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Apology

felleisen.org

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Re: Apology

#191

Post by soco »

WalterBright wrote: post #178
slibhb wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really thoughtful comment, especially considering your personal experience. There's a hard problem here: what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? I don't know, but exiling them seems like a shame. Training them to play nice may not be possible. A reasonable option may be recognizing that some talented people are "difficult" and providing students with a pa…

> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense. > makes students cry There's no crying in baseball. If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. S…

I notice there's still that fairly common trend in blaming the victim. They could have dodged the bullet, right? Well, I'm happy the society starts to point the abusers out - to their dismay and ironically also victimization.

Re: Apology

#193

Post by tluyben2 »

aidenn0 wrote: post #183
WalterBright wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense. > makes students cry There's no crying in baseball. If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. S…

There is an incompatibility here between the set of people who act like Felleisen and the set of people who react like Butterick. There is inevitably a message from the community to one side of "change or leave." Whether explicit from action or implicit from inaction. There is both a pragmatic and a moral side to the decission. From the pragmatic point of view, a brilliant asshole might be worth more than the sum of…

I used to think very much like WalterBright as I never took offense (was raised to just listen to what people try to say, not how they say it) (and if someone goes physical (some people, when they cannot hurt you with words, start shoving you etc) I punch them in the face).

But that way, usually, the bully just moves to someone else and, even though I am untouched, the person did not change. So now that I am older, I think both sides need to work on this issue: the abuser needs therapy and the victim needs to grow a backbone and thicker skin. It is very sad, but people who start crying from verbal abuse will always be victims: in school and in companies. Bullies sniff them out intuitively. If only to have a better life, I would recommend getting less sensitive through whatever means possible. But out the bully too: they need help or get fired imho.

Re: Apology

#194

Post by dTal »

WalterBright wrote: post #178
slibhb wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really thoughtful comment, especially considering your personal experience. There's a hard problem here: what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? I don't know, but exiling them seems like a shame. Training them to play nice may not be possible. A reasonable option may be recognizing that some talented people are "difficult" and providing students with a pa…

> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense. > makes students cry There's no crying in baseball. If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. S…

What's the point of this comment? That crying is wimpy and that it's fine to abuse multiple young adults to the point of tears because it's their fault for "taking offense"?

We are not talking about whether tears are a sensible and productive response. We are talking about whether it is reasonable to tolerate someone who consistently provokes them. Perhaps both sides need to take some responsibility, but redirecting the conversation like that seems to me to be making excuses for bad behavior.

Re: Apology

#195

Post by sdenton4 »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #171
throw3456548 wrote: post #129

Huh. It's interesting to see this come out now. Years ago I was planning on entering a PL PhD program until I met Felleisen. He yelled at me, insulted me, and I left nearly crying. That was the last straw that led to me leave academia, and I never came back. A young woman I know switched out of her computer science major after taking his class and said she still had nightmares about him. Another person I know worked…

> Academia used to be a place for misfits who don't understand social conventions. When and where was that?

somewhere between richard stallman's office mattress and jeffery epstein's wallet, perhaps.

Re: Apology

#196

Post by WalterBright »

dTal wrote: post #194
WalterBright wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense. > makes students cry There's no crying in baseball. If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. S…

What's the point of this comment? That crying is wimpy and that it's fine to abuse multiple young adults to the point of tears because it's their fault for "taking offense"? We are not talking about whether tears are a sensible and productive response. We are talking about whether it is reasonable to tolerate someone who consistently provokes them. Perhaps both sides need to take some responsibility, but redirecting…

1. Don't allow other people to control your feelings.

2. Be forgiving of people who do not mean offense, but are simply inept at the social graces. It's not that hard. You get to choose whether to be offended or not. Choose the not.

BTW, sometimes I listen to celebrities when they deal with hecklers trying to get under their skin. It's fun to watch how they parry the verbal knives. I recall Prince Phillip once being interviewed by "60 Minutes". The reporter really tried to get under his skin. Prince Phillip effortlessly and deftly turned the dagger away each time. He's evidently had a lot of practice :-)

Howard Stern was fun to watch, too. He knew how to get the goat from his interviewees. Except Paul McCartney. McCartney was a master at this game. Watching those two verbally duel was great sport. McCartney got the better of it!

> making excuses for bad behavior

Not at all. I've had to ban people a couple times from the D forums for unprofessional behavior. Not because they made me feel bad, but because I have no interest in running a sewer. We've been fortunate that it's only been a couple, and usually a private word can set things straight.

