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You can't tell people anything (2004)

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Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#181

Post by hilbert42 »

krisoft wrote: post #150
hilbert42 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying again is often not an option. For instance, comments on HN are often only 'alive' for hours, by the next day the story is usually dead. Whilst I used myself as a example I'm not really concerned about my own communication skills to the extent that I worry about them. I know I'm a reasonable or adequate communicator, it's just that I'm not an excellent one. Also I'll often just comment to straighten out my thou…

> Trying again is often not an option. Life is an iterative game. You fail one day, you pick yourself up and try again the next one. The very act of trying makes you better at it. (For example by having a better internal model of what other people might think of a given text.) > I know I'm a reasonable or adequate communicator, it's just that I'm not an excellent one. For whatever it is worth I find what you write pe…

"Oh i see! Controversial subjects be controversial. I don't think aiming for "non-controversialness" is a worthy goal in itself."

First, thank you for your reply.

See, your comment clearly shows that there was a significant communications failure on my part because I failed to get my message across with accuracy. In fact, my failure was so bad that it deserves to be awarded close to 0/10 because you interpreted the opposite meaning to my intent.

As an old phil. student I make a clear distinction between formal argument as found in say Book I of Plato's Republic and that which now goes for general debate on say HN or Twitter. My point had nothing to do with being non-controvertial, in fact formal argument is usually just the opposite, subjects are often very controversial indeed.

Both Russell and Taylor would never have let an error of misjudging their audience to that extent slip through, they would have prefaced their discussions with explanations to avoid confusion. Here, I failed to do that by assuming that everyone was on my 'wavelength' and had the same understandings (definitions) as I have.

"I'm not familiar with the names you mention, but I will check them out. Thank you for the recommendation."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ihaB8AFOhZo

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._P._Taylor

Part 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vnkZ4o7C-DE

Part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rnxI8YMD9BY

There's also part 3 and many more like them if you wish.

"I still think we have spellbinding orators who discuss current public issues. I would count Adam Conover or Jordan Peterson as such for example."

No doubt there are but they aren't as widely known nor as well respected by friend and foe alike as those who've I've mentioned. They were intellectual superstars before intellectual became a dirty word, they were known to everyone as well as we know the name 'Einstein' today.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#182

Post by ivanbakel »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #175
ivanbakel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - as I said, you can see the results in the actions of the other party. But those are all techniques beyond communication: none of them allow you to verify, in the moment, whether or not the other person has "understood" you in the sense of agreeing with what you have to say. The idea of verifying after communicating is in line with the original article, and the comment by outworlder. What do you think they f…

> But those are all techniques beyond communication: none of them allow you to verify, in the moment, whether or not the other person has "understood" you in the sense of agreeing with what you have to say. Huh? To clarify, in my example of the veteran car mechanic assessing someone's proficiency, there's no set-up required, they can verify it 'in the moment'. No special or unusual tools or environmental conditions a…

>To clarify, in my example of the veteran car mechanic assessing someone's proficiency, there's no set-up required, they can verify it 'in the moment'. > >No special or unusual tools or environmental conditions are needed to conduct verification.

Well at least some environmental conditions are required: if you ask someone to change an oil filter, there has to be a car in the environment to do it on. To get any value of out of it, you also have to be able to oversee the process - it's no use if you're instructing someone over the phone, for example.

More generally, I think the point of the original post, and the original comment, are that verifying that something was communicated successfully requires out-of-band actions. Physically demonstrating something, or watching someone demonstrate something, are both out-of-band: neither work over all communication channels, like user manuals, or phone calls.

Even in-person communication is often restricted to make verification difficult: imagine if you're in a water-cooler meeting with another developer, and you mention that you think they should take a different approach to a certain problem. Are you going to follow them back to their desk to verify that they really choose to do so? Probably not: it's both incredibly rude, and a bad use of your own time. But there is nothing in the water-cooler conversation that you can really do to check that they'll take your advice.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#183

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

This reminds me of Steve Jobs saying that people don't know what they want until you give it to them. To me, sometimes, it sounds a bit arrogant but definitely true in my experience. I would never have seen the value in an expensive fragile small-computer with a tiny screen that you have to squint to see until I actually used one.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#184

Post by einpoklum »

koyote wrote: post #63
zsz wrote: post #51

> I’m totally convinced that a new idea or a new plan or a new technique is never really understood when you just explain it. > People will often think they understand, and they’ll say they understand, but then their actions show that it just ain’t so. Isn't this the very reason that homework assignments exist? When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead o…

> When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead of Bs and Cs) in my various math classes, physics, chemistry, etc. had I simply bothered to do my homework properly--or, to put it differently, had I only properly applied the knowledge which I passively acquired by reading the associated textbook sections. I took this realisation to the extreme and decided to…

From my experience both as a student and as a teacher (formal and informal settings; the formal ones in academia): Different people respond differently to different modes of teaching / exposure to information.

