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Apology

felleisen.org

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Re: Apology

#221

Post by chevill »

skissane wrote: post #166
123123as1asd12 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,

On the one hand, people should try to fit in with society. On the other hand, society should try to be more tolerant and understanding of people who find doing so significantly more challenging than the average person does. I worry that this conversation seems to be focusing on the first point and not paying as much attention to the second.

>On the other hand, society should try to be more tolerant and understanding of people who find doing so significantly more challenging than the average person does.

I agree completely. It took me a while to find a place where people didn't just treat me like I'm weird. Kindness, patience, and forgiveness are important things for everyone to work on.

Re: Apology

#222

Post by chevill »

jolux wrote: post #172
skissane wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "bullying"? Here's one definition [0]: "Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm." Was Felleisen's behaviour a " deliberate misuse of power... that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm"? I don't know this guy personally and all I've rea…

I don’t mean to be crude but it’s kind of irrelevant what the specific definition of bullying is, and it’s definitely irrelevant what his intentions were. Many people find his behavior extremely unpleasant, belligerent, mean, etc, as evidenced by the thread on Butterick’s original post, and the OP in this thread, describing being yelled at and insulted. Having a disorder may be a partial explanation for why someone b…

I think you're mistaking the relevance of his intentions as an excuse for him to continue being toxic. That's not the case at all. I think its very relevant why a person does the things they do. He still has to change and become less toxic no matter what.

If a person bullies because they have some kind of social ineptitude that makes them not realize they were bullying. That person is still a bully. However, its important to recognize if this was the case because the alternative is that he knew better and did it anyways because he knew he could get away with it.

Re: Apology

#223

Post by chevill »

freeopinion wrote: post #176
123123as1asd12 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,

Why don't we just assume that everyone with such an abrasive personality is very high functioning spectrum. Should we cut everybody slack, now? Is there a line where we let some have a pass and others not?

People are simply saying he might have social issues, not declaring it as a fact.

Its a realistic and common possibility in this industry and there's nothing wrong with mentioning it. My parent comment that yours falls under specifically mentions that even if he does have such issues, its no excuse to spend the rest of his life being toxic to people.

I think its probably more likely that he knew what he was doing and did it because he could get away with it as the leader of that project. However, I can't entirely dismiss the possibility that he has social issues because as I mentioned its a common problem.

Re: Apology

#224

Post by dTal »

haswell wrote: post #126
koheripbal wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies should be private. Public apologies are their own form of unhealthy societal bullying.

Matthew called him out publicly. Given that, I can’t really judge the decision to make the apology public. Ideally, all of this should probably be private, but public discourse about internal things seems increasingly the norm. I’m not a fan. Edit: after reading Matthew’s updates to his original post [0], I fully understand why the apology is public. Matthias responded to the original post privately via email, and Ma…

What should he have done? Kept quiet? Attempted (and likely failed) to obtain a meaningless private apology, for multiple instances of public belittlement - while the bully carries on bullying?

No. As he says in his post - "It’s apparent that Felleisen has avoided account­ability for a long time. I’m far from his only target. I’ve seen him verbally abuse and heckle others. I’ve heard other accounts privately. But I’m only part of the cover-up if I choose to be. So from now on—I’m not."

And further on he directly responds to your objection:

"In general, I have a strong aver­sion to sharing any kind of personal or confes­sional anec­dotes on the internet. I’ve made an excep­tion in this case because the conceal­ment is worse."

Re: Apology

#226

Post by throw3456548 »

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…

You're getting downvoted, but there is some truth to this. Many years later, when I was much more confident in my career, I took a very well paid but short contract gig with a horrible boss. I found that the best way to deal with his outbursts was to find them funny. Screaming at the team for not making an arbitrary deadline he never told anyone about -- there's something comical about that. HOWEVER I would never want to work with someone like that for more than a few months.

