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My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

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Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#81

Post by joliss »

gnaritas wrote: post #64
stuhacking wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) the ``This sucks'' response lets you vent anger. Now there are two conflicting theories about controlling strong emotions... ;-) I realise that this is intended for humour, but more seriously, I have experienced much better anger reduction when actually chatting amiably with someone and making a friendly recommendation. ``This sucks'' just passes on the negativity to others.

> I have experienced much better anger reduction when actually chatting amiably Great for you, but not everyone is you; some people need to vent to feel better.

I seem to recall that there are studies showing that venting isn't an effective tool to make you feel better, despite the popular "catharsis" meme. I can't find them right now, but here's a quote: http://www.bakadesuyo.com/a-few-more-things-pop-psychology-h...

In any case, if somebody feels the need to vent, I hope they don't do it where I end up reading them. ^^

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#82

Post by wtfffr »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #48
knowtheory wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vociferous opposition is not the same as condescension, though. There are some people who care deeply about a subject and just lack social tact. They'll jump on you for a variety of subjects, but they don't have ill intent. Then there are the people who are dicks and want to crush people who they disagree with. It's the point at which one starts displaying schadenfreude and denigrating others that the line has been c…

People who lack social tact need to be taught it. They aren't stupid, generally, they can be taught, if it's made clear that they must. Treating people badly is a great way to drive out those who don't have the ability to deal with flamewars and shoutiness. And many of those people have a lot to contribute.

People won't learn that when sites are run horribly, as this one is.

My first interaction on this site consisted of somebody making a snarky personal attack, which got upvoted. The person apologized via email, but pg refused to remove any of it.

Apparently it was important to pg that some snarky, bullshit, personal attack remain present, visible and upvoted, even though both I and the person who made it wanted it gone.

So seriously... with leadership like that, how the fuck can anybody expect people to be nice?

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#83

Post by ahoyhere »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #48
knowtheory wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vociferous opposition is not the same as condescension, though. There are some people who care deeply about a subject and just lack social tact. They'll jump on you for a variety of subjects, but they don't have ill intent. Then there are the people who are dicks and want to crush people who they disagree with. It's the point at which one starts displaying schadenfreude and denigrating others that the line has been c…

People who lack social tact need to be taught it. They aren't stupid, generally, they can be taught, if it's made clear that they must. Treating people badly is a great way to drive out those who don't have the ability to deal with flamewars and shoutiness. And many of those people have a lot to contribute.

They should learn it themselves. There are books & training courses on the subject. But people rarely seek these out because they are so defensive about their deficiencies that they turn even those into a contention -- they say "this is just the way I am, take it or leave it."

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#84

Post by lyudmil »

I agree with the author's observation. Geek culture is incredibly unforgiving, and proudly so. To some extent this might be just a part of hacker tradition, but I think there's a deeper problem - it isn't always easy to tell who the authority on a subject is in a random group discussing a highly technical issue.

Let's take the sports analogy the author used. It is immediately clear who is more apt at skateboarding and thus should be doling out advice. The power relation is clear and accepted on both sides, which allows for constructive instruction to take place.

Discussing things on HN, however is different. In general, technical discussions amongst people who don't generally know each other are a process of discovering the appropriate power relation. We are exchanging comments and trying to gauge who is more knowledgeable. If I were to try to teach someone before they've acknowledged I have something to teach them, I'll come across as arrogant and an unpleasant argument will likely begin.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Sometimes I'd like to see more humility in the communities we're referring to here, but I also don't want to read insecure, watered-down opinion. It would be the best of all worlds if people stated their case as strongly as possible, confident that everyone knows they're aware of the possibility or even overwhelming probability they're wrong. I think that would eliminate a lot of the pain and noise in discussions on forums such as this.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#85

Post by [deleted] »

blhack wrote: post #71
MrJagil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone please explain the logic behind "condescending feedback = insecurity"? And I mean that sincerely. I have been thinking about this for a long time now, and I just cannot come up with any supporting evidence to explain the corelation. It might sound like a stupid request, but I think it is a hard argument to make totally water proof.

