Response: Disproportionate Effects

In response to Brandon's post "Levin: Genius of the Times" (April 14, 2012):

First, a disclaimer; this is not all that closely related to Brandon's post.  I simply found a particular point in it interesting, and wished to elaborate upon it.  This post also relates, slightly, to a previous post I made.

The idea that otherwise relatively insignificant actions can have large effects on people due to other, unknown circumstances is actually quite well-documented, although usually in positive rather than negative cases.  For example, there have been some instances of people deciding against killing themselves because they heard a particular song on the radio.  As such, it seems logical that similarly minor events can have equally major effects in the opposite direction.  Also, even when a single negative action is not enough to harm a person to a major extent, the cumulative effect of many minor negative actions can easily add up to major consequences - in fact, many (perhaps even most) cases of non-chemical depression or suicide are due to a series of negative occurrences happening to one unfortunate person.  While of course it is impossible to know a person's exact circumstances, and so in most cases one's attempting to be exceptionally nice will be essentially irrelevant, the sometimes disproportionate effects of minor actions may be enough to encourage one to increase one's positive behaviour and decrease negative behaviour.