20 ms·

The Case for More Intellectual Humility

91 points by a-smith 10y ago

bernardlunn 10y ago
It is a key trait of good traders/investors. The stockmarket is referred to as the "great humiliator".
dkarapetyan 10y ago
Whatever can be said on the matter was already neatly captured by Feynman > The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
rimliu 10y ago
What baffles me that it is still considered OK to indoctrinate children with provably false beliefs.
- dkarapetyan 10y ago
  That baffles you? Because of Romania's anti-vaccination movement 17 children are now dead: http://globalnews.ca/news/3345439/deadly-measles-outbreak-spreads-in-europe-as-vaccinations-fall/ http://globalnews.ca/news/3345439/deadly-measles-outbreak-sp.... At the end of the day humans are just apes.
- blowski 10y ago
  What's the alternative? A civil servant deciding what is allowed to be taught to children? Can you teach skepticism by saying "you're not allowed to learn this stuff over here"? Seems to me that allowing science to win out in the 'market of ideas' is the healthiest solution.
  - abalashov 10y ago
    Which is fine, if science has a fighting chance in such a marketplace. But the inherent humility and uncertainty of rigourous science is often no match for snake oil and demagoguery, as we know.
    - dagw 10y ago
      Disagree very much. Church attendance all over Europe is declining at a significant rate, and even among those still attending, the number of people who truly believe is dropping. And even among those few who still truly believe the general consensus is strongly in favour of science and the scientific method. Science not only has a fighting chance, it is dominating.
      - abalashov 10y ago
        For a stark contrast, come visit the USA! :-)
        Neliquat 10y ago
        Its down here too... just try to find a city where they havent turned many an old church into a b&b, goth disco, or yuppie homes (thanks to grandfathered zoning exemptions in residential areas). Sure southern baptists and penicostals are a bit nutty in comparison, but louder =/= more.
      - ooqr 10y ago
        Religion can still hold on to the fact that the only position you can actually arrive at by reason alone is agnosticism. Hostility toward science by religion is irrational and self-defeating, as is the converse.
  - rimliu 10y ago
    Not fair competition when indoctrination is given a headstart. There is a difference between being allowed to learn this stuff and being indoctrinated since the days you are not even able to read.
    - khedoros1 10y ago
      So, should children be given to the care of the state at the earliest possible age? Or you'd rather have mass prosecution and re-education to stamp out beliefs that you dislike? In the long run, maladaptive beliefs will die out and useful ones will survive, head start or no.
      - cyborgx7 10y ago
        I don't understand. I'm not advocating for the state to stamp out beliefs I disagree with. But the believes that should win out and survive should be the correct ones, not the useful ones.
        khedoros1 10y ago
        The person that I replied to seemed to be saying that certain beliefs should be disallowed, and that's what I was responding to. As to what should win out: Truth is a fine ideal to work towards, but one should never expect that it's what will actually win. "Should" is like "deserves". They're nice to think about, but not always realistic.
    - ooqr 10y ago
      You're digging up a philosophical morass, though. Please prove that you weren't indoctrinated. In general, it's not possible if you're assuming the possibility that people can be brainwashed to the degree of rejecting reason.
  - xupybd 10y ago
    I can't agree with you more. When the state steps in to control what people are allowed to teach their children we have entered into a very very scary time. Freedom of personal belief is fundamental to all freedom. If we allow the state to dictate the beliefs taught to children we take away that freedom.
    - socialist_coder 10y ago
      Did you know that homeschooling your children is illegal in every country in the EU except for the UK (and it is very rare there)? For Americans, this is shocking (it was to me). "I can't homeschool my own children?!? That isn't freedom!" But in practice, the vast majority of homeschoolers are evangelical christians or other religious extremists. For the good of society, I would gladly take that trade. Think about this another way: in the US, homeschool parents can impart any view they want on their children. They "win by default" because there are no competing viewpoints. In the EU, parents are still free to try and impart their beliefs on their children. But in this case, they need a stronger argument than what the school is providing. They will not "win by default" like in the US. I can't see anything "unfree" about that.
      - dottedmag 10y ago
        When did Denmark, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland, Hungary and France leave the EU?
        socialist_coder 10y ago
        Thanks for the correction. I thought it was illegal everywhere. I think my point is still valid though, especially because in many of those countries, yearly inspections are mandatory (unlike the US).
        literallycancer 10y ago