In the situation with Felleisen, I was around twenty, in a new city, new to the academic world. The student I mentioned was one of one or two female students in the entire class and already unsure of her place. Asking people in those situations to not take insults from their professors, famous people in the field, gatekeepers personally is to ask them to overcome human nature itself. I would describe that as a hard problem.

I want to distinguish between a hardass and an asshole. Some people are conflating them, and the middle section of their Venn diagram is not empty, but they are not the same thing!! There are more choices than cuddly "everybody gets a trophy" snowflakes and calling children worthless morons! Everyone should have a hardass professor or a hardass boss at least once in their life. These people have high standards and push you, they don't accept excuses. You learn to work. They don't insult you or throw a fit, though. Hardass professor: "This is not good work. These are the reasons your work is bad. I expect better from you next time." Asshole: "This is not good work. These are the reasons you are a stupid and worthless person."

On the other hand, there are drill sergeants and similar situations. I don't know how to work them into my model. Some people seem to thrive in an environment like that. I wonder what the difference is?

Re: Apology

#227

Post by denton-scratch »

_pmf_ wrote: post #204
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…

I think the honest, uncomfortable way of dealing with the Stallman and Felleisen fallout would be to ask "what can be done to offer non neurotypical persons an alternative career path that does not involve creating a living hell for other people by becoming managers" (saying this as someone who probably is in this category as well). As long as there is no non managerial career (which is the case in all of academia),…

I don't buy the story that people who piss-off other people are "non-neurotypical" or "on the spectrum".

I piss people off quite often, and quite inadvertently. When it happens, I feel remorse. Friendships have failed terminally because of this.

But in general, people like me - they enjoy my conversation and my sense of humour.

The thing is, I'm rather blunt - I say what I mean. I don't like to lie, because once you start, things can get pretty tangled ("Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive"). This bluntness isn't because I'm on some spectrum or other; it's a consequence of experiences I've had through my life, philosophical views that I've integrated into my personality, and a whole slew of unconscious biases and preferences.

(When I say "unconscious" I don't mean "subconscious" or "repressed"; I'm aware of my biases and preferences, on the whole, I just mean that they come to operate automatically).

I've known and worked with aspies. I know that Asperger's is a real thing. I don't think I've ever known anyone who was autistic. But I think there is a trend for anyone who is a bit abrasive to get labelled "spectrum" (or to label themselves). This is particularly a thing in IT.

It is not a sign that you are "on the spectrum" if you get people's backs up. A habit of speaking directly doesn't put you "on the spectrum". A dislike of small-talk doesn't put you "on the spectrum". Not caring much whether others think you're a wonderful person doesn't put you "on the spectrum".

IT people tend to steer away from small-talk, and have a preference for nuts and bolts. Their job is dealing with machinery, and machinery doesn't usually work better just because you stroked its ego, or gave it a compliment (I find that swearing at machines is much more helpful!) That's simply their training; it doesn't make them "non-neurotypical", or psychologically unwell. they're in IT because they enjoy working with machines, which isn't weird or sick.

Re: Apology

#228

Post by throw3456548 »

123123as1asd12 wrote: post #151
jolux wrote: 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,

Yes, this is really difficult problem. From my experience, doing these three things when being critical puts you in the not an asshole category by the vast vast majority of people: 1. don't raise your voice or yell, 2. don't insult people personally (say "this code is bad" instead of "you are bad for writing this code"), 3. if it is your first time critiquing someone, explain your style of criticism and note that it should not be taken personally.

Of course, there are very sensitive people, and you can't please everyone, but in my experience people will try to be accommodating if you tell them your situation.

Re: Apology

#229

Post by twilight00 »

blagie wrote: post #212
goto11 wrote: post #190

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. 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 languag…

Yeah, but assuming the GP's anecdote is true and not just hearsay, is it a cultural norm anywhere to wake people up in the middle of the night to be abrasive, harsh, critical and aggressive with them?

Re: Apology

#230

Post by [deleted] »

CleverLikeAnOx wrote: post #185
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.

How does one preemptively cancel oneself?

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