Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite' • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#361

Post by beaconstudios » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

CJefferson wrote: post #356

beaconstudios wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the question of the status quo is itself politicised. One side (progressive sphere) says people who don't belong to the normed group (cis-white-hetero-male in US/EUR) are inherently treated worse, either consciously or unconsciously (bias), and conscious effort has to be made to overcome this. Another (classical liberal sphere) says that exclusionary behaviour are the exception and most people abide by the golden rul…

Your bringing up the "golden rule" is interesting, as I there are various situations where i have felt discriminated against and in retrospect the golden rule was to blame. If I'm in a room full of (in my case) people much posher than me, and they all treat everyone in the room as they wish to be treated, that can easily create an oppressive atmosphere. Also, if I try treating them as I wish to be treated, and can ea…

I think that's partly because the golden rule is a moral rule, not a communication one. It describes a mindset that promotes empathy, but doesn't make affordances for communication differences such as social/economic status, culture and so on.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#362

Post by dx87 » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #217

inawarminister wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see, the problem is that the same thing can be said vis-a-vis the COC toting social justice warriors, making things nasty to everyone just to bring their pet political issues. Indeed, things such as The End of Meritocracy manifesto... Seems to beg the thought: is the trolls in the underbelly always this nefarious that it needs this amount of unhealthiness, or are they, at the end of the day, swelled by reaction to th…

"the problem is that the same thing can be said vis-a-vis the COC toting social justice warriors" I'm no friend to some of the people pushing this. Just a couple of days ago, I was in a Twitter argument with some of them as they tried to turn this into part of their "kill Linux Foundation" feud. They definitely do have their own faults, but I still think there's a difference. They're willing to put in place a set of…

The set of rules won't be used against them though, and they know it. The creator of the new Linux CoC has a history of being hateful and organizing mobs on twitter to harass project owners, yet they aren't suffering repercussions from it. They push for projects to add their CoC so they can use it as a weapon against people they don't like, but know they're safe because they won't use it against each other. They're already using it as a reason to start harassing kernel maintainers (calling Theodore Tso a "rape apologist"), yet they aren't holding each other accountable for their own CoC violations.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#363

Post by cgriswald » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #323

> I'm still not exactly the most empathetic person. > But I'm hoping I can at least 'fake it until I > make it'. This is great! If you ask me, "faking it" is really just as good as "actually" being a more helpful or empathetic person. What do you think "actually" being a helpful or empathetic person is like? It's basically just continually expending the effort to be helpful and empathetic. Let's say my brother calls…

> If you ask me, "faking it" is really just as good as "actually" being a more helpful or empathetic person.

It is important to make the distinction between this and what Linus actually said, which was "fake it *until I make it" (emphasis added). The latter is essentially practice or exercise to develop empathy. The former is essentially how high-functioning psychopaths work.

> Let's say my brother calls me up on a Saturday morning. He needs help moving some furniture. Do I really feel like doing that? Fuuuuuuuuuck no. Will I say "yes" anyway? Probably, because even though I'd rather play tennis or sleep or play video games I want to help him. So I will consciously expend the effort to go do the good thing for him.

> Am I being "actually" good there or am I just "faking it"? I don't really think there's a difference. Nobody really wants to spend a day off moving furniture for free.

You haven't really made a comparison here, because you just say, "I want to help him." What is your motivation? You can definitely help him without having any empathy for him at all.

Empathy doesn't mean "being nice" or "being helpful". It means understanding, feeling, or experiencing the feelings of others. Being an empathetic person is largely orthogonal to being nice. It can help you be nice, because you understand how people feel. It can also help you be a huge asshole, because you understand how to really hurt people.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#364

Post by taeric » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

thetrumanshow wrote: post #353

taeric wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends entirely on how good you are at faking it. That is, if it can be easily seen that you are faking; then no, it is not as good. Not even close. Your brother scenario is silly. If someone calls and I don't want to help, but can. I'll be honest and make my own choice. If they ask if this is what I'd truly like to be doing, I'll always say no. However, in most cases, I don't actually care what I'm doing. Could I c…

On the far end of the scale, if you always answer, "Would you like to help us carry this heavy stuff down these stairs?" with "No, in fact I would loathe that, but I will comply in order to maintain the social bonds that are necessary to sustain my chemically-driven life functions for the long term."... then that will be problematic for your relationships. I'm like you, I say yes often, and I'm honest about how excit…

I think I misrepresented. Most people just ask, "can you come help?" To that I'll answer how long it would take me to get over there if I can, and start heading that way. Few people ask "would you like to help me" do anything. The answers really are different.

That is, you aren't faking it by being nice. You are just not bringing in extra crap to the discussion. Can you do dinner tonight? Yes or no. Not, I'd rather go do something with someone else, but if I have to be social with you, I can.

It is tough, because society is actually highly rewarding on bringing extra crap to the discussion many times. In humor situations, everyone actually enjoys it. And for situations where there is a jerk, society actually rewards it by putting up with it.

Linus has been a tough one. Often the community has relied on his behavior to help keep other jerks in check. People like to talk about how he is abrasive to nvidia, but they really are somewhat abusing the spirit of the crowd, as well. Problem seems to be that it is tough to know when to use a tool in your disposal.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#365

Post by eropple » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #348

eropple wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are highlighting the false dichotomy that a lot of folks in this thread--and, if I'm being frank, not for good, decent, or ethical reasons--are piling in on. You can do something that makes people upset without being an asshole. It's really that simple. "No, I won't merge this pull request because of X, Y, and Z." Somebody's probably not going to be happy. But you have not needed to stoop to insulting them. You h…

Do you think just saying “this is broken in this way” has an identical effect to yelling at someone for being thoughtless? It seems you think one approach is clearly worse. But as a thought experiment can you imagine how each approach might have real tangible advantages?

