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Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

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Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#111

Post by falcolas »

My 2¢:

Don't tell someone they're wrong. You'll never convince them, even when you're right. It's not worth the ink (or the blood pressure).

Instead, guide them towards the path to figuring out for themselves that they're wrong. Build a foundation of truths and facts they can evaluate their own beliefs against. If they change their mind, great. If they don't learn, you're no worse off than you were before (and your blood pressure will remain lower).

Studies have shown that trying to convince people they're wrong with facts and/or truths will instead cement them in their beliefs harder than if you did nothing.

This was a hard learned lesson for me, and I still suck at it sometimes. Because, let's face it, arguing is a time honored form of entertainment.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#112

Post by maxbond »

yarg wrote: post #101
maxbond wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this a bit perplexing. What value is there in telling people they aren't beautiful or smart? What objective sense of beauty and smartness are you trying to hold them to? I can understand being bothered by things that are overly saccharine, I just don't understand the value proposition in providing a "counterpoint" or trying to check this in some way.

Because leading people to believe untrue things about themselves leads to horrific and often untimely realisations and disappointment later in life? Or maybe I'm just a cunt.

Well, I'm not interested in labeling you a cunt, but I think I see where the remark is coming from, and I know what it's like to say something on the internet and now there's just a firehouse of criticism with a lot of it not being in great faith, and I can sympathize with that.

I don't know how reflective the examples you gave are of things you actually say to people, but if you think you know that someone is objectively beautiful or smart and that you telling them that is some kind of bandaid to rip off for them - that is something to reflect on, these are textbook examples of socially constructed ideas. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. You're smart or beautiful when your community regards you that way, it's the consensus of tastemakers. It's nature as consensus can make it feel "real" or objective, but these are vague squishy concepts that change across time and across cultures. Even within a culture there's a huge diversity of preferences.

So some communities might prefer technical skills and call people smart when they're great programmers, some might value media criticism, it's not set in stone. Same goes for beauty, but I'd wager there's even less consensus there.

With that in mind, telling someone you don't find them beautiful is just placing a burden on them. It's telling them about how they fail to measure up to some measure in your mind, but the only outcome here is that either don't care or it bums them out. If you don't find them beautiful - that's a property of your eyes, not them, and you're entitled to feel that way but it's something to keep to yourself.

The thing you said in another comment about people being invariable reminded me of a comment I made recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35318596

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#113

Post by epgui »

akvadrako wrote: post #92
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is the search for consensus about predictions. It says nothing of truth.

Science has nothing to do with consensus – it's the belief in the ignorance of experts.

1. Science absolutely has something to do with consensus, as a practical matter. Because humans are agents of "bounded rationality", and humans do the science. We have to defer to expertise not because it's the "spiritually ideal" thing to do or whatever, but because we have no choice.

2. Science is not about belief in the ignorance of experts-- on the contrary, expertise in science is all about having the skills and the knowledge to characterize and quantify uncertainty.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#114

Post by [deleted] »

wongarsu wrote: post #44
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is the search for consensus about predictions. It says nothing of truth.

That's what happens in practice, but the idealized version of science (like if you properly apply the scientific method in your backyard with no outside influence) is an iterative process for getting closer to the truth. Or maybe closer to an accurate model of reality, since "truth" is a bit of a weird concept. Of course the end point ("truth") may be unreachable, and often we get stuck in local maxima until someone…

[deleted]

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#115

Post by yarg »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #99
yarg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why would you bother giving input when you don't care if or how it is received? Stream of consciousness oversharing isn't required for honesty. You don't have to say everything that comes into your head. Practice giving less of a fuck about everyone else and not evaluating them and telling them how great you are (which is what you achieve when you criticize someone for no reason).

> Why would you bother giving input when you don't care if or how it is received?

Because the point of the statement is in the consequences that result, not the emotional response elicited?

Here's an example, I once worked with an absolutely useless tester, the only tester on my team.

Hadn't picked up by month four on the sort of basic shit he should've had on day one.