        >I think my point is still valid though, especially because in many of those countries, yearly inspections are mandatory (unlike the US). The inspections ensure that your parents can't fuck up your life. I think it's a good middle ground between allowing everything and nothing.
  - adrianratnapala 10y ago
    I agree with your sentiments, but we are not really being fair to rimliu, who has not actually mentioned government, science or any of their competitors. So while I agree that there is no alternative better than the market-place of ideas; that's still compatible with saying its morally wrong to indoctrinate your children with falsehoods. Being sloppy about your beliefs -- i.e. just going with your gut and not questioning -- is OK when it's just yourself. But maybe you should only teach kids about the things you have considered more carefully.
  - literallycancer 10y ago
    >What's the alternative? A civil servant deciding what is allowed to be taught to children? It's not an alternative, it's what happens now, and will always happen, unless there is some major disruption in education.
- sametmax 10y ago
  It's not as easy as regulate as stealing or murder. It's more like with freedom of speech. If you start drawing a line, you end up harming the very thing you tried to defend.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children
- carsongross 10y ago
  Can you give us some examples of provably false beliefs being taught to children?
  - adrianN 10y ago
    Santa brings presents to well behaved children on Christmas.
    - nf05papsjfVbc 10y ago
      Heaven and Hell are just adult versions of this.
    - grkvlt 10y ago
      I was brought up not to believe in Santa (and apparently got into trouble at school for upsetting other children by telling them he didn't exist) and find it amazing that other parents are happy to lie to their children like this - setting a precedent that adults are not to be trusted, thus undermining lots of potentially valuable true advice. On the other hand, my family also took me to church every week, so there's that...
      - carsongross 10y ago
        Surely, the phenomenological existence of Santa can be understood by HackerNews readers, no? Santa is a spirit and exists spiritually in as much as he has an effect on this world. And so we find he has, and, therefore, does. I don't expect most HackerNews readers to agree with that argument (I am of two minds on it) but I would hope it recommends to them a bit of intellectual humility.
        grkvlt 10y ago
        Maybe, maybe, maybe ... in the loosest, most hand-wavingly vague, almost, kind of sense, yes, IF - you s/spirit/concept/ then yes, that could be said to be true. But one could use the same argument about God, surely? In that the concept has a measurable effect on the world through the actions of believers, therefore He exists.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  This is kind of an ironic comment to a post about intellectual humility...
jph 10y ago
Intellectual humility is a key trait of great hackers and coworkers, in my experience. Google's Laszlo Bock described hiring for intellectual humility like this... "What we’ve seen is that the people who are the most successful here, who we want to hire, will have a fierce position. They’ll argue like hell. They’ll be zealots about their point of view. But then you say, ‘here’s a new fact,’ and they’ll go, ‘Oh, well, that changes things; you’re right.’ You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time."
- hinkley 10y ago
  I think the commonly approved shorthand for this phenomenon is: Strong opinions, loosely held.
  - rntz 10y ago
    To me that sounds almost hypocritical. You should be uncertain of your beliefs, but act like you're not? What am I missing?
    - Ulti 10y ago
      No you should strongly reason and believe in your own power of reasoning, but you should never dogmatically hold on to those beliefs in the light of new evidence that contravenes your previous ideas. Essentially all scientists that are even vaguely good follow this ideal. You have to know what is opinion from fact, facts dont change but your opinion about them does. Opinion guides generation of new facts. If you dont have strong opinions then you wont have the dedication to generate new fact. Look at the more zany side of religion, its strong opinion strongly held. They aren't capable of change and generation of new ideas. But if you were forever lacking in an opinion you also wouldn't action on anything and have some kind of existential nihilism all the time.
    - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
