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Apology

felleisen.org

211–220 of 282 posts

Re: Apology

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it. It's an issue of power. If they didn't have power, nobody would say that. If a student behaved that way toward Felleisen, certainly nobody would say that to Felleisen. Power corrupts.

Or it reveals?

I believe it rather corrupts.

I believe most people go to politics with genuine intentions to make things better. Then they face a situation in which they either have to sacrifice their ethics and win, or keep their ethics and lose. Guess which ones eventually prevail.

I'm from a post-communist country, and I've seen many former dissidents, who clearly had stellar ethics (often they were made to suffer for publicly opposing communism), who got into power after the revolution and their behaviour became more and more ethically questionable over time.

Re: Apology

#212
post #190

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…

> I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it. Perhaps, but usually bullies are only bullies when they are in a position of power and are perfectly capable of behaving different to people who have power over them. How often to you hear about employees calling their boss and screaming at the boss at 3 in the morning? Strangely this rarely happens. > What if not und…

I know a lot of people like that.

I'm from a culture which is perceived as abrasive, harsh, critical, and aggressive in the US. That goes up, down, and sideways. We're often perceived as bullies until we learn to code-switch.

African Americans get a pass here, since most people are familiar enough with African American culture and mannerisms to know how (or at least that) people use language differently, body language differently, and raised tones mean different things. Immigrants don't get that pass. I'm from a culture most Americans wouldn't recognize as a distinct culture -- there just aren't enough of us here.

For my culture, what you described would be a fine litmus test -- if someone is harsh downwards, they're a bully. If someone is harsh up and down, it's a cultural difference. There are other cultures which are more hierarchical there, though.

One of the key things to remember is that people condition to cultural communication styles growing up. When someone yells at me in contexts where an American would totally feel bad and bullied, I don't feel that way. The emotional meaning of expressions and communication styles changes. The same tone-of-voice can convey loss-of-control in one culture, aggression in another, and excitement in a third.

Coincidentally, without cross-cultural background, we perceive Americans as insincere, plasticity, dishonest, and political. Everyone smiles all the time, even if they hate you, and even the most common question, "How are you?" results in a lie.

I'm firmly convinced that the way to inclusiveness is on the receiving end -- it's a lot easier to learn to interpret that an American isn't being dishonest with fake smiles and constant white lies designed than it is to change how one speaks. Receiving end also doesn't mean adopting one cultural style over another.

Re: Apology

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone doesn't immediately become a brilliant asshole. Both skillsets take time to evolve and solidify. If we stop making excuses for people – "that's just they way they are, you know coders, they just don't have social skills, he's an asshole but the company would be in trouble without him" – then may be these people would get the feedback that they need before it becomes a problem of this magnitude.

Seriously, if you're that brilliant you can develop some basic social skills. And from what I'm getting from this thread, we are talking fundamental thinking before you engage in a social interaction skills. It's ok not to be great at everything, but it's not acceptable to be toxic on the basis of your other skills. At the very least, sometimes that means the genius team member needs to just shut up and choose their…

Intelligence isn't unidimensional.

Neither is culture, for that matter, and social skills, what's toxic, and when to shut up is culturally-situated.

Re: Apology

#214

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…

> I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is

I doubt this is true. I would wager that he doesn't treat those with power over him this way. He probably does it because he knows he can.

Re: Apology

#215
From Butterick's blog post

> I learned early on that when you tattle on the bullies, they come for you twice as hard the next time. The only work­able tactic was to distance your­self and hope they found someone else to pick on.

For anyone who is bullied, or has kids who are being bullied - this is a very weak tactic. When I was bullied in school what worked was a) allies and b) violence (I had the good fortune to grow up in a place where schoolkids never carry weapons)

Re: Apology

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So both just needed to talk to each other? No idea why they have to go through HN proxies.

Social stuff can be amazingly hard to sort out sometimes. One of the benefits of the internet is that text makes it easier to "not raise your voice" so to speak. People who trigger each other in person and yadda may not know how to get past that more directly. This is not a justification for anything. I hope they manage to build bridges and all that. This is the first I've personally seen this particular dispute.

> One of the benefits of the internet is that text makes it easier to "not raise your voice" so to speak. People who trigger each other in person and yadda may not know how to get past that more directly.

I'd say it's generally the other way round. Twitter is infamous for bringing out the worst in people, resulting in many unproductive interactions. I've heard the comparison to road rage. When the human element is somewhat removed, as with a vehicle or Twitter, the general tendency seems to be that we're quicker to anger.

It depends heavily on the particular Internet forum though, clearly. HackerNews is one of the obvious examples of getting it right and producing good conversations.

(Relevant Oatmeal comic on road rage: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off )

Re: Apology

#217
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…

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

1. You offer this as an excuse for profound hostility and rudeness from someone in a position of power.

2. Every human has buttons that can be pressed and you are no exception.

3. Bullying behavior by someone who has power over others logically causes fear in the target of the bullying.

4. Bullying works. That's why people do it, even though it's a cheat. You are literally blaming the victim.

"Don't allow other people to control your feelings" as a response to a man with a career of bullying shows a profound and perhaps pathological contempt for the well-being of others.

Re: Apology

#218
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…

[deleted]

Re: Apology

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Don't allow other people to control your feelings. 1. You offer this as an excuse for profound hostility and rudeness from someone in a position of power. 2. Every human has buttons that can be pressed and you are no exception. 3. Bullying behavior by someone who has power over others logically causes fear in the target of the bullying. 4. Bullying works. That's why people do it, even though it's a cheat. You are l…

It isn't blaming the victim any more than taking a self-defense class is blaming the victim.

Nor is it making excuses for bullies any more than locking your door at night is excusing thieves.

Re: Apology

#220
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m autistic too, and I think what happens is that autistic people who also happen to be brilliant are not expected to learn how to interact well with others to the same extent that autistic folk of average intelligence are, so it ends up being on them whether they care enough about being kind and gentle to others to learn how to interact congenially. I know a lot of autistic people and most of them are nice but some…

The other side of this is that some of us do end up trying to fit in, hiding it but not well enough... Just come off as assholes or socially inept and hurting peoples feelings a lot more than if you were obviously on the spectrum,

I totally get that and it happens to me too. But I'm just talking about making an effort and the guy from OP didn't sound like he was making an effort at all.

Its possible that if he has social issues like some of us do that he didn't realize how bad his behavior was because everyone was afraid to tell him. But now that he knows I hope going forward he tries to get his anger under control a little more.

Kindness and understanding works both ways. We should also expect people that are naturally good at stuff like empathy and social skills to be patient and forgiving if they see that we try and fail.

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