"Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules." • Hacker News Board

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#21

Post by billybob » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:27 PM UTC

ja27 wrote: post #19

hunterjrj wrote: post #8

If you haven't already read How to Win Friends and Influence People, you definitely should.

One of my bosses made a difficult coworker take a Dale Carnegie class. Afterward he said that it "changed his life." I thought it made him even creepier with the constant fake smile, eye contact and repetition of people's first name in conversation.

I haven't taken a course, but have read (most of) "How to Win Friends and Influence People." While what you describe sounds creepy, there are good principles in there, and you don't have to take it so far.

For example, he points out that most people never accept blame for anything. From CEOs to convicts, we generally blame our failures on circumstances or other people. So with this in mind, he gives ways of steering people away from errors without raising their self-defense mechanisms or forcing them to admit that they're wrong. After all, do you want to defeat and humiliate them, or do you want to help them?

Indeed, the reason I liked the book was that generally, it DIDN'T seem fake. It encourages you to genuinely care about people. And says that, as it happens, this actually works better, too.

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#22

Post by alsomike » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:31 PM UTC

xenophanes wrote: post #6

> Would the alien ever learn to distinguish good dancers from poor dancers? He could hack the problem like this: instead of figuring out which type of dancing is impressive directly, just watch reactions. People react to what they think is good dancing, so by watching people he can learn what's considered good dancing.

That's much trickier than you think, because people's reactions are highly contextual. Imagine if someone went on the dance floor who you wouldn't expect to have any dance moves at all, but they are pretty good. They would get extremely positive reactions, so an alien posing as a human watching this would imitate this, but suddenly get a negative reaction because it would be seen as mocking. It's also possible to dance so well that it generates negative reactions like jealousy. Or you can have geeky Napoleon Dynamite dancing - cheesy, inappropriate and flawed, but somehow able to succeed despite itself. This is because quality of dancing isn't wholly intrinsic to the dance itself, it depends on other social factors, like the social identity of the dancer, the self-perception of the audience, the social meaning of the music and the type of dance being performed. For an alien, this would be the hard problem of dancing. What it boils down to is that when knowledge is highly contextual, it's very hard to learn it as a neutral external observer, you have to become a participant - in a way, before you can learn to dance, first you have to learn to be the audience for dance, to become embedded in the social meanings. This might also be the significance of being a good listener before you can become a good conversationalist.

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#23

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:31 PM UTC

xenophanes wrote: post #6

> Would the alien ever learn to distinguish good dancers from poor dancers? He could hack the problem like this: instead of figuring out which type of dancing is impressive directly, just watch reactions. People react to what they think is good dancing, so by watching people he can learn what's considered good dancing.

[deleted]

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#24

Post by lionhearted » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:33 PM UTC

ambulatorybird wrote: post #18

lionhearted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicature Hey, that's really, really fantastic and useful. I can't believe I've never seen it before. Are you in linguistics? Care to recommend some more reading, articles, essays?

I took some philosophy classes in college, where I learned about the concept. If you want to read more, the best place to start would be the references and external links provided in the Wikipedia articles. Also try googling for papers by Grice.

I'm skimming and bookmarking some Grice right now. Exciting stuff. Thank you :)

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#25

Post by MartinCron » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:35 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #15

MartinCron wrote: post #10

Anyone who is really interested in this concept should pick up "Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships" by Dr. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron. Dr. Grandin is herself autistic, and asserts that people along the autism-Asperger's spectrum need to learn the rules explicitly, like actors learning their lines in a play.

Learning the rules is the easy part. The hard part is training yourself to do them consistently. It takes some mental energy and effort. For example, I've learned that eye contact is important, and have trained myself to do it subconsciously, but when I'm tired or have just given blood, I stop doing it.

Absolutely. Even though she has worked hard to study and understand the rules, Dr. Grandin has explicitly given up on the idea of ever being in a romantic relationship, as it's just too much work for her.

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#26

Post by tomjen3 » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:37 PM UTC

ja27 wrote: post #19

hunterjrj wrote: post #8

If you haven't already read How to Win Friends and Influence People, you definitely should.

One of my bosses made a difficult coworker take a Dale Carnegie class. Afterward he said that it "changed his life." I thought it made him even creepier with the constant fake smile, eye contact and repetition of people's first name in conversation.

Yeah, that doesn't sound so smart - you just end up giving a dangerous man tools to be even more dangerous.

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#27

Post by AGorilla » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:45 PM UTC

xenophanes wrote: post #6

> Would the alien ever learn to distinguish good dancers from poor dancers? He could hack the problem like this: instead of figuring out which type of dancing is impressive directly, just watch reactions. People react to what they think is good dancing, so by watching people he can learn what's considered good dancing.

I don't agree that people react to good dancing. They react more to physical attractiveness, confidence, image, and drink buying. Think of Napoleon dynamite at the end of the movie. He's an amazing dancer but he would likely get a lot of WTFs in a club situation.

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#28

Post by dasil003 » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 6:58 PM UTC

maukdaddy wrote: post #7

I wish that both CS and MBA programs taught students to listen more. One of the few similarities I find between programmers/engineers and MBAs is the need to completely dominate a conversation. A few seminars on active listening would help everyone :)

Or you could just throw them both into a startup and let them have it out cage match style

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#29

Post by zoba » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 7:14 PM UTC

I would agree that there are few people with even minimal conversational skills. It is fantastic though when you run in to someone who really knows how to have a good conversation! I've only run in to one or two of these conversation super stars in my lifetime though.

I'd be really interested in a book that outlines the rules for a relationship... It would be nice to have something authoritative to point to when disagreements crop up.

Re: "Uh-oh. I didn't know conversation had rules."

#30

Post by jholman » Tue, Jul 20, 2010, 7:20 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #17

I realized a few months ago that I was talking too much in conversations, and not listening nearly enough. So for the last few months, I've decided to talk a lot less, and spend a lot more time just listening to people. In one on one conversation, I mostly just ask the other guy about the things he's talking about, to lead him into deeper (perhaps more interesting) areas. This is a great way to talk about interesting…

I have a similar project of self-improvement going on, but I find the problem much subtler than what you describe.

First off, yeah, with the people I most value, I talk too much and don't listen enough. Mea culpa, must improve.

On the other hand, perhaps I just need to level up my skill at asking guiding questions, and perhaps I just need to widen my interests, but I frequently have trouble being interested in what people want to talk about. In particular, I often find people want to tell stories about a particular experience they have, for the purpose of complaining about other people, refusing to generalize the experience, and refusing empathize with the person they're complaining about. That's boring!

Perhaps relatedly, I've recently been thinking that maybe I should put a little more work into consciously deciding if a conversant is interesting to me, and then choosing to pursue a boorish strategy or a collaborative strategy appropriately (perhaps erring on the side of collaborative). I've definitely had some totally boring people recently exclaim how fun I am to talk to and how much they'd like to hang out more in the future. Oops. It's probably imprudent, though, to attempt this strategy in groups with more than one other person present.