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The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

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Re: The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

#31

Post by belorn »

gonehome wrote: post #18
haberman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% of women survived the Titanic, compared with 19% of men. ( http://www.icyousee.org/titanic.html ) At the massacre of Katyn, an estimated ~22,000 men and exactly 1 woman were executed by the Soviets. The West has undeniably patriarchal elements of its history. But trying to spin this into a narrative of pervasive misogyny ignores the very real value that society places on the well-being of women. Even in your own…

I'd guess this has something to do with if a bunch of men die in the tribe it doesn't matter too much, but if a bunch of the women die in the tribe that's the end of the tribe. Men are pretty expendable when it comes to what's required to reproduce - that mixed with fighting for status/high risk behavior being attractive probably complicates things.

The idea that its a privilege to be viewed as "pretty expendable" is to me a rather odd. In any war where a minority group is used as an expendable meat shield, I have never seen anyone argue that its proof that that minority group holds power and carries "-actual advantages-" in society. In contrast, when some individuals of a category holds power while others are viewed as expendable it indicate that that categorization (ie, this one based on being male) is a poor predictor for privilege.

Re: The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

#32

Post by gonehome »

belorn wrote: post #31
gonehome wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess this has something to do with if a bunch of men die in the tribe it doesn't matter too much, but if a bunch of the women die in the tribe that's the end of the tribe. Men are pretty expendable when it comes to what's required to reproduce - that mixed with fighting for status/high risk behavior being attractive probably complicates things.

The idea that its a privilege to be viewed as "pretty expendable" is to me a rather odd. In any war where a minority group is used as an expendable meat shield, I have never seen anyone argue that its proof that that minority group holds power and carries "-actual advantages-" in society. In contrast, when some individuals of a category holds power while others are viewed as expendable it indicate that that categoriz…

That isn’t my view?

I just suspect it’s a component of why cultures tend to protect women in disasters.

Re: The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

#33

Post by lcuff »

s-shellfish wrote: post #7
lcuff wrote: post #3

The notion that affective empathy is present in any complete way in text-only communication is misguided at best. Affective empathy gets communicated f2f via voice quality, body posture, tonus et al. The lack of a medium for affective information is a primary reason why text-only discussions go off the rails so quickly.

> The lack of a medium for affective information is a primary reason why text-only discussions go off the rails so quickly. I don't agree with that. As someone who has communicated primarily online since childhood, I feel as though I am much more attenuated to some group of people's emotional state through text, whereas in person, I feel like my emotions are obvious to everyone besides me, which makes them feel like…

> I don't agree with that. As someone who has communicated primarily online since childhood, I feel as though I > am much more attenuated to some group of people's emotional state through text, whereas in person, I fee > like my emotions are obvious to everyone besides me, which makes them feel like they are much more able to be > subject to manipulation.

Interesting. Thanks for saying this. I didn't communicate online until relatively late in life (it wasn't an option when I was young). My own sense of what you are describing though - 'my emotions are obvious to everyone besides me' is what I'm thinking of in my original statement. The-in-the-moment experience is in public view. This may be uncomfortable, or you may not like the ensuing dynamics (yes, being manipulated sucks), but the irony or humor or hurt or whatever we are feeling that people might miss in text is somewhat more noticed in person via tone of voice et al.

Re: The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

#34

Post by s-shellfish »

lcuff wrote: post #33
s-shellfish wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lack of a medium for affective information is a primary reason why text-only discussions go off the rails so quickly. I don't agree with that. As someone who has communicated primarily online since childhood, I feel as though I am much more attenuated to some group of people's emotional state through text, whereas in person, I feel like my emotions are obvious to everyone besides me, which makes them feel like…

> I don't agree with that. As someone who has communicated primarily online since childhood, I feel as though I > am much more attenuated to some group of people's emotional state through text, whereas in person, I fee > like my emotions are obvious to everyone besides me, which makes them feel like they are much more able to be > subject to manipulation. Interesting. Thanks for saying this. I didn't communicate onli…

> but the irony or humor or hurt or whatever we are feeling that people might miss in text is somewhat more noticed in person via tone of voice et al

My point is just that, not everyone is good at processing this kind of information. I tend to learn people's vocal intonations as I retain relationships with them. They don't map from person to person for me, specifically. They are unique and individual. It's a magical thing I can manage to understand comedians, but humor has always been much more of an intellectual thing for me, as are most emotions. I can see an emotion on a face, body language, but that data must be aggregated with listening to a person, and not trying to predict how that person feels dependent on previous interactions with different people.