And he never did.

I'd been implementing some rather complex features for the technical lead of one of the other teams, and the changes were almost ready to be built.

We had a meeting, with the team lead, my manager, the tester, and I told the team lead that he'd need to test the changes once they were in place.

"[The tester] will do that."

"No he won't, he's not good enough."

Full test coverage mattered more to me than some dude's feelings.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#116

Post by eyelidlessness »

yarg wrote: post #22
geraneum wrote: post #4

This reminds me of: “People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.” Richard J. Needham

I think that there's the need to a counterpoint to the world that says "you're beautiful, you're smart, you're perfect just the way you are.". A lot of the time the modern world tells us that feelings are more important than objective reality. It's bullshit.

A phrase I grew up with, and a lesson I’ve had to learn and relearn many times over, is “you can be right until you’re blue in the face […]” The implied part, when it wasn’t explicit, was that being right doesn’t accomplish much if it involves being insufferable.

Objectively, if you’re hoping to persuade your audience by being an absolutely correct jerk, you’ll succeed. But only by eliminating your audience and having no one to persuade but yourself.

You don’t have to coddle people to treat them respectfully. And if you think you do, I invite you to consider that maybe you have more to learn on the topic.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#117

Post by [deleted] »

remkop22 wrote: post #105
brhsagain wrote: post #43

I'd argue that telling someone the truth does absolve you of responsibility, because if the truth upsets someone, what they're actually upset about is the reality of the universe. Or if it's a truth about them, then the reality about themselves. The truth-teller is just the messenger. Each person is responsible for how they deal with reality, including the parts they don't like. I get what the article is saying. Give…

It's not just about upsetting the other person, it's more about the end goal. If the end goal is to express superior knowledge, do strike down your hammer of truth. But if the end goal is to enlighten the people around you, and let them enlighten you, then it matters how you package your truth. Sadly it's seems to be human nature that if you tell someone that their perspective of the universe is wrong and don't give…

[deleted]

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#118

Post by dang »

19h wrote: post #38

This article reeks of weak sauce. Delivering truth in a "sensitive" manner is a sad testament to the frail sensibilities of modern society. If the unvarnished truth bothers you, that says more about your inadequacies than the person speaking it. Hiding behind convoluted psychological constructs like "hyper-rationality" and "super-reasonability" is a coward's way to avoid hard truths and difficult conversations. The t…

It seems to me that each paragraph of your post agrees more with the OP, until by the end you're basically in full agreement. No?

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#119

Post by TheRealPomax »

wongarsu wrote: post #44
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is the search for consensus about predictions. It says nothing of truth.

That's what happens in practice, but the idealized version of science (like if you properly apply the scientific method in your backyard with no outside influence) is an iterative process for getting closer to the truth. Or maybe closer to an accurate model of reality, since "truth" is a bit of a weird concept. Of course the end point ("truth") may be unreachable, and often we get stuck in local maxima until someone…

It's... not? It's an iterative process to come to a deeper and more complete understanding of any subject, with the quality of the result being measured by how well predictions based on that understanding correspond to observation.

Science does not concern itself with "truth", it leaves that to the philosophers. Instead, it concerns itself with finding models and the (often vast) set(s) of preconditions that must hold before those models can be said to apply.

In fact, many branches of science know that they can't decide on truth, simply because of fundamental limits in what can be done by science, illustrated by things like Godel's incompleteness theorems, astrological event horizons, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, etc. etc. etc. It's not that we don't know whether we can find truth, it's that we know that we can't, and that reality is what science works within.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#120

Post by eeeoio »

falcolas wrote: post #111

My 2¢: Don't tell someone they're wrong. You'll never convince them, even when you're right. It's not worth the ink (or the blood pressure). Instead, guide them towards the path to figuring out for themselves that they're wrong. Build a foundation of truths and facts they can evaluate their own beliefs against. If they change their mind, great. If they don't learn, you're no worse off than you were before (and your b…

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