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Be Kind

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Re: Be Kind

#121

Post by ffn »

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 out someone else's opinion because you disagree with it and labeled it as "toxic" from your perspective.

I mean, it's one thing to downvote someone because of spam or noise (e.g. one line posts of "lolwtf" or "this is dumb"), but every time I scroll through the comments and see discussion chains of folks arguing some valid points (about say referrals and paywalls or the ever controversial issue of sexism) under a flagkilled or completely invisible down-voted-to-hell post, I think to myself "this shouldn't be how our community operates."

Re: Be Kind

#122

Post by fideloper »

IDK, maybe I'm forgetting what it's like to be earlier in a dev career (I'm 30), but how much I see "this resonates me" more than "duh" is a bit scary.

I suppose we're all on a scale of ability to be empathetic (and can learn be more emphatic), but who goes into a job with this attitude?

Cheers for learning! I just wish all of our upbringings could bring us this lesson earlier in life. Because...it should. You graduated Harvard, and got a job where you acted like you knew everything. I suppose that's typical of college grads everywhere though, I'm not trying to be too harsh.

Re: Be Kind

#123

Post by eclipxe »

vijayr wrote: post #86
eclipxe wrote: post #14

The best manager I ever had (and continues to be my inspiration today) was also one of the kindest, genuine, and empowering people I've ever met. Not necessarily nice, but kind. The worst manager I ever had once told me "you're too kind to your team". He wore his ability to bring fear to a room like a badge of honor. I never worked harder and more passionately than under the first and I never felt more apathetic and…

Not disagreeing with you, but there are also leaders like Jobs, Gates, Ellison etc. How come they are able to get amazing results, while being really nasty to their people?

Outliers, lucky, Right place, right time.

The problem is with the people that try to emulate leaders like that - they try to play Steve Jobs in meetings and end up causing all of the damage without any of the greatness.

Re: Be Kind

#124

Post by gnaritas »

Zelphyr wrote: post #107
cjdrake wrote: post #38

Several well-known people in tech are notorious jerks. So I don't think being kind is a necessary condition for career success (though it can't hurt). But I suspect it's necessary to have a happy life.

Imagine what they could achieve if they were kinder to people.

Or what they couldn't if they were. Sometimes being an asshole contributes to success rather than stymies it, see Linus and Linux.

Re: Be Kind

#125

Post by dang »

solve wrote: post #68
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…

> Being kind is fundamentally about taking responsibility for your impact on the people around you. Totally agree, especially in regard to when people share their projects on HN. The HN community moderation always seemed to be based on a very superficial rules - don't swear, don't mention banned keywords X Y or Z. Never have they seemed to seriously consider the impact that words have on other people, instead of just…

> The HN community moderation always seemed to be based on a very superficial rules - don't swear, don't mention banned keywords X Y or Z. Never have they seemed to seriously consider the impact that words have on other people

Of course there's no rule against swearing.

This whole description is so remote from everything we try to do that I'm at a loss to know what else to say.

Re: Be Kind

#126

Post by georgemcbay »

gnaritas wrote: post #94
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…

I feel the same as you, but I'm come to realize most people have a deep seated need to be win friends even at the cost of being right. Your response, like my own, is very Aspie.

I fit into that "aspie" category as well which likely manifested itself in ways similar to you and the person you are responding to earlier in my life.

Now at 41 I'm probably indistinguishable in action from the group you've categorized as having a "deep seated need to win friends" not because I do actually have such a need, but because I realized my need to be vocally, publicly "right" was mostly a manifestation of a core lack of confidence, something which has since been mostly alleviated. Also, in retrospect, I was actually wrong about a lot of things I was sure I was right about because I was intelligent but not wise and the two are often divergent.

Re: Be Kind

#127

Post by tanderson92 »

6502nerdface wrote: post #99
vijayr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very evident in the styles people do interviews. For example, Bill O'Reilly is loud, calls names etc when his guests disagree with him - to the point that some of his conversations end up being loud shouting matches and the only thing left to do (as a viewer) is to turn it off. Jon Stewart on the other hand - he disagrees with his guests in a kind, calm and funny manner - it is interesting to watch him and hi…

Unfortunately some claim [1] that if Jon Stewart really disagrees with you, he has no qualms against using editing tricks and false pretenses to make you look foolish and stupid. [1] http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-23/don-t-ever-...

That's very interesting (and I will never go on the daily show now if I disagree with them), but I am not sure that it applies here. The parent was discussing the interviews that Jon Stewart performs himself in the interview part of the show. Often when there is a serious ideological difference there they publish a long-form interview(20 minutes) which is clearly the whole interview.

The piece you link to seems to be more about the field pieces which are not what was being discussed, and not what the parent was comparing O'Reilly's interviews to.

Re: Be Kind

#128

Post by PhasmaFelis »

buckbova wrote: post #12

I'm definitely more patient than I was a decade ago, but I still have little use for useless people. I don't feel like I have to be kind to those who aren't motivated to contribute and do thoughtful work.

Have you considered the possibility that some of your people are unmotivated because you act like a jerk to them, and you're perpetuating the problem?

If you'll forgive me quoting my own post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9117035): A couple of jobs back, I met with a supervisor to proudly tell him that a gigantic, exhausting project I'd been working on for the last nine months was finally ready to deploy. His response, almost verbatim, was "Cool. Here's what I need you to do next..." I found it nearly impossible to care about what he wanted for the rest of my time there. 60 seconds' worth of interest and congratulations would have gotten dozens of hours of extra productivity out of me.

Re: Be Kind

#129

Post by howlingfantods »

gnaritas wrote: post #103
ericabiz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "People at work, retail staff, etc should be prepared to not have their emotions constantly validated and deal with disagreement and other things that are unpleasant." The addition of "retail staff" here surprised me. I'm a techie who took a break from tech and startups the past few months to help out my S.O., who owns a retail store. I worked the front counter, ran inventory, etc. for the past 3 months. I had neve…

Not the OP, and cool story; however, what they're paid doesn't matter, it's a red herring. It's their JOB to deal with people and and it's not my job as a shopper to validate the emotions of the counter worker or my co-workers. Ring up my stuff, take my money, and let me leave. You're chastising him for his "attitude"; what attitude? He's correct and he didn't display any attitude other than simple honesty.

It's not your job to care about the emotions or inner world of anyone around you. But you'll find that life works much better if you do.

Re: Be Kind

#130

Post by beachstartup »

fsk wrote: post #93

I had a completely different interpretation of the incident at Facebook. He had developed some key features that were now important. Instead of mentoring him to work better with others, his boss demoted him. The boss was giving someone else a favor, making them the lead of this now-important project, some up-and-coming hotshot. He made up an excuse about "bad attitude", while just using it as cover for backstabbing h…

> The boss was giving someone else a favor, making them the lead of this now-important project, some up-and-coming hotshot. He made up an excuse about "bad attitude", while just using it as cover for backstabbing him.

so, basically someone who was competent and agreeable was favored by his boss to get a promotion, and the person who acted like a know-it-all dickhead 24/7 got sent to the basement.

that's a real shocker.

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