Be Kind • Hacker News Board

Re: Be Kind

#371

Post by Nadya » Wed, May 13, 2015, 3:59 PM UTC

dogecoinbase wrote: post #138

Nadya wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather liked that book and want to disagree with many of the points it tries to make, but find myself choosing not to. It is not economically or socially beneficial for me to be as blunt as I am - but my personal morality triumphs over both of those. If someone is wrong, they are wrong and I will let them know they are wrong. It won't win me any friends and it isn't beneficial for me to be as blunt as I am - but I…

my personal morality triumphs over both of those. If someone is wrong, they are wrong and I will let them know they are wrong. So, your personal morality requires you to not only offend people, but to reduce the odds of them hearing what you're saying because you choose to deliver it in an unkind manner. This is absurdly self-serving of you, and really only goes to show that you're not actually interested in "[lettin…

Being blunt is not the same as being unkind. /blunt reply

Re: Be Kind

#372

Post by Nadya » Wed, May 13, 2015, 4:06 PM UTC

switchbak wrote: post #116

Nadya wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather liked that book and want to disagree with many of the points it tries to make, but find myself choosing not to. It is not economically or socially beneficial for me to be as blunt as I am - but my personal morality triumphs over both of those. If someone is wrong, they are wrong and I will let them know they are wrong. It won't win me any friends and it isn't beneficial for me to be as blunt as I am - but I…

One might view that as a form of perfectionism - for me it all depends on what you're trying to optimize. I've lived much of my life like that - but what's my goal here - to be right? Or to be happy? To me being happy means working towards harmonious relationships. I'm not going to pretend someone is right when they're not, but I might be a bit more diplomatic in my communication. I'm not sure I get the morality angl…

That's the thing about morals. They change from person to person and society to society. What is immoral in one society might be neutral in another - or even moral in another!

I find misinformation and ignorance to be a detriment to humankind in its entirety. It drags us down and hides the truth behind the world and how it works.

People believe things that are wrong - myself included. When I am wrong, I hope for others to correct me.

Spreading wrong and misinformed beliefs, to me, is morally wrong. What good comes from spreading wrong information?

Re: Be Kind

#373

Post by ausjke » Wed, May 13, 2015, 4:12 PM UTC

Well said. This is especially useful to some of the nice geek/nerds. I'm printing it out and put it on the wall for a while.

Re: Be Kind

#374

Post by zipppy » Wed, May 13, 2015, 4:12 PM UTC

ffn wrote: post #121

mankyd wrote: post #4

I really like these two paragraphs towards the end: Being kind isn’t the same as being nice. It isn’t about superficial praise. It doesn’t mean dulling your opinions. And it shouldn’t diminish the passion with which you present them. Being kind is fundamentally about taking responsibility for your impact on the people around you. It requires you be mindful of their feelings and considerate of the way your presence af…

Yes, totally this. Moreover, I'd like to add anonymously down-voting / reporting someone's opinion just because it's not yours is just as mean-spirited as calling someone names. Every internet message board has its own culture with its own take on what's "right" and what's "wrong", and on HN (and reddit) the institutionally accepted way of being mean is misusing the downvoting / flagkilling system to attempt to bleep…

Could HN benefit from a dual-voting system? One for 'agree'/'disagree', and the other for 'constructive'/'non-constructive'?

Re: Be Kind

#375

Post by junkilo » Wed, May 13, 2015, 4:33 PM UTC

thisisboz wrote: post #106

aristus wrote: post #59

This is a fantastic article from Boz. I have to be blunt in my criticism, however, as I imagine Boz would expect and appreciate. I had a few run-ins with him in the early 2010s and I don't see much evidence that he learned from these experiences or changed his basic working pattern. Or maybe he was even more raw before I met him. :) I learned very early on not to have anything Boz wanted nor to cross him. It's hard t…

Yup, this post is about the start of a journey that is still ongoing for me. It still takes work and I still lose focus and do poorly and tried to call that out at the end. To your specific point, I probably was even worse in 2008 than what you experienced in 2010. That's probably true at every point since. I'm getting better, but I am sure you can find people even in the last year who would say this post doesn't ref…

Don't beat yourself up too much. Diversity means having an honest full-spectrum cohort of people to grow with, not a curated one. If I removed people like you [us] (typically genius+passionate+outspoken+intellectually-arrogant) I would miss you. People might avoid you because they are weak, but you probably help tow the bottom line at fb more than you know.

I've struggled with similar in my career (eng@uber) to a lesser degree and these are some of my findings:

- in terms of long-term survival; friendship, connection and investing in humans brings much more satisfaction than any technical part of my work and will outlast the business every time.

- when I'm arguing a solution or iteration that I've designed, the harder I hold onto that solution the tougher it is to sell.

- every time I instruct an engineer rather than let them figure something out on their own it seems to not go in my favor.

- the best designs and implementations [at scale] in engineering [sadly, for my ego] always seem to require multi-faceted perspectives (a team) to simulate adequately and vet impact (business+social+tech).

- promotion and progression in an organization is a subjective mess, all biased, and largely driven by non-technical markers namely social proof, liking and perception.

