an unnamed study — Cited regarding the societal costs of email scams.
• An older café customer — Quoted telling another patron not to save a table before ordering.