Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#411

Post by tomp » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

remar wrote: post #358

tomp wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really interesting perspective. I wonder if you/we could learn this without going to therapy... Maybe we should/could teach this in school?

From what I understood of OP's description of the process, it sounds a lot like the sort of awareness that's cultivated through long-term and consistent practice of meditation (implicitly or explicitly depending on the school of practice). I noticed after a couple months of initially starting daily zazen practice (just 10-15 minutes every night), that I went from reacting in a way that was originally: event -> (usual…

Thank you for your perspective!

Yeah, I've thought about meditation myself, but I don't really see how to effectively teach it, especially in a class-room (i.e. 1-to-many) - but maybe that's just because I've learned (well, tried to) meditation by myself, by reading, not from a teacher/mentor.

One other idea that crossed my mind, but it's far from fleshed out, is to teach people the exact same techniques that therapists use (i.e. "asking the right questions" to drill deeper in the direction towards understanding yourself), but with the purpose of using them on themselves. However, I've no idea if that's simply too much to learn, or if maybe "being a good therapist" comes only with "having a lot of life experience".

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#412

Post by moosingin3space » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:14 AM UTC

rusk wrote: post #116

cowmoo728 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Linus's more colorful rants: "Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the f ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?"

Entertaining though in fairness. Often he’s saying what we’re thinking. That doesn’t make it right though and it’s ultimately self-defeating.

> Often he's saying what we're thinking

This line of thinking is a fantastic way to create a non-inclusive group.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#413

Post by h1d » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

lucio wrote: post #391

herpderperator wrote: post #122

While I am glad this happened, I am surprised. I truly would not have expected Linus to ever write something like this. I am curious how this can happen so suddenly. Have people not tried to convince him that he can be critical without being insulting many times before? What was different this time?

He's tired. He's older. He mentioned several times how he's been developing this for decades. Maybe he is making a balance, maybe he thinks that the Kernel does not really need him so badly now, and he can take a time out.

Out of interest, what changes could happen if Linus disappears tomorrow?

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#414

Post by icelancer » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #315

DoreenMichele wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps an acknowledgement that people are imperfect and the world is imperfect and, if you want to accomplish things, x all-too-common defect is preferable to y all-too-common defect.

I disagree that that level of asshole behavior is all-too-common. I've never encountered anybody like Linus professionally and if I did I simply wouldn't work with/for/over them.

Fortunately, plenty of other people managed to do so.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#415

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:16 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #364

Zhyl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Tech people the world over need to remember the person. I don't even mean in a slightly soppy 'everyone is a real person with real feelings' way. I mean that in a practical sense you really hit productivity if you're rude. Simple exchanges or corrections become arguments because one party was acerbic or inflammatory which caused the second party to be defensive. The discussion gets derailed, the point gets lost.…

I've worked with assholes, that think they are god's gift and really they are just hampering the business goals of the company and don't realise it. They were constantly like a petulant 5 year olds during a tantrum, and I don't work with people like that. I quit such jobs. Done that 3 times now, first time took me 6 months, second time 3 months, last time 18 hours. Note - this is not rage quitting - they were a reaso…

[deleted]

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#416

Post by floatingatoll » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:17 AM UTC

I'm known at work for being That Guy who will point out the elephant the room and discuss it face-on, but I invested decades into empathy work so that people now respect me for doing so rather than hate me. I'm glad to see Linus considering an investment in empathy, and I don't feel it will negatively impact his forthrightness long-term — the best of all possible outcomes.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#417

Post by bawana » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:17 AM UTC

Linus is to Linux what Jobs is to Apple. And tho Jobs has passed, his spirit is still alive (tho fading). We should have encapsulated Jobs in an AI. (Using data of his behavior, decisions and fMRI we could have made a model). It's still not too late to make a Linus AI. Why save the minds of these architects? After all, creativity is a uniquely individual endeavor. Giants like these have given us tools have become fulcrums on which millions of humans have pivoted their thinking, their livelihoods, and their behavior. We cannot understand creativity, model it or reproduce it. But the same can be said of strong AI as it is modeled by deep learning. Perhaps we can use a tool too complex for human understanding to recreate a human process that we do not understand. Imagine if we had the genius of gauss, fermat, pascal, newton, liebniz, galileo,and so many others all available at the same time. in the same room. to answer the same question.

Google , are you listening?

I know the question I would ask.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#418

Post by h1d » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:17 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #346

krn wrote: post #333

> I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately. At the risk of being downvoted, I think that Linus, just like Steve Jobs, might have been dealing with a mild Asperger's syndrome[1], which he has very little control over: "People with Asperger syndrome often have difficulty 'reading' other people - recognising or understanding others’ feelings and…

Please don't attempt to diagnose or psychoanalyze people over the Internet on Hacker News.

There is no problem attempting. Term says that?

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#419

Post by dang » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:17 AM UTC

crunchlibrarian wrote: post #369

microcolonel wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is that the "Collaborating" sector is the wrong goal for the Linux kernel. Linus Torvalds is uniquely qualified to be concerned about matters concerning the kernel; if his interlocutors "win" too much on their side of the "win/win", every user loses. The public embarrassment of lazy and dishonest actors, especially those who are paid to collaborate, is an effective tool for maintaining order and stan…

This mindset is a bit too fascist for the modern workplace. I still see this attitude a lot, so I think it's good to recognize and call it out for what it is.

Please let's not bring the f-word into this. That's a move to an inner circle of hell.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#420

Post by forapurpose » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 12:18 AM UTC

Congratulations to Linus; that's courageous, and posting is wonderful leadership for the Linux community and the IT community in general - many other leaders could take the hint.

A major challenge of top-level leadership is you have no boss, nobody setting high standards and helping you (including pushing you in a healthy way) to achieve them. Linus' job is leadership but his work product has had these major flaws. If someone subordinate to him turned in such flawed work, Linus would have let them know and wouldn't have accepted the patch. Linus and all leaders need to be equally demanding of the their own work product: it should be up to the highest standards of Linux kernel contributions - in design, implementation, quality, and effectiveness; in the effect on the component and in the ripple effects on the rest of the system; in its immediate impact and in its long-term 'technical'/organizational debt. Does that seem like a lot to take into account? Why should your engineers' work product have highers standards than yours?

The heart of the issue, IMHO, is how to do it. How can a human being, with all the limits we have, realistically maintain that focus and motivation on a day-to-day basis without someone else helping them?