Re: Apology

#197

Post by encryptluks2 »

shkkmo wrote: post #98
encryptluks2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And people will one day walk all over you because they'll be like... All I gotta do is say he made me feel bad and I can get whatever I want from him.

Empathy != Weakness Empathy != Stupidity Empathy != Gullibility

If you've ever been to a woman's shelter, most of the women stayed in abusive relationships because they were made to feel guilty like they were somehow responsible for someone else actions and feelings. Unless there is validity to the claims, which the blog author provided no actual evidence, then I see no need to apologize or feel guilt just because someone else felt a particular way.

Re: Apology

#198

Post by dTal »

WalterBright wrote: post #196
dTal wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of this comment? That crying is wimpy and that it's fine to abuse multiple young adults to the point of tears because it's their fault for "taking offense"? We are not talking about whether tears are a sensible and productive response. We are talking about whether it is reasonable to tolerate someone who consistently provokes them. Perhaps both sides need to take some responsibility, but redirecting…

1. Don't allow other people to control your feelings. 2. Be forgiving of people who do not mean offense, but are simply inept at the social graces. It's not that hard. You get to choose whether to be offended or not. Choose the not. BTW, sometimes I listen to celebrities when they deal with hecklers trying to get under their skin. It's fun to watch how they parry the verbal knives. I recall Prince Phillip once being…

That's all well and good but you're still directing your comments at the students. When there's multiple students all complaining about a single person, that's misdirected. Apply some systems thinking here.

Re: Apology

#199

Post by yenwel »

abz10 wrote: post #133

I wonder how much of personality is genetic and largely out of the control of the person. I know mine is. I have two separate anxiety mutations - basically high functioning autism. I often find myself accidentally offending people. I preemptively cancelled myself as a precaution long ago. It seems society has decided that some traits are innate and deserving of understanding and others are not.

Well autism is sometimes labelled as individuals that are less "self-domesticated". Animals can be domesticated by humans and breeded to be tamer. Tame animals are more sociable towards humans, also have lower intelligenc and brain capacity since alot of their needs are met by the domesticator I guess. See the difference between cats/wild cats, dogs and wolves or foxes and domesticated foxes. Self domestication is the concept that we as humans have domesticated ourselves. At one end of the spectrum you have individuals that are less domesticated and fit in less with society (autistic people or psychopaths: generally lacking some sort of empathy (respectively cognitive and affective because there is a difference). On the other end of the spectrum you have Prader Willi and Angelman which are very tame and sociable but with lower cognitive abilities. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-imprinted-brain/...

Re: Apology

#200

Post by Kina »

asimeqi wrote: post #154

Felleisen is incredibly passionate about programming. He has strong opinions and will tell you about them. I graduated from NEU many years ago. He was not my professor and I doubt he ever knew my name. I happened to listen to a general talk he was once giving when he suddenly launched into a tangent about how much better Scheme's call/cc was than C's setjmp()/longjmp(). I completely agreed but thought that he was bea…

> 3 days later he accosted me in a different building and berated me for thinking setjmp()/longjmp() was better! I never got the chance to explain myself but I really think it doesn't matter.

I think this is sorta emblematic of the problem. People respond to the same stimuli differently, for some people, this would completely ruin their day and leave them terrified.

I want to believe that folks like Felleisen don't think they're being malicious, but they fail to empathize with others and are sometimes oblivious to the power dynamics. Over time they get used to not being called out for their behavior because people start to facilitate it for a variety of reasons. Felleisen's opinion carries weight far more than some random student. A disparaging word, even in passing, could break someone's career. Certainly people should learn to grow a bit of a thick skin, but there are many people like this comment [1] where Felleisen has crossed a line and is just clearly abusive. I can't imagine having an experience like that, then think about the fact that he might be on the committee reviewing your dissertation.

I tip my hat to you that you are able to walk off such things, but not everyone can do so and failure to empathize with that reality is a major problem in society. Nobody should be babied, but nobody should be needlessly berated.

> He is pretty direct and obviously gets results.

I really dislike this train of thought. I've heard it before and not once have I seen it as a truism. It is excessively simplistic; never mind how the sausage is made, as long as the sausage tastes good? Universities expect professors to generate grants. If you burn out 5-10 grad students a year, but you keep the money flowing in, the university will not really question it, but there are 5-10 promising careers that have been destroyed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27546538

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