When people are socialized in relatively 'static' environments, it is easy to take all of this stuff for granted because people tend to develop habits that are reflective and resonate of another - thus perpetually reinforcing, convergent - the appearance of 'known constants'. If you've grown up with and have lived a lifestyle where you are constantly moving, interacting with different people, always in different places, always open to what is new - then these things are much more variant. But that also has to map back to some base foundation of socialization you have, because that's where you get the 'reflection' of understanding that continues to enforce a sense of consistency and stability.

I look at all components of a social system to be aware of this, coupled with the modular/analytical/functional mentality of a computer scientist. I'd rather people call it aspergers than anything else, I personally have had far too many labels applied to me in the past, labels that continue to be heavily stigmatized.

Invisible pain, humor, irony...

Re: The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

#35

Post by s-shellfish »

klodolph wrote: post #10
s-shellfish wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lack of a medium for affective information is a primary reason why text-only discussions go off the rails so quickly. I don't agree with that. As someone who has communicated primarily online since childhood, I feel as though I am much more attenuated to some group of people's emotional state through text, whereas in person, I feel like my emotions are obvious to everyone besides me, which makes them feel like…

I'm trying to understand the first part of your argument... it sounds like you are saying that it is much easier to understand people's emotions face to face, even too easy, but this is exactly what the parent comment was claiming with the term "affective empathy" (although it's worth discussing the difference between cognitive and affective empathy). > They either latch onto a specific point (irony) or a key phrase…

> The fact that you feel like this makes you vulnerable to manipulation may either be a completely rational response to an unhealthy environment or a maladaptive response to a normal environment.

Whether I have PTSD or aspergers, etc whatever. This is always a hard problem to know for certain, the things that keep me grounded are 'maintain interest in pure mathematics and computation' and 'be aware of reality as reality actually is'. Not getting caught up in the imagination of the way things could get interpreted and what that implies as to how things can unfold. Present minded.

> What you do want is for me to:

I believe you have the right idea in general, but my advice from experience is, don't get caught up in the minutia of conversation having to be perfect. There is no perfect so long as there are more things to discover and know. I'm not sure why most people come onto hacker news, but I mainly come here to learn. I find myself getting pulled into conversations of which I believe I have some wisdom about (or perhaps I'm just humoring myself), sometimes it hurts, sometimes it helps. On the whole though, I work to stay positive, progress oriented, stuff, life, ebbs and flows. Shrug.

Re: The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

#37

Post by lcuff »

s-shellfish wrote: post #34
lcuff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't agree with that. As someone who has communicated primarily online since childhood, I feel as though I > am much more attenuated to some group of people's emotional state through text, whereas in person, I fee > like my emotions are obvious to everyone besides me, which makes them feel like they are much more able to be > subject to manipulation. Interesting. Thanks for saying this. I didn't communicate onli…

> but the irony or humor or hurt or whatever we are feeling that people might miss in text is somewhat more noticed in person via tone of voice et al My point is just that, not everyone is good at processing this kind of information. I tend to learn people's vocal intonations as I retain relationships with them. They don't map from person to person for me, specifically. They are unique and individual. It's a magical…

> My point is just that, not everyone is good at processing this kind of information.

It's a really good point. One of the things that concerns me as I hear about people (not necessarily you) who have grown up with cell phones and are spending less time f2f is that the f2f skills will diminish.

I personally found it very difficult over the course of my career to interact with people who disagreed with my point of view. Often got angry inside and had to back away from the discussions in order to stay professional.

Re: The Importance of Having Your Pain Be Legible

#38

Post by s-shellfish »

lcuff wrote: post #37
s-shellfish wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the irony or humor or hurt or whatever we are feeling that people might miss in text is somewhat more noticed in person via tone of voice et al My point is just that, not everyone is good at processing this kind of information. I tend to learn people's vocal intonations as I retain relationships with them. They don't map from person to person for me, specifically. They are unique and individual. It's a magical…

> My point is just that, not everyone is good at processing this kind of information. It's a really good point. One of the things that concerns me as I hear about people (not necessarily you) who have grown up with cell phones and are spending less time f2f is that the f2f skills will diminish. I personally found it very difficult over the course of my career to interact with people who disagreed with my point of vie…

If I find myself dramatically diverging from someone's perspective, I make it a point to internalize exactly what they are saying to the point it makes sense to me.

The worst that can happen is the next time we disagree, I understand both sides. It's sometimes emotionally destabilizing to do such a thing, but it sure is nice to understand almost every person no matter what walk of life they come from.

I've picked up on doing this from some very smart people, and the hilarious thing is, when you get used to it, it's like you can't recognize people from 'that tribe' of thinking directly.

I miss socializing, I feel lonely often. But the level I understand people, shrug. Sparse connections between people. Sparse, but very strong ones.

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