      If I'm on the mark here, it's kind of related to being able to play devil's advocate. There are topics where the same person can decide to make a strong case for or a strong case against something, just by focusing on a different set of pros and cons, a different set of values, a different perspective, or focusing on different facts. "Belief" in this context is which of these sets of arguments you find most convincing. One can even make a strong argument for something one doesn't believe in (although I can't recommend it[1]) - I'd call this a "Strong opinion, not held". Instead assuming good faith - you and I are no oracles. Even our strongest arguments will have gaps, things we hadn't considered. Our arguments will sometimes have flaws - incorrect assumptions or other faulty basis we hadn't realized we'd made. It's the cost of being human. It's not so much certainty of belief, but being able to move forward with confidence, and argue for, the best path you can discern - yet aware that even the best of us will be wrong at least some of the time. It's about being able to recognize and turn on a dime - to course correct - when that stronger argument is made for a different path, even if you were damn sure about the one you were on not a moment before. [1] EDIT: Err, arguing only for the side you don't believe in at any rate. Arguing for both sides or explicitly playing devil's advocate if the other party seems to be arguing your own viewpoint sufficiently seems perfectly fine though.
dan-compton 10y ago
Intellectual Humility doesn't go far enough. The goal should be to reap knowledge from all sources and to disassociate the emotional and intellectual self from that knowledge set. I believe that the primary issue is the formation of heuristics about knowledge sources. e.g. Person B provides person A with knowledge of class "low-value in domain D" N times and knowledge of class "higher-value in domain D" K times in some time period T. At some time T_n A internalizes a heuristic about Person B's overall knowledge set. Depending on internal characteristics of A, all subsequent knowledge expressed by B may be ignored. This is problematic. Not only does A ignore that the difference set of A and B's knowledge (even in D) is likely nonzero, it effectively assumes that A's knowledge is a superset of B, and that A's rate of knowledge aquisition is greater than that of B for all T. It ignores that A and B are dynamical systems. In my opinion, formation of these kinds of heuristics and being dismissive of knowledge is a sign of intellectual weakness. It's akin to internalizing knowledge to the point of belief and belief is bounding.
- dmichulke 10y ago
  Isn't this a natural response to people bullshitting you (instead of saying "I don't know") and wouldn't saying "I don't know" help very much here? Of course, what I describe is just a special case of what you describe.
- metaphor 10y ago
  >> ...all subsequent knowledge expressed by B may be ignored. Given that we're human with a finite amount of time and attention at our disposal, it strikes me as intuitively sensible that we tend towards (but never firmly settling on) this outcome, especially where instances of N >> K...a sort of "survival of the fittest" feedback loop, if you will. I think Johnny Lee's analogy framed in the context of the user experience[1] is applicable here. >> ...it effectively assumes that A's knowledge is a superset of B, and that A's rate of knowledge aquisition is greater than that of B for all T. Sounds like narcissism. Surely we can have our pragmatic feedback loop without deteriorating into such a state. [1] https://youtu.be/kuhVfuhCcG4?t=220 https://youtu.be/kuhVfuhCcG4?t=220
  - 10y ago
dmichulke 10y ago
Personally, I take special note of people who can say "I was wrong and you were right" and usually these are rare and smart and often they become very good friends of mine. Similarly, if you haven't said these words to anyone for a long time, it's likely you're not intellectually humble (or you're just always right :P )
- elcapitan 10y ago
  It's also a good negotiation strategy. Admit early on in the negotiation that you were wrong about one thing, and you'll get a commitment to admitting being wrong later on by the other side.
  - abalashov 10y ago
    Sometimes. That would be a losing bet when negotiating with the current presidential administration or its GOP allies. I'm not being flippant or scoring a cheap shot. Intransigence was the entire strategy, the core messaging of their campaign and the reason for their popularity. They don't do compromise. Any concessions are simply treated as a sign of weakness.
    - danbolt 10y ago
      American politics aside. You make an interesting point. The other party might not recognize respect or collaboration the way you do, and it's worth taking that into consideration.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      The mechanics change, but it's still a good technique. Negotiators like this often are really insecure. They're often playing some lame poker style bluff and brinksmanship strategy. If you have some insight into their insecurity, the counter is really easy. You introduce some minor "wrong", let them run and while they are busy puffing around making noise, you have an opportunity to screw them later.
    - elcapitan 10y ago
alexashka 10y ago
This is just 'wisdom' in a different wrapper. Some folks have a knack for acquiring wisdom with age - some don't. It's not a matter of articles - I'd say it's mostly a matter of personality. Some are curious and want to see how things work - others only want to know how to get that specific thing they want, come upon a stumbling block, rationalize it as 'outside of my control' and spend the rest of their days in complain-mode :) I'd say the ratio of philosopher vs complainer is maybe 50-1? If not 100-1. Either way, they're rare birds, them folks who seek wisdom it seems.
squozzer 10y ago
We should try these principles at our next job interviews and compare notes.

