Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression • Hacker News Board

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#11

Post by gress » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:26 PM UTC

proveanegative wrote: post #7

>Second, men are conditioned to be more competitive towards women than men. In studies on boys and girls in gym class, boys try harder in competitive foot races against girls versus their male peers [ 10 ]. The study this observation is derived from only talks about competitions of physical ability.

Given this study, do you think it is more reasonable a) to think this competition extends to other spheres, or b) to think that it does not.

If your answer is b), what evidence do you have to support this?

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#12

Post by mrxd » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:27 PM UTC

> Creating an environment that encourages aggression gives men an edge

This is true. Lots of men feel humiliated and experience a loss of status when they're defeated by a woman, which effectively means women can't engage with men in that way. That's because the company culture or the men they work with have sexist beliefs.

One workaround is banning arguments. But if you have the power to change the culture that way, why not just ban sexism? That seems like it would do more good.

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#13

Post by dikaiosune » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:29 PM UTC

gress wrote: post #11

proveanegative wrote: post #7

>Second, men are conditioned to be more competitive towards women than men. In studies on boys and girls in gym class, boys try harder in competitive foot races against girls versus their male peers [ 10 ]. The study this observation is derived from only talks about competitions of physical ability.

Given this study, do you think it is more reasonable a) to think this competition extends to other spheres, or b) to think that it does not. If your answer is b), what evidence do you have to support this?

If your answer is a), what evidence do you have to support this?

A claim requires evidence, skepticism is just asking for evidence to support a claim. B is just skepticism when you paraphrase it fairly.

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#14

Post by dikaiosune » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:32 PM UTC

asgard1024 wrote: post #10

Frankly, that's a terrible article, full of sexist stereotypes. She is reading too much into it. Just briefly: Sometimes people argue because they genuinely think their favorite tool is superior, and want to help others be more efficient. Sometimes people speak loudly because they are genuinely excited about something. I doubt there is any authority or respect to win by good arguing about technology (especially on on…

> Another fun fact - I am native Czech speaker, and we have two different words for "argument" - "debata" and "hadka", the former implying a civil one, the other one meaning one where people are angry at each other. I am not really sure which meaning the article uses

The problem is that it's the author's responsibility to disambiguate between the possible meanings, and the author of this article makes no such attempt. In fact, it seems like she's conflating the two and implying that they are one and the same -- i.e. that if you competitively evaluate ideas by (calmly or not) debating them, you are automatically engaging in a fight.

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#15

Post by grandalf » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:34 PM UTC

asgard1024 wrote: post #10

Frankly, that's a terrible article, full of sexist stereotypes. She is reading too much into it. Just briefly: Sometimes people argue because they genuinely think their favorite tool is superior, and want to help others be more efficient. Sometimes people speak loudly because they are genuinely excited about something. I doubt there is any authority or respect to win by good arguing about technology (especially on on…

Your comment is an example of the stuff she's describing... It can be broken down structurally as follows:

- Righteous indignation

- Example with sample size of 1

- Half-hearted praise

- Jocular, superior tone

- Name calling Zinger

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#16

Post by Negitivefrags » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:37 PM UTC

Here is what I do to diffuse arguments between me and my co-founder when we have reached the point where all the information has been presented and it's starting to get repetitious.

Agree that both options are off the table now and that a third solution must be found.

Normally if there is an argument both parties do have actual legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. The problem is that often once you get into argument mode, your ability to be creative and modify your solution to fit the other persons concerns can go out the window.

By removing both options you can go back into creative mode.

A lot of the time when doing this we actually have arrived at a much better idea than either of the two presented before that makes us both happy.

Often you end up settling on an idea that is 95% the same as what one of the people suggested in the first place, only now it also addresses the concerns of the other person too and they will now feel on board with it, which is a much better situation than if one person had "won" the argument leaving the other bitter.

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#17

Post by ryanobjc » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:39 PM UTC

but as a guy, its biologically fun to be aggressive.

Now what? :-(

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#18

Post by gress » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:43 PM UTC

dikaiosune wrote: post #13

gress wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given this study, do you think it is more reasonable a) to think this competition extends to other spheres, or b) to think that it does not. If your answer is b), what evidence do you have to support this?

If your answer is a), what evidence do you have to support this? A claim requires evidence, skepticism is just asking for evidence to support a claim. B is just skepticism when you paraphrase it fairly.

Sorry, B is not skepticism. B is another claim. It is the claim that men do not compete more strongly with women than with men in domains outside of physical activity. Unless you have evidence to support this claim, we should be skeptical of it, especially in light of A.

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#19

Post by mrits » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:45 PM UTC

mrxd wrote: post #12

> Creating an environment that encourages aggression gives men an edge This is true. Lots of men feel humiliated and experience a loss of status when they're defeated by a woman, which effectively means women can't engage with men in that way. That's because the company culture or the men they work with have sexist beliefs. One workaround is banning arguments. But if you have the power to change the culture that way,…

As a male that has been defeated my women at a wide range of activities my whole life I have a hard time understanding it. Even as a varsity basketball player I would often get beat my a girl in a game of horse. The intellectual playing field seems to be even so there is no reason for a man to get upset losing an argument to a women anymore than another man.

I think the problem is that people just suck in general and a lot of people are seeing it as man vs women.

Re: Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

#20

Post by BurningFrog » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 10:46 PM UTC

The ability to leave your ego out of technical discussions is one of the most important engineering skills there are.

"Winning" on an engineering team needs to be "we built a great product quickly", not "I made the team do things my way".

This is hard, and your first task is to be a person who thinks and acts that way. If you never had to change how you approach and think about things, you're probably not doing that.

When you are angry/frustrated, you can't think clearly. So if someone has reached that point, it's very hard to have a productive discussion.