Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

agileotter.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 282 posts

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#261

Post by pixl97 »

NateEag wrote: post #167
Uehreka wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhh… Sure you won’t convince the person you’re talking too, but it’s often worth it because if you really destroy their argument in a way that’s visible to bystanders, you could quietly convince a lot of them (since they can change their minds quietly without any ego cost).

I think when you "really destroy their argument," the average human bystander thinks "... what a jerk." If you quietly make a few good points, don't push too hard, and ask sincere questions to help you understand the other person's perspectives, the average human will think "that guy is a class act. He had a good point, too." Convincing anyone other than a hyper-rationalist of almost anything significant is more abou…

It depends if your relationship with that other person exists in a vacuum or not.

If that other person is being manipulated by cult like behavior from some other party it can be very difficult to convince them of anything. The other party has no problem with lying then doubling down on the lies forever.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#262

Post by pixl97 »

atoav wrote: post #235
69Represente wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you become inpeccable with your words?

One thing I think has great importance here if you are a tech guy is to speak clearly. If you are speaking to non-tech people/superiors you have to realize that the only way they have to trust you is by judging the way you talk and how what they can then observe measures up to the words you said. They can not tell if the malleable logarithmic casing of the turbo encabulator is surmounted in an optimal fashion, so the…

With non technical people I find explanation by analogy one of the best ways, but it works best when you understand who the person you're trying to explain to is. That typically means you have to listen to, and be willing to learn about that other person.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#263

Post by wruza »

maxbond wrote: post #208
wruza wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people find extremely skinny people attractive … Plenty of people find larger people attractive … This is just smuggling your preferences into a frame of objectivity with some spurious comparisons I think you forget that everyone’s stats are on a bell curve, and I may be a very beautiful boy for my mom, but her column is of height 0.02% and columns 20..100% don’t think so. You can’t start going to A if you…

What I'm telling you is that people are not video game characters, you don't have a charisma stat that determines how attractive you are, and you can't look at someone and score their charisma stat. Toxic positivity is real, giving people unrealistic expectations happens, but the underlying mechanism there is that the world is murky and the future is unknowable and if you tell someone they have control over their des…

You can see into statistics, e.g. people who keep their posture are perceived as more confident and attractive. Removing uhm like parasitic words from like your speech also uhm helps in like conversations. You’re trying to boil down this argument to “the future is unknown” and that is true indeed. But there’s a lot of common sense we do know that works for or against you chance-wise.

What I'm telling you is that people are not video game characters

I never said they are. Unless you reject the fact that people have traits, characteristics, etc just tell how you’d like to call them. These concepts weren’t invented in RPGs, they are from natural language.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#264

Post by acuozzo »

35208654 wrote: post #143

There’s a hack hidden in this message, one that I’ve built an entire career out of: learn to not take anything personally in a professional context unless you absolutely must. Several times in my career I have heard someone say, “stay away from so-and-so, he’s an asshole.” And every time, literally every time, I have gotten along with them famously. Why? Because I discovered that that I could use the message these in…

It's because you have one of these installed: https://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#266

Post by cout »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #39
tunesmith wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

brutal honesty is not the opposite of "you're beautiful, you're smart, you're perfect just the way you are." And feelings are not opposed to objective reality, for that matter. It's entirely possible to be clear, explicit, truthful, and kind.

> kind That depends on the person. I’ve known people who take any criticism at any time for any reason as an offense. There is no kind way (from their perspective) to convince such a person that their behavior is anything negative. Neutral at worst or it’s, “What do you have against me?” Edit: To add a bit more context, some of these people are family members and close friends (who are now distant, unfortunately); I…

To such people, the classic "I statements" sometimes help.