91 points by a-smith 10y ago

It is a key trait of good traders/investors. The stockmarket is referred to as the "great humiliator".

Whatever can be said on the matter was already neatly captured by Feynman > The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

rimliu 10y ago

What baffles me that it is still considered OK to indoctrinate children with provably false beliefs.

dkarapetyan 10y ago
That baffles you? Because of Romania's anti-vaccination movement 17 children are now dead: http://globalnews.ca/news/3345439/deadly-measles-outbreak-spreads-in-europe-as-vaccinations-fall/ http://globalnews.ca/news/3345439/deadly-measles-outbreak-sp.... At the end of the day humans are just apes.
blowski 10y ago
What's the alternative? A civil servant deciding what is allowed to be taught to children? Can you teach skepticism by saying "you're not allowed to learn this stuff over here"? Seems to me that allowing science to win out in the 'market of ideas' is the healthiest solution.
- abalashov 10y ago
  Which is fine, if science has a fighting chance in such a marketplace. But the inherent humility and uncertainty of rigourous science is often no match for snake oil and demagoguery, as we know.
  - dagw 10y ago
    Disagree very much. Church attendance all over Europe is declining at a significant rate, and even among those still attending, the number of people who truly believe is dropping. And even among those few who still truly believe the general consensus is strongly in favour of science and the scientific method. Science not only has a fighting chance, it is dominating.
    - abalashov 10y ago
      For a stark contrast, come visit the USA! :-)
      - Neliquat 10y ago
        Its down here too... just try to find a city where they havent turned many an old church into a b&b, goth disco, or yuppie homes (thanks to grandfathered zoning exemptions in residential areas). Sure southern baptists and penicostals are a bit nutty in comparison, but louder =/= more.
    - ooqr 10y ago
      Religion can still hold on to the fact that the only position you can actually arrive at by reason alone is agnosticism. Hostility toward science by religion is irrational and self-defeating, as is the converse.
- rimliu 10y ago
  Not fair competition when indoctrination is given a headstart. There is a difference between being allowed to learn this stuff and being indoctrinated since the days you are not even able to read.
  - khedoros1 10y ago
    So, should children be given to the care of the state at the earliest possible age? Or you'd rather have mass prosecution and re-education to stamp out beliefs that you dislike? In the long run, maladaptive beliefs will die out and useful ones will survive, head start or no.
    - cyborgx7 10y ago
      I don't understand. I'm not advocating for the state to stamp out beliefs I disagree with. But the believes that should win out and survive should be the correct ones, not the useful ones.
      - khedoros1 10y ago
        The person that I replied to seemed to be saying that certain beliefs should be disallowed, and that's what I was responding to. As to what should win out: Truth is a fine ideal to work towards, but one should never expect that it's what will actually win. "Should" is like "deserves". They're nice to think about, but not always realistic.
  - ooqr 10y ago
    You're digging up a philosophical morass, though. Please prove that you weren't indoctrinated. In general, it's not possible if you're assuming the possibility that people can be brainwashed to the degree of rejecting reason.
- xupybd 10y ago
  I can't agree with you more. When the state steps in to control what people are allowed to teach their children we have entered into a very very scary time. Freedom of personal belief is fundamental to all freedom. If we allow the state to dictate the beliefs taught to children we take away that freedom.
  - socialist_coder 10y ago
    Did you know that homeschooling your children is illegal in every country in the EU except for the UK (and it is very rare there)? For Americans, this is shocking (it was to me). "I can't homeschool my own children?!? That isn't freedom!" But in practice, the vast majority of homeschoolers are evangelical christians or other religious extremists. For the good of society, I would gladly take that trade. Think about this another way: in the US, homeschool parents can impart any view they want on their children. They "win by default" because there are no competing viewpoints. In the EU, parents are still free to try and impart their beliefs on their children. But in this case, they need a stronger argument than what the school is providing. They will not "win by default" like in the US. I can't see anything "unfree" about that.
    - dottedmag 10y ago
      When did Denmark, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland, Hungary and France leave the EU?
      - socialist_coder 10y ago
        Thanks for the correction. I thought it was illegal everywhere. I think my point is still valid though, especially because in many of those countries, yearly inspections are mandatory (unlike the US).
        literallycancer 10y ago
        >I think my point is still valid though, especially because in many of those countries, yearly inspections are mandatory (unlike the US). The inspections ensure that your parents can't fuck up your life. I think it's a good middle ground between allowing everything and nothing.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  I agree with your sentiments, but we are not really being fair to rimliu, who has not actually mentioned government, science or any of their competitors. So while I agree that there is no alternative better than the market-place of ideas; that's still compatible with saying its morally wrong to indoctrinate your children with falsehoods. Being sloppy about your beliefs -- i.e. just going with your gut and not questioning -- is OK when it's just yourself. But maybe you should only teach kids about the things you have considered more carefully.
- literallycancer 10y ago
  >What's the alternative? A civil servant deciding what is allowed to be taught to children? It's not an alternative, it's what happens now, and will always happen, unless there is some major disruption in education.
sametmax 10y ago
It's not as easy as regulate as stealing or murder. It's more like with freedom of speech. If you start drawing a line, you end up harming the very thing you tried to defend.
dredmorbius 10y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children
carsongross 10y ago
Can you give us some examples of provably false beliefs being taught to children?
- adrianN 10y ago
  Santa brings presents to well behaved children on Christmas.
  - nf05papsjfVbc 10y ago
    Heaven and Hell are just adult versions of this.
  - grkvlt 10y ago
    I was brought up not to believe in Santa (and apparently got into trouble at school for upsetting other children by telling them he didn't exist) and find it amazing that other parents are happy to lie to their children like this - setting a precedent that adults are not to be trusted, thus undermining lots of potentially valuable true advice. On the other hand, my family also took me to church every week, so there's that...
    - carsongross 10y ago
      Surely, the phenomenological existence of Santa can be understood by HackerNews readers, no? Santa is a spirit and exists spiritually in as much as he has an effect on this world. And so we find he has, and, therefore, does. I don't expect most HackerNews readers to agree with that argument (I am of two minds on it) but I would hope it recommends to them a bit of intellectual humility.
      - grkvlt 10y ago
        Maybe, maybe, maybe ... in the loosest, most hand-wavingly vague, almost, kind of sense, yes, IF - you s/spirit/concept/ then yes, that could be said to be true. But one could use the same argument about God, surely? In that the concept has a measurable effect on the world through the actions of believers, therefore He exists.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
This is kind of an ironic comment to a post about intellectual humility...

