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"No Feigning Surprise"

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Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#71

Post by danaris »

jtbayly wrote: post #57
akerl_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If somebody says something rude to me, why would my reaction be to try to decide if I’m glad they were rude unintentionally?

Reread what I wrote. The point is it is more rude to assume somebody is ignorant than it is to assume they are knowledgeable. This is telling people to assume people are ignorant or at least pretend you think they are ignorant.

As akerl_ says, it's not telling you to assume anything. It's talking about behavior, not thoughts.

You can be thinking they're the most ignorant fool on the planet, or you can be thinking that a minute ago you believed them to be so smart, and now that image of them is shattered and you're disappointed...but all this is asking you to do is not to perform that surprise to them, regardless of whether or how much you feel it.

Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#72

Post by bazoom42 »

isoprophlex wrote: post #28
akerl_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Recurse Center, and Julia Evans, have correctly identified that it's a net negative social practice for people to on-the-fly decide that somebody needs to be mocked for not knowing something, regardless of how much you think they ought to know it. Even your "calm" version probably doesn't need to exist. If there's something they want to do and they're asking you about how to do it, by all means, it may be relevan…

Indeed. There's nothing lost by rephrasing that to "Aha, good to know that you have not heard of CSS before! That means I will explain you some basics first, otherwise x and y will be incomprehensible to you."

Still comes off as rather condescending, honestly.

Why not just explain the thing that needs explaining.

Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#73

Post by JohnMakin »

johnfn wrote: post #70
JohnMakin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you didn't know this kind of behavior is insulting? Crazy!

You seem to be misinterpreting my comment, which can be summarized as "be kind to others and assume best intent".

I know it was tongue in cheek, but to respond directly, intent doesn’t matter when the result is universally harmful. The recipient shouldn’t have to ignore the harm just because you didn’t mean anything by it. I can have the best possible intent when telling someone they are fat out of concern, but it doesn’t mean the result isn’t harmful.

FYI i’m slightly on the spectrum and it took me a very long time and destroyed a lot of relationships before I understood this. I used to believe similar, and even assumed good intentions most of the time. The problem is many people do not have good intentions a large percent of the time, and there were situations where I went years without realizing people were being extraordinarily mean to me who I thought were friends. either side of it, I just don’t think it’s a great philosophy.

Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#76

Post by astura »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #69
appplication wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know she seems to be popular enough on HN, and I’ll admit I don’t know her in any capacity other than what posts I occasionally see here, which are innocent enough. That said, her bluesky or mastodon profile leads with “I have DMs muted from people I don’t follow”, which just rubs me in such a wrong way. The vibe is “don’t be confused: communication is for me to give and you to receive, and NOT the other way around…

This is something that a lot of celebrities have to do (I have actually known a number, over the years). One thing about living a life, where you share a lot of personal information, is that people tend to create close relationships that are entirely one-way. In many ways, this benefits the celebrity, because they get rich/famous from it, but it can also lead to some fairly serious consequences. I was just reading ye…

A real life "Stan" situation.

https://www.fox13news.com/news/surveillance-video-shows-accu...

https://www.fox13news.com/news/man-sentenced-to-15-years-in-...

Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#77

Post by swiftcoder »

johnfn wrote: post #70
JohnMakin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you didn't know this kind of behavior is insulting? Crazy!

You seem to be misinterpreting my comment, which can be summarized as "be kind to others and assume best intent".

> "be kind to others and assume best intent"

The first time I ran into this was working at Meta, where that was one of the core values (it's since been replaced by "Be direct and respect your colleagues"). It was one of those slogans that sounded fine on paper, but in practice, it was almost exclusively weaponised by powerful folks to excuse their transgressions.

Think someone is sexually harassing you? You are clearly not assuming good intentions on their part. Think they are being racist towards you? Same thing. Think someone is sandbagging your promo for personal reasons? Ditto...

Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#78

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

akerl_ wrote: post #67
appplication wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know she seems to be popular enough on HN, and I’ll admit I don’t know her in any capacity other than what posts I occasionally see here, which are innocent enough. That said, her bluesky or mastodon profile leads with “I have DMs muted from people I don’t follow”, which just rubs me in such a wrong way. The vibe is “don’t be confused: communication is for me to give and you to receive, and NOT the other way around…

She's not DMing you, is she?

I remember a weird show (don't, however, remember the name).

It had a promotional spot that went "What if you could have sex with anyone you want? What if anyone that wants, can have sex with you?".

Every relationship has at least two parts.

Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#79

Post by akerl_ »

swiftcoder wrote: post #77
johnfn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be misinterpreting my comment, which can be summarized as "be kind to others and assume best intent".

> "be kind to others and assume best intent" The first time I ran into this was working at Meta, where that was one of the core values (it's since been replaced by "Be direct and respect your colleagues"). It was one of those slogans that sounded fine on paper, but in practice, it was almost exclusively weaponised by powerful folks to excuse their transgressions. Think someone is sexually harassing you? You are clear…

Your examples sort of underscore why “assume positive intent” matters a lot for how you engage but not a lot about what you engage on.

Working against the feigning surprise thing, if somebody says “oh I don’t know what DNS is”, the problem isn’t with offering to help them understand DNS, it’s leading in without projecting shock/alarm.

If somebody is blocking your promo, assuming positive intent doesn’t mean you just let them do it, it means you escalate by focusing on the root issue (“this person is affecting my promo and they’re not giving me any actionable signal as to why”), not speculating on their intent.

Re: "No Feigning Surprise"

#80

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78
akerl_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's not DMing you, is she?

I remember a weird show (don't, however, remember the name). It had a promotional spot that went "What if you could have sex with anyone you want? What if anyone that wants, can have sex with you?" . Every relationship has at least two parts.

Just an update. The AI Oracle (AI Search Result from Sri Google), says that it was actually an HIV awareness ad, from last century.
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