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Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

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

#541

Post by damnyou »

Fordrus wrote: post #526
damnyou wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if, and this might blow your mind, we tweak things so that agreeableness is rewarded more? Society is constructed too adversarially for my tastes. More collaboration would be better.

There isn’t some function we can feed a different argument here to value agreeableness more highly though. I generally agree, but that more collaboration would be good isn’t so much the question - the question is HOW these tweaks can be done.

I think getting more women into positions of power will be a start. Testosterone really does affect aggression.

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

#542

Post by kstenerud »

Words can't describe how happy this makes me!

Linus is very much a Sheldon Cooper: Brilliant, usually right, but lacking in empathy (colloquial: an "asshole").

That he's finally recognizing this deficiency AND taking steps to correct it is the best news ever, because it means Linux development will flourish now that a toxic element is being removed (the behavior, not Linus himself).

Bravo! And good luck to you!

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

#543

Post by citrablue »

noobermin wrote: post #510
jakeinspace wrote: post #257

Linus is stubborn, persistent, and unyielding to what he sees as bullshit. These I believe are all very valuable qualities for the head of a massive software project, and may be part of the reason as to why Linux is where it is today. However, Linus is also a bit of an asshole, turning technical criticism into personal seemingly personal attacks. I believe those 2 sets of qualities are separable, but I would guess it…

I don't think it has to be 1D. What I think reality is can be plotted in 2D: abrasive | | effective------+-------ineffective | | kind You're claiming is (and the common trope is) the actual distribution is in fact a straight line with a -1 slope (y=-x). I think there's a general possibility that the distribution is focused around the y=-x here, but there are outliers (imagine the line blurred out) with some wings esc…

To take it one step further, I'd say that it's more of a probability function than a 2d chart. I think of it more as your chart, plus a 3rd dimension of "context", then a density cloud.

Put another way, people have probability distributions of alignments based on context.

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

#544

Post by damnyou »

mingee wrote: post #504
damnyou wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if, and this might blow your mind, we tweak things so that agreeableness is rewarded more? Society is constructed too adversarially for my tastes. More collaboration would be better.

So how do we 'we' as the collective whole tweak things?

Get more women into positions of power.

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

#545

Post by kristjansson »

tptacek wrote: post #314
jakeinspace wrote: post #257

Linus is stubborn, persistent, and unyielding to what he sees as bullshit. These I believe are all very valuable qualities for the head of a massive software project, and may be part of the reason as to why Linux is where it is today. However, Linus is also a bit of an asshole, turning technical criticism into personal seemingly personal attacks. I believe those 2 sets of qualities are separable, but I would guess it…

He's not just stubborn, persistent, and unyielding: he's performatively so. In his most notorious attacks, he's clearly playing to an audience. That could be the problem. He clearly can separate the blunt stubbornness ("we do not break userland, period") from the performative rudeness ("SHUT THE FUCK UP MAURO"). (I mean, to be clear: what the fuck do I know? I've never been in the position Linus is in.)

This is the interpretation that makes sense to me - his rhetorical choices are intended to communicate the gravity of the content of whatever he’s saying to a large group, not just to the person he’s immediately replying to, or even lkml.

Commenters here and elsewhere frequently compare his interaction with maintainers to a code review, or similar, and proceed to excoriate him on that assumption. Rather, he’s managing a team of managers whom are all (successfully) guiding the resources of dozen(s?) of (more or less) competitors, none with a strong natural interest in giving away software, and each using and contributing to the kernel only insofar as it benefits themselves toward a common mutually- and societally-beneficial end. That doesn’t justify his rhetoric, but it may have made it an effective communication strategy

(that said, what do I know either)

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

#546

Post by DoreenMichele »

damnyou wrote: post #541
Fordrus wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn’t some function we can feed a different argument here to value agreeableness more highly though. I generally agree, but that more collaboration would be good isn’t so much the question - the question is HOW these tweaks can be done.

I think getting more women into positions of power will be a start. Testosterone really does affect aggression.

Perhaps more importantly, there is lots of evidence that exclusively male environments seriously amplify the effect and make aggression a fundamental part of the culture. Even very aggressive men tend to behave differently in mixed gender groups.

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

#547

Post by andrewflnr »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #494
briatx wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound abusive to me at all. "Criticize privately, praise publicly" is a well known management trope.

"Be brutal in private" is not part of that trope though.

It is, it's just a different phrasing. I think you're reading more into "brutal" than blazespin intended. You might be more correct in your interpretation, but I'm pretty sure they just meant "blunt", not "vicious".

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

#548

Post by coffeemug »

FuckOffNeemo wrote: post #527
coffeemug wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Linus always called a spade a spade, and I always respected that. In a culture where the Overton window has shrunk considerably and people habitually hide their thoughts, I think this kind of attitude is more important, not less. People give up ability to say certain things in the name of inclusion, and then lose ability to think those things in the first place. I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day, and…

"A man who says a spade is a spade is only fit to wield one" - I can't recall who this quote is from but it had a profound impact on my how I conduct myself. Or: "A hammer is no more or less honest than a scalpel." I had the same sense of reality as Linus is having now, fortunately I was only 26 when it was brought to my attention. Previously I took pride in calling a spade a spade. I was abrupt, people actually prai…

If calling a spade a spade is defined as being an asshole for the enjoyment of being an asshole, then I agree with you. If that's what you were doing, then good on you for growing out of it (seriously!)

The flipside of being too diplomatic is that everything shifts too slowly for people to notice, and by the time they have noticed they're boiled like a frog. That's why SF police basically doesn't work at all, there are tent cities and needles on the streets, and a tiny bedroom costs $2k/mo. That's why everyone is using Jira and nobody likes it. That's why 90% of corporate meetings are a complete waste of time.

Small diplomatic concessions compound and lead to equilibrium traps where it's no longer possible to say "enough is enough". There are plenty of situations where being an asshole is much, much better than the alternative.

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

#550

Post by DoreenMichele »

andrewflnr wrote: post #547
DoreenMichele wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Be brutal in private" is not part of that trope though.

It is, it's just a different phrasing. I think you're reading more into "brutal" than blazespin intended. You might be more correct in your interpretation, but I'm pretty sure they just meant "blunt", not "vicious".

I'm pretty sure they just meant "blunt", not "vicious".

Let's hope you are correct.

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