jph 10y ago

Intellectual humility is a key trait of great hackers and coworkers, in my experience. Google's Laszlo Bock described hiring for intellectual humility like this... "What we’ve seen is that the people who are the most successful here, who we want to hire, will have a fierce position. They’ll argue like hell. They’ll be zealots about their point of view. But then you say, ‘here’s a new fact,’ and they’ll go, ‘Oh, well, that changes things; you’re right.’ You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time."

hinkley 10y ago
I think the commonly approved shorthand for this phenomenon is: Strong opinions, loosely held.
- rntz 10y ago
  To me that sounds almost hypocritical. You should be uncertain of your beliefs, but act like you're not? What am I missing?
  - Ulti 10y ago
    No you should strongly reason and believe in your own power of reasoning, but you should never dogmatically hold on to those beliefs in the light of new evidence that contravenes your previous ideas. Essentially all scientists that are even vaguely good follow this ideal. You have to know what is opinion from fact, facts dont change but your opinion about them does. Opinion guides generation of new facts. If you dont have strong opinions then you wont have the dedication to generate new fact. Look at the more zany side of religion, its strong opinion strongly held. They aren't capable of change and generation of new ideas. But if you were forever lacking in an opinion you also wouldn't action on anything and have some kind of existential nihilism all the time.
  - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
    If I'm on the mark here, it's kind of related to being able to play devil's advocate. There are topics where the same person can decide to make a strong case for or a strong case against something, just by focusing on a different set of pros and cons, a different set of values, a different perspective, or focusing on different facts. "Belief" in this context is which of these sets of arguments you find most convincing. One can even make a strong argument for something one doesn't believe in (although I can't recommend it[1]) - I'd call this a "Strong opinion, not held". Instead assuming good faith - you and I are no oracles. Even our strongest arguments will have gaps, things we hadn't considered. Our arguments will sometimes have flaws - incorrect assumptions or other faulty basis we hadn't realized we'd made. It's the cost of being human. It's not so much certainty of belief, but being able to move forward with confidence, and argue for, the best path you can discern - yet aware that even the best of us will be wrong at least some of the time. It's about being able to recognize and turn on a dime - to course correct - when that stronger argument is made for a different path, even if you were damn sure about the one you were on not a moment before. [1] EDIT: Err, arguing only for the side you don't believe in at any rate. Arguing for both sides or explicitly playing devil's advocate if the other party seems to be arguing your own viewpoint sufficiently seems perfectly fine though.

