Why doesn't advice work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#251

Post by redsaz » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 12:25 AM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #49

rdtsc wrote: post #19

> And for producers of advice: Step 0 I think should be "maybe don't give advice". You want to help, you think you're really good, you think it will improve things, but that's not how other people see it. They may seem like they need advice or seem like they are asking for it between the lines, but they just really want to unload or chit chat, or share some difficulty. The answer to that is sometimes to listen and no…

Will second that many times. As a fairly proactive guy who almost never leaves any loose ends in his relationships, I overdid giving the advice and some people started avoiding me. I was bitter about it until I realized they did not want their problem fixed, they sought sympathy. Nothing wrong with that, it's just that my mind immediately jumps to potential solutions. But I was severely humbled on that front after I…

We have a similar saying: "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make 'em drink." At least, it seems similar to me.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#252

Post by paulpauper » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 12:28 AM UTC

twelve40 wrote: post #211

efitz wrote: post #183

Hard lessons I've learned: 1. It doesn't matter what your title is, how much expert education, training, or experience you have, or even what hard lessons that you have learned: you are not an "expert" in an area unless you are invited in as an "expert". Put another way, unsolicited advice is unwelcome. 2. Smart people want to solve their own problems. Don't offer solutions. No one will feel empowered or much of a se…

Lesson I learned from this comment: you can dish out as much of heavy-handed advice as your heart desires, as long as you preface it with the phrase "things i've learned"

Or just say "IMHO"

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#253

Post by paulpauper » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 12:29 AM UTC

Adrock wrote: post #35

"Move your feet up" is a cue. It's shorthand for something much more complicated that you've already learned and need to be reminded to apply in the moment. When squatting, someone might tell you to "drive from the hips" or "knees out." When singing, someone might advise "diaphragm!" When coding, "DRY!" The obvious interpretation of these things don't stand on their own. Cues aren't advice.

Yes this is not advice. This is more like an instruction

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#254

Post by corytheboyd » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 12:34 AM UTC

Such a surprising number of people saying to never give advice, starting to question my assumed role of mentor a bit. Coming from a professional standpoint, at work, as a software engineer. When you have what you think is relative experience, and think you have a nugget of advice that could help a more junior person out, who you are pretty sure is looking up to you for advice, do you just not give it? I don’t mean in a prescriptive manner, more like “hey I see the road you are on, I have been there, here are some pointers that I think could be of use”. I thought I was careful to always flavor such advice as non-prescriptive— it’s not me saying “do this, otherwise you will fail”, it’s more “here are some interesting ways that I myself have failed in the past”. Maybe I’m wrong? In some cases it’s been months/years working with people in a mentorship role, and I swear I have seen nuggets of my advice turn up later as “yeah I see no issues with this, carry on and good job!!”. The article isn’t about technical advice, but it’s here on the front page of HN so I can’t help but interpret it in that way. I know I’ll be wrong sometimes, because I have been, but I don’t see it as a failure, I am very transparent about how I was wrong, and try to turn into a learning experience for us all.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#255

Post by tbrownaw » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 12:34 AM UTC

smeej wrote: post #209

throwaway22032 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has some of the traits this is absolutely it. When you spend your childhood being told by people to do things that will lead to, well, almost certainly being poor and having a shit life, you learn to just ignore advice and do the opposite. It is really hard to unlearn this in adulthood. I tend to get by by judging the person giving the advice e.g. if they seem successful then they are more likely to be…

I developed something like this, but it manifests more as "question everything until it makes sense to me. " I feel like I'm constitutionally incapable of taking anybody's word for anything, but it's vastly worse for anyone who reacts with hostility to my questions about points that don't make sense to me. It was very much trained into me by my father that following the advice of those people leads to suffering and p…

> manifests more as "question everything until it makes sense to me."

This is called "critical thinking" -- at least when combined with a decent amount of existing topical knowledge to be able to ask good questions -- and is rather useful for all sorts of things.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#256

Post by kayodelycaon » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 12:40 AM UTC

corytheboyd wrote: post #254

Such a surprising number of people saying to never give advice, starting to question my assumed role of mentor a bit. Coming from a professional standpoint, at work, as a software engineer. When you have what you think is relative experience, and think you have a nugget of advice that could help a more junior person out, who you are pretty sure is looking up to you for advice, do you just not give it? I don’t mean in…

The article is talking in very broad terms. As is everyone else.

Things are quite different if you're in a professional environment or a mentor role. Advice is generally expected, even if it's not fully appreciated.

Other examples include support groups and various communities around a craft. If you join a group of writers and start a discussion, "advice" will likely happen.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#257

Post by pdimitar » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 12:52 AM UTC

redsaz wrote: post #251

pdimitar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will second that many times. As a fairly proactive guy who almost never leaves any loose ends in his relationships, I overdid giving the advice and some people started avoiding me. I was bitter about it until I realized they did not want their problem fixed, they sought sympathy. Nothing wrong with that, it's just that my mind immediately jumps to potential solutions. But I was severely humbled on that front after I…

We have a similar saying: "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make 'em drink." At least, it seems similar to me.

Oh yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Thanks for reminding me the English / American idiom.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#258

Post by Aeolun » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 1:04 AM UTC

efitz wrote: post #183

Hard lessons I've learned: 1. It doesn't matter what your title is, how much expert education, training, or experience you have, or even what hard lessons that you have learned: you are not an "expert" in an area unless you are invited in as an "expert". Put another way, unsolicited advice is unwelcome. 2. Smart people want to solve their own problems. Don't offer solutions. No one will feel empowered or much of a se…

> Your spouse does not want to know how it works so that they can fix it themselves next time, and their mental model is wrong and they don't care to correct it. Just listen, figure out what they want and do it yourself, and do it again next time even though it interrupted you and they could have fixed it themself.

Once upon a time I had someone that didn’t work this way. Only in hindsight is it apparent how much of an exception that was. I don’t know if it’s age or otherwise, but seeing someone solve their own problems is so much more satisfying than solving something for them. I think it’s an unhealthy dependency.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#259

Post by akira2501 » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 1:10 AM UTC

screye wrote: post #195

> advice is incomplete without lived experience. This bit is usually the crux. It's not about your lived experience, but it has to be some lived experience that's felt viscerally. It can be your own, it can be in 2nd second person. It's about the feeling it drives. Not so much the frame/POV. Good advice is visceral, limited, targeted and helps get the person to the immediate next 'better' state. In military parlance,…

The flip side to that is we are terrible archivists of our own lived experiences. We constantly editorialize them in order to spare our egos and minds the inconvenient facts of our actual path through life. These never get communicated with the advice and so most advice ends up really being self serving fairy tales of a time that never existed.

I never give advice. I'll explain similar situations I was in before, what I did, why I did it, and _critically_ what I think I could have done to avoided the effort or to have had a better outcome if I had a second chance at the problem.

You can give perspectives. What people do with those is up to them.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#260

Post by Aeolun » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 1:11 AM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #246

hamasho wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Unsolicited advice is always criticism. This is important to me. Especially when I become a senior, my opinion without much thought can be taken as a criticism and make others irritated or insecure.

Also this is what all advice sounds like to new parents. If you want to be an ally to someone who's just had a baby, don't give unsolicited advice - they're hearing enough of it from the numerous people who want to talk all about "future problems you definitely need to avoid now " to someone who hasn't had more then 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Does that really happen? In my experience parents giving advice to other parents generally sound like “I don’t really know what I’m doing, nor your child, but this worked for us.”

The wild variety of advice is a good indication there is no true answer.