Re: Be Kind

#376

Post by mreiland » Wed, May 13, 2015, 5:20 PM UTC

roflc0ptic wrote: post #357

HolyHaddock wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonable question. Perhaps it's not and there's no reason for anyone to take any time to say anything when someone's wrong. But if they do take that time and say something, then it's not unreasonable to consider the goal. Is it to demonstrate superiority and massage ego? Unkindness works well. If it's to help someone correct a mistake, do better next time or bring their conversational partners thinking closer to…

I really like this response. I especially like that you validate their question and then convincingly explore the nuance to the situation, framing your response around their question. Then you make your ultimate position subjective ("Personally, I prefer...") instead of trying to make it some objective truth ("it's better to be kind."), which allows that the others person's position is also subjective - merely a pers…

The communication was so effective I chose not to respond to it.

I personally prefer (there it is!) to work in an environment where being incorrect isn't such a big deal everyone thinks you have to walk around eggshells in order to point it out.

I responded to another poster in this thread and told them they may just be in the wrong place. Or to put it another way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4hqFvXm57M&t=01m23s

What you read as effective communication I read as the guy whose mindset is so far off of what's effective it isn't even worth engaging him.

Re: Be Kind

#377

Post by nostrademons » Wed, May 13, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #363

npizzolato wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP's attitude is the same attitude you have when you claim "it's their JOB to deal with people" and when you equate being nice to "[validating] the emotions of the counter worker". Sure, their job is to deal with shitty people with a smile, but it's also your job (as a nice, respectable member of society) to be a person who is pleasant to deal with.

> Sure, their job is to deal with shitty people with a smile There is so much projection here I'm not even sure where to start. Lets say I'm working with retail worker who has been trained to be as difficult as possible to stop my RMA attempt for something I bought that was broken. I can see things from her point of view and understand her paycheck comes from her financial masters who want her to deny my RMA, but tha…

It's possible to be assertive and insistent and yet still be polite and calm about it. The cynic in me would label this as "fuck you said with a smile", but the pragmatist in me notes that "fuck you" really does get a very different reaction from people when said with a smile.

Think of communication as having two layers, an emotional one and a factual one. In your car example, the factual layer remains the same, "You are going to fix my car." But you can either combine that with an emotional layer of "And I am fucking pissed off with you right now because you fucking don't do your job, you useless twit", or you could layer it with "I understand that your job is difficult and you're doing the best you can, I don't want to make things difficult for you, but the contract clearly says that the car is under warranty, the car is clearly broken, and I'm not leaving until it's fixed."

Re: Be Kind

#378

Post by ticviking » Wed, May 13, 2015, 6:03 PM UTC

jorgearturo wrote: post #257

ffn wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, totally this. Moreover, I'd like to add anonymously down-voting / reporting someone's opinion just because it's not yours is just as mean-spirited as calling someone names. Every internet message board has its own culture with its own take on what's "right" and what's "wrong", and on HN (and reddit) the institutionally accepted way of being mean is misusing the downvoting / flagkilling system to attempt to bleep…

You might be right. Even when in many cases you can immediately tell downvotes were necessary, deserved and the commenter should've seen it coming. I've also encountered many cases that confused me a bit and at the time didn't quite understand why those people/commenters were being downvoted. So I've spent a long time just reading HN without commenting, trying to first understand the culture, the news are just as imp…

> In the end, you'll find it more useful to acquire a thick skin and a "deal with it" attitude towards gratuitous negativity (down-voters included), but not an impermeable shell because sometimes there's some useful criticism behind rude negativity, just don't take it personal and master the art of spinning the conversation towards a constructive direction.

This is the most important lesson I was never formally taught about discourse. If you can mange to be Kind & Thick-skinned you will be capable of communicating with a far wider group of people than those who are missing one component of that pair.

Re: Be Kind

#379

Post by gedrap » Wed, May 13, 2015, 6:40 PM UTC

zipppy wrote: post #374

ffn wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, totally this. Moreover, I'd like to add anonymously down-voting / reporting someone's opinion just because it's not yours is just as mean-spirited as calling someone names. Every internet message board has its own culture with its own take on what's "right" and what's "wrong", and on HN (and reddit) the institutionally accepted way of being mean is misusing the downvoting / flagkilling system to attempt to bleep…

Could HN benefit from a dual-voting system? One for 'agree'/'disagree', and the other for 'constructive'/'non-constructive'?

It's a bit like when you have a survey and you have 5 or 6 options ranging from 'hate it' and 'love it'.

The difference is often very small and just adds not really necessary options which makes making a choice harder.

How about checking if a user downvoted more than e.g. average number of comments on some post, resulting in his downvotes carrying very little weight if it is true. Unless it's being done already.

Re: Be Kind

#380

Post by weaksauce » Wed, May 13, 2015, 6:52 PM UTC

jorgearturo wrote: post #309

weaksauce wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you 100%. They waste time and energy in a toxic way. Do you or anyone else on here have any ideas on how to fix it?

I've found that the most healthy way to deal with people that dismiss your entire argument/point/opinion by nit-picking your grammar (or similar) is to dismiss them back, kindly. The kindly part is so important; their attitude shows that they don't have an open mind at the moment; dismissing kindly leaves a moral door open so that in the infrequent (but not rare) event that they'll have an open mind later in the day…

Those are all great points and I try to follow them myself when interacting online. I was actually looking for some kind of way to stop it from an algorithmic standpoint or some other fashion. Mainly because I don't like reading and wasting time on some minor nitpicks.