dan-compton 10y ago

Intellectual Humility doesn't go far enough. The goal should be to reap knowledge from all sources and to disassociate the emotional and intellectual self from that knowledge set. I believe that the primary issue is the formation of heuristics about knowledge sources. e.g. Person B provides person A with knowledge of class "low-value in domain D" N times and knowledge of class "higher-value in domain D" K times in some time period T. At some time T_n A internalizes a heuristic about Person B's overall knowledge set. Depending on internal characteristics of A, all subsequent knowledge expressed by B may be ignored. This is problematic. Not only does A ignore that the difference set of A and B's knowledge (even in D) is likely nonzero, it effectively assumes that A's knowledge is a superset of B, and that A's rate of knowledge aquisition is greater than that of B for all T. It ignores that A and B are dynamical systems. In my opinion, formation of these kinds of heuristics and being dismissive of knowledge is a sign of intellectual weakness. It's akin to internalizing knowledge to the point of belief and belief is bounding.

dmichulke 10y ago
Isn't this a natural response to people bullshitting you (instead of saying "I don't know") and wouldn't saying "I don't know" help very much here? Of course, what I describe is just a special case of what you describe.
metaphor 10y ago
>> ...all subsequent knowledge expressed by B may be ignored. Given that we're human with a finite amount of time and attention at our disposal, it strikes me as intuitively sensible that we tend towards (but never firmly settling on) this outcome, especially where instances of N >> K...a sort of "survival of the fittest" feedback loop, if you will. I think Johnny Lee's analogy framed in the context of the user experience[1] is applicable here. >> ...it effectively assumes that A's knowledge is a superset of B, and that A's rate of knowledge aquisition is greater than that of B for all T. Sounds like narcissism. Surely we can have our pragmatic feedback loop without deteriorating into such a state. [1] https://youtu.be/kuhVfuhCcG4?t=220 https://youtu.be/kuhVfuhCcG4?t=220
- 10y ago

dmichulke 10y ago

Personally, I take special note of people who can say "I was wrong and you were right" and usually these are rare and smart and often they become very good friends of mine. Similarly, if you haven't said these words to anyone for a long time, it's likely you're not intellectually humble (or you're just always right :P )

elcapitan 10y ago
It's also a good negotiation strategy. Admit early on in the negotiation that you were wrong about one thing, and you'll get a commitment to admitting being wrong later on by the other side.
- abalashov 10y ago
  Sometimes. That would be a losing bet when negotiating with the current presidential administration or its GOP allies. I'm not being flippant or scoring a cheap shot. Intransigence was the entire strategy, the core messaging of their campaign and the reason for their popularity. They don't do compromise. Any concessions are simply treated as a sign of weakness.
  - danbolt 10y ago
    American politics aside. You make an interesting point. The other party might not recognize respect or collaboration the way you do, and it's worth taking that into consideration.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    The mechanics change, but it's still a good technique. Negotiators like this often are really insecure. They're often playing some lame poker style bluff and brinksmanship strategy. If you have some insight into their insecurity, the counter is really easy. You introduce some minor "wrong", let them run and while they are busy puffing around making noise, you have an opportunity to screw them later.
  - elcapitan 10y ago

alexashka 10y ago

This is just 'wisdom' in a different wrapper. Some folks have a knack for acquiring wisdom with age - some don't. It's not a matter of articles - I'd say it's mostly a matter of personality. Some are curious and want to see how things work - others only want to know how to get that specific thing they want, come upon a stumbling block, rationalize it as 'outside of my control' and spend the rest of their days in complain-mode :) I'd say the ratio of philosopher vs complainer is maybe 50-1? If not 100-1. Either way, they're rare birds, them folks who seek wisdom it seems.

squozzer 10y ago

We should try these principles at our next job interviews and compare notes.