Instead of saying "that was disrespectful" or "you are being disrespectful", you can say "I feel very disrespected by what you just said and it really hurt." This changes the statement from an accusation to a factual statement about your feelings. The other person can legitimately disagree about whether the statement was fundamentally disrespectful, but the other person cannot reasonably disagree about how you feel. It is then up to the other person to decide how to respond, whether to discount your feelings or adjust their words and behavior to be less disrespectful.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#267

Post by safetytrick »

You can build a toxic environment out of kindness too. You do need to coach and mentor and guide people towards the truth (regardless of if you even have it).

I also just don't have time to make everyone's ignorance my problem. I wish I did, but I don't, I have a hard enough time dealing with my own ignorance. Sometimes all I can do is point out the problem.

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#268

Post by fisf »

dang wrote: post #229
frankish wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does "good enough" satisfy the definition of "Leveler" though? How can we objectively predict that "good enough" would still not cause offense? I personally think not because I do not think "good enough" can be objectively predicted without testing it out on the other person -- "good enough" is subjective. If "trying" is all that matters, then how hard are we supposed to try? I personally struggle with this as I find…

(I'm not sure I understand you fully, because I don't know where the phrase 'good enough' came from in this context.) In terms of gauging one's impact on others and calibrating one's expression—that's definitely a long, hard road for a lot of us. But just the insight that being right isn't sufficient already gets you a big chunk of the way. This comes up with HN moderation because people frequently break the site rul…

> I believe you that you care about those, but no one cares only about those. If I were you I would cultivate the skill of tracking my other motives as well. That isn't comfortable, but it eventually produces huge benefits in just the area you're asking about. Best of all, it doesn't require you to give up any of your passion for truth and reason. You just widen the frame to include more information. As you become more aware of that "more information" in yourself, you become more aware of others too, and this gives you more skill (and less stress!) in navigating those waters.

This implies, that some people prioritizing objectivity are not aware of their internal motives, and the perception of others, or rather not able to incorporate this effectively in their communication. In other words: it is their fault, made subconsciously, to deliver (bluntly?) a message that their counterpart are "not capable to hear". And it's something they could work on.

But have you considered, that this choice is made consciously? People can absolutely pick truthfulness, and stick to it, as a matter of principle. The delivery has by no means to be cruel, and not stating specific facts can be very tactful. But shying away from uncomfortable truths, and being incapable of hearing them, is first-and-foremost a problem at the receiving end (given they are delivered respectfully).

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#269

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

akvadrako wrote: post #92
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is the search for consensus about predictions. It says nothing of truth.

Science has nothing to do with consensus – it's the belief in the ignorance of experts.

What does science have to do with experts?

When somebody announces that a certain kind of particle exists and has certain properties... And they're equipped with all of these arguments, backed by experiment, which will help you come to the same conclusion. That's science, right?

The invitation to perform the experiment, replicate the result, and start using stories about things you can't see (e.g . electrons) to explain the world around you, that's consensus building, because now you're using the same stories as everyone else who has followed the same process.

For best results we should be skeptical about any notion that those stories won't later be superceded by different ones (i.e. skeptical that they are true), but that's as much a belief in our own ignorance as it is in the belief in anyone else's. So where do the experts come in?

Re: Is it my fault if you can't handle the truth? (2019)

#270

Post by BeetleB »

atoav wrote: post #232
BeetleB wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. But before you do that , examine the context. Would they care to even find out the truth? In over half the cases, I submit to you that they do not. Assuming that they value the truth as you do makes much of this submission relevant. Very often, t…

> Trying to guide them towards the path of truth is, simply put, derailing them. That's not the path they seek. If they actively want to lie to themselves you are not gonna easily stop them. But sometimes you still gotta put up the signposts for them to discover. Because guess who is more likely to walk down the wrong path: A) someone who is never presented with facts that don't fit into their world image B) someone…

> But sometimes you still gotta put up the signposts for them to discover.

Everything is true when you prefix it with "sometimes" :-)

My point is that "sometimes" applies a minority of the times - and by minority I mean perhaps less than 10%.

In most of the cases someone is "wrong", neither A nor B above applies. Their world view in those cases are irrelevant to anything - even to them.

Post reply on HN