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Be careful about what you dislike

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Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#91

Post by blurbleblurble »

twic wrote: post #69
hiou wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that people who sit in the greys tend to be very worried about their public perception or have very little passion beyond maintaining personal comfort. The people I look for are those that take strong stands but are willing and able to adjust and even quickly reverse those stances. To me it's the difference between a leader and a worker bee.

> The people I look for are those that take strong stands but are willing and able to adjust and even quickly reverse those stances. Sometimes called "strong opinions, weakly held". I find this principle to be incoherent - if you understand something well enough to have a strong opinion, you understand it well enough to hold that opinion strongly. Holding strong opinions on things you don't understand that well seems…

I think another way of thinking about this is "being open minded". Life is full of seemingly contradictory truths and perspectives, facets and angles.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#92

Post by schoen »

xiaq wrote: post #4
andybak wrote: post #2

I'm fascinated by the topic of English Prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime It introduced me to the idea that 'is' should be treated very carefully. Any assertion outside of strict formal languages that use it are half-truths at best. It also introduces heightens the emotional tone of a discussion. If you say "John is foo" you tend to create the impression that John will always and has always been foo. Foo-ne…

I don't think you went off-topic at all. The article says "avoid judgement of a particular thing, since it will become outdated in future". E-prime says "now you can't make such judgements because I have taken away your tool of doing so". I think they have the same goal. (I wrote this comment in E-prime :)

In the case of the judgments of Python that the original article refers to, I can see ways that E-prime could help (because the criticisms might be phrased more concretely, like "Python 3 lacks the 'u' qualifier for strings" or something, allowing a reassessment of whether this problem was still true in the future) but maybe one could still say something like "its creators designed Python 3 hastily and sloppily without regard to programmers' convenience", which, if true or believed at first, never stops being applicable even if the language gets improved later on.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#93

Post by pedrocr »

schoen wrote: post #84
wolfgke wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12879933 you gave an example of "estar a ser" for Portuguese. Since I currently try to learn both Spanish and Portuguese: Does a form similar to "estar a ser" also exist in Spanish or is it specific to Portuguese?

I think that pedrocr is from Portugal so in case you're learning Brazilian Portuguese you should consider that Brazilians usually use "estar + present participle" where the Portuguese use "estar a + infinitive" (for example "estou a falar" vs. "estou falando"). Brazilians thus have "estar sendo" which can be used in many cases where English has "is being", but as a non-native speaker I'm not sure what I can claim abo…

Yep, that's exactly it. "is being" and "estar a ser"/"estar sendo" are pretty much the same thing. What english doesn't have is the "ser"/"estar" distinction, both map to "to be".

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#94

Post by Retra »

jklinger410 wrote: post #87
hellofunk wrote: post #51

I have realized over the years that it is wise to be naturally skeptical of any opinion that is strong, either positive or negative. People who have an appreciation for gray areas, even if they ultimately do have a preference, tend to be a lot more emotionally balanced than those who maintain a very strong stance on something. I have noticed this so consistently over the last 15 years that I now consider it a fundame…

I'm passionate about how wrong people are to be convinced of everything. What does that mean?

It means you've been convinced of something that is wrong.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#95

Post by lordnacho »

hellofunk wrote: post #51

I have realized over the years that it is wise to be naturally skeptical of any opinion that is strong, either positive or negative. People who have an appreciation for gray areas, even if they ultimately do have a preference, tend to be a lot more emotionally balanced than those who maintain a very strong stance on something. I have noticed this so consistently over the last 15 years that I now consider it a fundame…

You're right. It's almost instinctive that when I hear some forcefully presented opinion, even if I agree with it, I put a mark next to the person's profile (in my mind).

One quite large issue is that once you've said your opinion, you are held to it. It's often easier to go even more extreme than to backtrack. And the effect is worse the more extreme you've gone.

I've had some sympathies for libertarian opinions lately, but when I see how far some of my friends take it, I wonder whether they're really thinking as clearly as they like to imagine.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#96

Post by crimsonalucard »

hellofunk wrote: post #51

I have realized over the years that it is wise to be naturally skeptical of any opinion that is strong, either positive or negative. People who have an appreciation for gray areas, even if they ultimately do have a preference, tend to be a lot more emotionally balanced than those who maintain a very strong stance on something. I have noticed this so consistently over the last 15 years that I now consider it a fundame…

This is true, however, I think the people who have strong opinions end up becoming successful entrepreneurs.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#97

Post by robertelder »

hellofunk wrote: post #51

I have realized over the years that it is wise to be naturally skeptical of any opinion that is strong, either positive or negative. People who have an appreciation for gray areas, even if they ultimately do have a preference, tend to be a lot more emotionally balanced than those who maintain a very strong stance on something. I have noticed this so consistently over the last 15 years that I now consider it a fundame…

> I now consider it a fundamental benchmark...

Sorry to be pedantic, but I just wanted to point out the paradox you get by holding such an opinion so strongly.

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#98

Post by [deleted] »

steveklabnik wrote: post #71
twic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people I look for are those that take strong stands but are willing and able to adjust and even quickly reverse those stances. Sometimes called "strong opinions, weakly held". I find this principle to be incoherent - if you understand something well enough to have a strong opinion, you understand it well enough to hold that opinion strongly. Holding strong opinions on things you don't understand that well seems…

One aspect you're missing here is time; just because something is true today doesn't make it true tomorrow.

[deleted]

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#99

Post by TillE »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #76
onli wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you bring an example for "people stick to negative attitudes even when the things improve or are not like another bad thing", and the example you bring is actually a really bad thing – out of state tribunals are fully unacceptable, also in the way CETA modeled them – then it is very valid to question that example. It could be that your whole observation is wrong, that people do not really stick to negative persp…

If you consider where CETA started and where it ended, the transparent tribunal solved the initial complaints same as with the restrictions on when you can sue. That now the new tribunals are also not good enough is a moved goalpost.

You really think that's true for everyone, or are you just looking at a subset of complaints?

There have been huge protests against TTIP and CETA in Germany and around Europe, and you can't resolve their legitimate concerns by saying "excuse me sir, but by your own logic, you just proved my point".

Re: Be careful about what you dislike

#100

Post by [deleted] »

chris_wot wrote: post #83
jacobolus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, nuanced opinions are at odds with clickbait/flamebait. If you want to get lots of attention and start a big internet fight, say the most outrageous aggressive thing you can, and argue sloppily, with just enough reasoning behind you to get the folks who agree with you to come fight for your side.

Sounds like what happens in most diatribes against PHP and systemd I've read lately.

[deleted]
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