To use the cliche'd car analogy: People driving ferraris generally don't go around trying to race people with honda civics. They know that they have an absurdly fast car, they don't need to tell you. But the 17 year old kid with the modded civic wants to prove himself, so he's much more likely to try and race everything that moves. If you're Mark Zuckerberg, you don't need to point out that you're more successful tha…

[deleted]

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#86

Post by jhamburger »

wanderful wrote: post #50
sqrt17 wrote: post #15

There is a major difference between sports and programming: In sports, everyone is a critic, and it is really obvious if people cannot skateboard, or cannot throw a basketball. Compare with programming, where overt effect and actual competence are not always related. Criticizing programming and programmers is nontrivial, and hence people have to do it all the time to build up a shared understanding of good and bad pr…

Except there is much more to a sport than, for example, shooting a basketball. There's offense, there's defense. There's fundamental skills, there's game strategy, there's different sorts of matchups. It goes on and on to subtler and more intricate detail. It's not simply whether one can skateboard or not, program or not, and it would seem that is what the author of the article was getting at. In your visual arts exa…

OK, but there are degrees of subtlety though. A casual fan might see someone score 40 points in a basketball game and say "wow, he must be a great player" while a hardcore fan might chime in and say "actually he's way overrated. He's a poor defender, way too selfish and lazy in rebounding." but the fact remains, if you score 40 points a game in basketball, you are at least a 'good' player at your level. I can say that categorically. Can we say "If you X, you must be a good programmer."?

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#87

Post by nhangen »

Alex3917 wrote: post #66
knowtheory wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vociferous opposition is not the same as condescension, though. There are some people who care deeply about a subject and just lack social tact. They'll jump on you for a variety of subjects, but they don't have ill intent. Then there are the people who are dicks and want to crush people who they disagree with. It's the point at which one starts displaying schadenfreude and denigrating others that the line has been c…

"Then there are the people who are dicks and want to crush people who they disagree with." The problem is that when people start mouthing off about factual issues they don't know anything about they can cause a lot of damage, so crushing them is often a necessity. When you're in a situation where there is a lot of potential for damage and the other person isn't willing to have an intellectually honest debate about th…

That comment:

"The problem is that when people start mouthing off about factual issues they don't know anything about they can cause a lot of damage, so crushing them is often a necessity."

Is exactly the type of thing that comes from the hive mind, and is why it's impossible to be a dissenter. It's usually "you don't know what you are talking about," followed by bashing until the person takes their ball and goes home.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#88

Post by zach »

blhack wrote: post #71
MrJagil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone please explain the logic behind "condescending feedback = insecurity"? And I mean that sincerely. I have been thinking about this for a long time now, and I just cannot come up with any supporting evidence to explain the corelation. It might sound like a stupid request, but I think it is a hard argument to make totally water proof.

To use the cliche'd car analogy: People driving ferraris generally don't go around trying to race people with honda civics. They know that they have an absurdly fast car, they don't need to tell you. But the 17 year old kid with the modded civic wants to prove himself, so he's much more likely to try and race everything that moves. If you're Mark Zuckerberg, you don't need to point out that you're more successful tha…

Since we're talking about giving feedback, I think a more apt analogy is what happens when people with Honda Civics want to race.

Australian billionaire Kerry Packer was a notorious gambler. A legend about him is that at a poker tournament, he was challenged to play a high-stakes game by a Texan who bragged, "I'm worth $60 million." His response was to nonchalantly pull out a coin and ask, "Heads or tails?"

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#89

Post by kstenerud »

dkarl wrote: post #44

What would we think of an American who walked into an Egyptian coffeehouse or a Japanese board room and interpreted all the behavior he saw there as if he were seeing it in a church in Iowa? It's fine to demand that geeks develop some social sophistication, but it's also fine to expect that non-geeks will have enough social sophistication not to rush to judgment about behavior in an unfamiliar cultural context. Cultu…

There's a huge difference between "You're wrong and here's why", and "You did X??? What are you, stupid? You suck and you should just gtfo because you'll never amount to anything. You'd be so fired if you worked in my company. Bullet. Brain. Make the connection."

Both are uncompromising. Only one is civil.

Re: My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk.

#90

Post by stcredzero »

ahoyhere wrote: post #83
AndrewDucker wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who lack social tact need to be taught it. They aren't stupid, generally, they can be taught, if it's made clear that they must. Treating people badly is a great way to drive out those who don't have the ability to deal with flamewars and shoutiness. And many of those people have a lot to contribute.

They should learn it themselves. There are books & training courses on the subject. But people rarely seek these out because they are so defensive about their deficiencies that they turn even those into a contention -- they say "this is just the way I am, take it or leave it."

Think of it as evolution in action. (And I shall take this whole post as a call to clean up my act.)
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