It does not have an identical effect. For one, the listener has a reason to listen to you with regards to the former. For two, everyone else is not provided with a reason to pull the ripcord and avoid you entirely.

I understand the point of view that yes, it may have advantages to abuse people for your immediate and short-term desires. The attempt to cast abuse as valid for those advantages belies the truth of a nasty participant in the body politic.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#366

Post by ashleyn » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

smoothy2 wrote: post #305

notacoward wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Natural tendency" does not mean intention. Few people intend to make minorities feel less welcome, but many more adhere to habits and cultural norms which have that effect. Here's an example from right here a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18061725 Another example: where I work, I recently took someone to task for saying "your shit is broken" in a very public thread. It's a phrase I've seen…

Listen, I take a huge exception to the way you said things. As a minority (non-white) person, I don't need you to speak for me and me to be your pet. In fact, your attitude is highly patronizing and condescending, the fact that you don't see it, is problematic. Linux Kernel was being run ok so far. Sure there were rants from Torvalds which went overboard sometimes but accept it as a quirk of the maintainer and move o…

As another minority, it wasn't concerning to you that Eich actively lobbied against equal rights for a particular demographic? See, I'm tolerant of different viewpoints practiced consensually and privately; lobbying against those who don't affect your own life is a bit below the belt.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#367

Post by lostmyoldone » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #280

davidkuhta wrote: post #41

Anyone else get a chuckle that out of the myriad of relevant quotes, the author selected, "He... once [described] an Intel fix as 'complete and utter garbage'". Good for Linus, I'm happy that he's not looking to adjust his technical expectations: "technically wrong is still technically wrong, and I won't start accepting bad code just to make people feel better about themselves."

They could have taken a quote from 2012: " "...should be retroactively aborted. Who the f+ck does idiotic things like that? How did they not die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?" "

I always read Linus as a Finn speaking English as Finnish is spoken in the company of good friends, profanity will be used, often quite liberally, and if anything, the Swedish speaking minority he harkens from swear even more. Only outdone by the good people of Åland, to which swearing seems to be a form of art, or how they breathe.

I believe it's well known that people tend to curse more in a second language, applying that theory to some Finns is going to lead to a very colorful and explicit language.

Personally I barely swear, I find it somewhat pointless.

However I have never really been bothered in the least of what he writes. I'm wondering if it is because English is a second language to me? Maybe because I have at least a cursory knowledge of Finn culture, or even because it felt so blindingly obvious to me that regardless of the superficial content of the profanities, they were rarely ( if ever ) a statement of value regarding people, only their contribution.

I really don't know, but it is interesting because I think I would have reacted quite strongly to most people saying what you quoted above!

Language and communication, it's perplexingly complicated.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#368

Post by ritchiea » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #105

ritchiea wrote: post #50

The idea of faking it until you make it is exactly what Linus needs. Most of the point of communication is for the other person, especially giving feedback on patches. We all need to vent but we shouldn't vent at the people below us in an organization. Venting is for a counselor, and maybe a close peer? And it's ok if he's frustrated with people, he just shouldn't take it out on them. Maybe he could find someone to g…

Personally I consider fake it until you make it an incredibly dangerous ideal. That is how you get the Great Leap Forward, Banzai Charges, and Theranos. It leads to far too many delusions that become the seeds of downfall. Better to say in the case of Theranos state that the initial idea is proving non-viable but we have assembled a good talent base in biotech. We technically could liquidate the existing investment b…

It is quite a stretch to compare making yourself be kind to a colleague or underling despite your own frustrations with defrauding investors.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#369

Post by pseudalopex » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

jlawson wrote: post #279

matthewmacleod wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s essentially a cliché false dichotomy. Wouldn’t it be even nicer to work with someone who can express how they feel in a constructive and helpful manner?

Lots of people don't have the cognitive ability to hit the perfect mixture of expressing every necessary criticism with sufficient force, without hurting any feelings more than absolutely necessary, without taking energy away from completing other tasks. It would be nice if we could find a person who was a world class 100x programmer AND project organizer AND had decades of sustained high productivity AND had absolut…

Linus himself is saying he can and should do better.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#370

Post by ordu » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

wayne_skylar wrote: post #336

This is something that has always bothered me about Linus. There are other extremely gifted programmers out there that don't seem to need to resort to this kind of persona. I always enjoyed hearing John Carmack speak because he is extremely smart and knowledgable and he doesn't look like he has a superiority complex. But the real problem with Linus is the example he sets. I am not a kernel dev, so I don't know the va…

What really bothers me, it when people start to speak about someone who "sends message", "sets wrong example" and so on.

It bothers me, when people think about others, like they are less intelligent. If you can see, that Linus's behaviour is wrong and shouldn't be followed, why do you think, that other could not see it? It is because all others are stupid children and they need to be led to the right direction, isn't it? You know, I'm russian, and I see a lot of this thinking around me, all the deeply patriotic and deeply religious people around me thinks like that. "We should restrict access to internet, for others do not get information they are too stupid to understand properly". I hate it, and probably extra-sensitive for such a thinking, and it really bothers me when I see it.

I can suggest different way of thinking: if Linus's behaviour is wrong, then it gives you endless opportunity to illustrate your point with real world examples. You can compare Carmack with Torvalds because Torvalds exists and being himself.