* Some only "get it" when it's explained to them in a classroom, preferably by an engaging teacher; while others have to read it in the book.

* Many, perhaps most, won't really get it unless they do the homework; but others can do all of the exercises you give them, and still fail to get the bigger picture, and will be lost if faced with something slightly different than what they exercised.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#185

Post by charles_f »

One thing I hate about the delete button is that it is a standard thing. Quite literally every application has a delete button, it's asking you to confirm, and poof its gone. Designers going out of their way to reinvent things in a way that people don't expect are adding things in the way of usability. Cuteness shouldn't be at the expense of ease of use

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#186

Post by nice2meetu »

SillyUsername wrote: post #179
nice2meetu wrote: post #112

I like to think of the bike problem. Sit down and draw a picture of a bike from memory in as much detail as you can in 2 minutes. Easy right? But it is surprisingly hard.

Assuming side on... T--/- O|-/O I tend to think in abstractions so to me it's a triangle (frame), 2 circles (wheels), a T shape (seat), an inverted L (handlebars), a letter 8/infinity (bike chain)... Maybe I'm just weird :)

Maybe Ascii art simplified things :-). I think what tends to trip people up are things like - Where do the pedals actually live in relation to the rest of the frame? How/where does the seat attach? The front wheel? Most people know there is kind of an angled bar on the frame, but where does it go exactly?

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#187

Post by hilbert42 »

bsenftner wrote: post #147
hilbert42 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying again is often not an option. For instance, comments on HN are often only 'alive' for hours, by the next day the story is usually dead. Whilst I used myself as a example I'm not really concerned about my own communication skills to the extent that I worry about them. I know I'm a reasonable or adequate communicator, it's just that I'm not an excellent one. Also I'll often just comment to straighten out my thou…

The quest for an understanding of the need for good communication skills in developers, as well as everyone else, has become my personal vocation. I've been working in tech for four decades, and my vantage sees weak and poor communications as the underlying factor of all this chaos, this absurd reliance on extreme tooling, the overly complicated tech stacks, and the industry failure of resorting to "leet testing" to…

Oh how I agree with your first paragraph. And there's nothing like experience and hindsight to provide such wisdom.

This is subject I could discuss for days but I've spent too much time here already. Perhaps you could read my last reply to krisoft, it's perhaps a bit tangential but it enlarges on my earlier comment.

Thanks for your post.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#188

Post by hilbert42 »

cxr wrote: post #157
hilbert42 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...you have to put in the work to be understood and to show people it's worth their time to pay attention. Communicating well is part of the job." That's fine and I don't disagree but the problem is that there are very few truly good communicators out there (there is just not enough to go around). Communication is difficult and really effective communication is very difficult. I'll use myself as an example, When I p…

> few bother to read them How do you know?

Simple, either the thread goes dead or if it's still active and no one posts a comment in reply then one's pretty certain that it's been ignored.

And I've noticed the longer my comments the fewer replies they receive.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#189

Post by mortify »

Taking this to the logical extreme are things that can only be experienced. E.g. I can read about oysters, but I will never be able to understand what an oyster tastes like until I eat one... until I experience it.

When communicating, the more the topic involves an experience the harder it is to communicate. We use metaphor, simile, and analogies to help people relate it to something with which they are familiar, but it fails for many reasons. When building a prototype for a new camera system, we began with a physical mock up which was cut from wood and painted. The client's first comment was that is was garbage because no one would take a wooden camera seriously. Even after an hour-long presentation, his final comment was "This all sounds great, but it absolutely cannot be made out of wood." Some people have terribly abstraction skills, and there's simply no getting through to them until they see the final product. They need the experience to understand.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#190

Post by cxr »

hilbert42 wrote: post #188
cxr wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> few bother to read them How do you know?

Simple, either the thread goes dead or if it's still active and no one posts a comment in reply then one's pretty certain that it's been ignored. And I've noticed the longer my comments the fewer replies they receive.

That's not the same thing.
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