Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

bps-research-digest.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 114 posts

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#81

Post by yannk »

ledge wrote: post #79
Falling3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not sufficient. I didn't even make it to the last paragraph and many readers won't make it past the headline. Up until that paragraph, the author seems to be building us up towards accepting the results. Why bother writing an article on such a flawed study?

For the sake of linkbait, surely. Blog author even calls this study "the most compelling evidence", only to correctly recognize that it's total shit in the final paragraph. I'm all for writing an article on a bad study (sort of like a bad album review), but the opinion of the author should be clear from the outset.

yeah, agreed.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#82

Post by tunesmith »

zupatol wrote: post #50

Do people really understand this as an apology? Being sorry has two meanings in english, right? It can also mean that you share someone else's pain. If someone told me he's sorry about the rain, I would think what he really means is that he's sorry for me having to stand in the rain.

That double meaning has been milked to no end by politicians and PR companies. They're parenthetically saying, "I feel sooo bad for you that you are feeling inappropriately wronged by my proper actions."

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#83

Post by JoshTriplett »

smsm42 wrote: post #70
derefr wrote: post #21

Reminds me of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality quote: "Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything." Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apolo…

For me that's the most irritating feature of hpmor's protagonist. I understand that's probably intentional - so it's working. I wouldn't really trust more a person that claims exclusive agency - I'd probably trust him much less as if he doesn't respect me enough to assign me agency - how can I be sure he respects me enough to not violate my trust? You don't feel to bad if you make a promise to an NPC character in a v…

It's not at all an issue of agency. It's an issue of responsibility: just because there's someone else with the agency to solve the problem, and even someone whose job it is to solve the problem, doesn't mean you're absolved of responsibility if you could have solved the problem and failed to do so.

Obviously that can quickly lead to insanity if you're not also willing to prioritize problems: "there was something more important" is a completely valid excuse for not solving a problem, but "that's someone else's job and it's not my fault if they didn't do it" isn't.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#84

Post by loceng »

derefr wrote: post #21

Reminds me of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality quote: "Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything." Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apolo…

I want to bring health and wellness to the world. I'm working my way towards that. It's pretty ambitious. Learning how to not always feel the weight on my shoulders and chest though.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#86

Post by namank »

Superfluous?

Ok, so the face value of "sorry" implies apology but putting the situation in context it seems less a question of culpability and more of a shared sense of frustration against/for a common goal.

How does it make you feel when you are peeved off at the rain and someone comes up to you to share in the misery?

It's about a shared sense of understanding more than anything else. If some people choose to take advantage of this for ulterior purposes - well, that's the very definition of emotional manipulation.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#87

Post by slacka »

When I was studying psychology we often ran into negotiating tactics like this. Another is if you need a small favor, ask for something huge when they turn you down, they will almost always agree to the small favor. For example, after asking your parents for a car for your birthday, they'll be more likely to agree to get you that game for your xbox.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#88

Post by saraid216 »

loceng wrote: post #84
derefr wrote: post #21

Reminds me of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality quote: "Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything." Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apolo…

I want to bring health and wellness to the world. I'm working my way towards that. It's pretty ambitious. Learning how to not always feel the weight on my shoulders and chest though.

> Learning how to not always feel the weight on my shoulders and chest though.

I want to give you advice on how to do that, but because it's so hard to tell what the recipe for success actually is, I hesitate for fear that the advice would end up being counterproductive. So, for what it's worth, and with a grain of salt:

I've found that the pattern that is functional for me is a cyclical manic-depression. I come up with new ideas, expend energy on them, spinning up projects and pouring out thoughts and insights, and then I collapse into an emotional death spiral and am forced to spend effort on self-improvement of various kinds before going into another burst of creative energy. The length of the cycles vary tremendously.

Re: Want people to trust you? Try apologising for the rain

#90

Post by gadders »

derefr wrote: post #21

Reminds me of the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality quote: "Of course it was my fault. There's no one else here who could be responsible for anything." Which is to say, if I hear someone apologizing for the weather, one likely presumption would be that they're just assuming fault as a matter of etiquette, or some latent self-hating tendency... but another, more interesting, possibility is that they're apolo…

Or they could be British. We apologise for everything.
Post reply on HN