‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

A key point in the article, radical candor feedback may be blunt but should also be well intentioned, not merely derogatory.

I see three problems with trigger warnings. One is that some people have developed a habit of writing 'trigger warning for blah' at the beginning of something and then just going on to vent or throw the literary equivalent of a pity party, which readers are implicitly forbidden to criticize in any way. Another is that the worthy purpose of warning others about the potential for offence can easily degenerate into social engineering in the hands of an unscrupulous person. One form of this is to demand special treatment, while another form is to deliberately trigger anxiety in others while evading responsibility for it by pointing to existence of the trigger warning.

The biggest problem by far though is that anything could be triggering to someone - like a perverse version of rule 34, if it exists there is a traumatic version of it. This is the entire basis of the horror movie genre: you take something that looks innocuous and make it into something scary by juxtaposing it with something awful, in order to create suspenseful dread the next time you see the innocuous thing. This is why creature features aren't really horror movies; while it's horrific to depict someone eaten by a shark or a giant bear or whatever, you already know those things are dangerous and if they show up you are in trouble. So while you might feel scared watching Jaws, you knew from the outset that you were (vicariously) going into a hazardous situation, and conversely that you can avoid scary encounters with hungry sharks by not swimming in the ocean or visiting aquariums. But if I show you a movie where, I dunno, playing certain chords on an old piano can summon an evil spirit* and the movie is convincingly scary, then you'll get a little shudder every time you see a piano lurking in the corner of the room.

* this seems like a pretty stupid premise, but in medieval times certain dissonant note combinations were avoided in western church music because the harmonic instability was considered too evil-sounding. A modern parallel is to sing a well-known children's song in a minor key, which invariably sounds creepy.

This is not the problem; while we can't measure emotional or psychic distress directly we can infer the severity of it by observing the instance of suicide, which is motivated by emotional rather than physical pain. Rather the problem is that reminders of emotional trauma are often carelessly equated with the initial imposition of trauma. It is of course absurd for students in a class about sexual assault and the law to object to the very existence of the subject matter; on the other hand, to dismiss emotional injuries as immaterial is equivalent to saying that it's OK to terrorize someone as long as you don't harm them physically. If someone broke into your bedroom tonight and hold a knife to your throat but them left without any further assault, you woouldn't have suffered any material injury but I am pretty sure you'd have trouble sleeping.

This is what happens when children are raised in frictionless environments. The real world doesn't care about your feelings.

I hear this sort of thing a lot from people who have been through a little bit of friction and now think they're immunized against it. Having grown up in a very high friction environment, I find your argument weak.

(Can't wait for the downvotes)

Don't do this, it's only a step away from trolling and debases the discussion by unilaterally putting it on a confrontational footing.