131–140 of 282 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let‘s go and start gaslighting everyone
" Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In teaching, teaching the wrong thing is not merely suboptimal but actively evil. So therefore while it is best to be both right and helpful, if one must give way, then helpfulness must give way. Otherwise you are just being successful at being evil.
In comforting someone in a time of crisis, say, then obviously truth can sometimes give way (but that's not always the solution!). But one can try to organize one's life so that opportunities for teaching (say) come far more often, and then the super-rational approach can be beneficial.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 rat…
If you decide this dude isn't gunnuh make it and start cutting him off projects rather than getting him more support, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. And it's pretty messed up to trash him that way.
If I'm being perfectly frank, this doesn't so much sound like a case where brutal honesty saved a project than a case where you lacked the tact and emotional intelligence to navigate a delicate situation (or perhaps were frazzled by a complex project with deadlines where you felt your colleague wasn't carrying their weight), and so you just took a sledge hammer to it.
That's such a brutal way to treat a colleague, it must have been devastating for their moral. Like, what was your relationship to this person like after that? Did they stay on? Were your team lead and manager really okay with how you handled that?
Whenever you say something that a reasonable recipient would find upsetting, it means you've failed, in the same way that when you have to add an explanatory note to a translation, or a comment to your code, that's a failure. But it's still often the least bad way forward.
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I don't think I disagree with point #1. What you're describing is just not stating the truth. I'm sure "you can't handle the truth" is wheeled out in all kinds of situations where the person saying it is the one who's wrong. I'm refuting the narrower argument that is sometimes made that just because something is true, it doesn't give you the right to say it. In regards to point #2, I agree that if I deliver the truth…
No. They can also be upset because you are bringing up negative things that make them sad/annoyed to think about, to which there is absolutely no benefit in thinking about. Like spending a wedding reception saying to everyone "there are people starving to death right now". Is that true? Yes. Are people upset by that knowledge? Yes. Are they, completely separately, pissed off at you for being an asshole that decided e…
Am I crazy? I feel like what I'm describing is a near universal phenomenon and everyone knows what I'm referring to/has experienced this. I'm talking about how in general, people just don't like people who are "right all the time." People don't like criticism delivered bluntly even when it's correct, relevant and actionable. People don't want to hear things with implications that go against their moral values, or suggest that something they spent lots of time on was wasted, or reflect badly on themselves. There's that famous quote about how people don't want to hear things when their paycheck depends on them not hearing it. They don't like hearing those things even when they are true and directly related to them. I don't like hearing those things. I'm talking about those cases.
Honestly, people do not entertain useful fictions anymore. It's increasingly difficult to posit an idea without tripping over social landmines. Outside of speciality areas anyway.
Communicating meaning has never been harder, in normal life.
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…
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…
The change I’ve made is from wanting others to be wrong to wanting myself to be right.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 rat…
If full test coverage mattered to you so much, I'd expect at least a part of this anecdote to include some discussion of how it would be handled in light of prior concerns about test coverage up to that point. If I’d been in a leadership role in this scenario I’d probably postpone whatever next thing was on my daily agenda to sit down with you and convey that waiting months to raise known problems is exactly what I expect you not to do. I would indicate that it’s actively harmful to the success of whatever everyone is working on and to everyone working on it, and since you seem to appreciate bluntness I’d add that I expect it not to happen again.