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Just want to say that your style of argument has me in awe. It's feels close to the patronizing line, but it's obviously not. I think you just assume the best

Just want to say that your style of argument has me in awe. It's feels close to the patronizing line, but it's obviously not. I think you just assume the best from people and I really like that.

Kalium 9y ago
Thank you. I appreciate that. Mostly I assume people mean well but suggest silly things because they're ignorant. Reading Dale Carnegie taught me that you have to tell people they're right and stroke their egos a bit before you can imply that they might have the wonderful opportunity to become more right. It's honestly exhausting to implement. It's a lot of hoops to jump through to tell someone that they don't actually understand what they're talking about. However... most people do not typically respond well to being flatly told they're wrong. Explaining how and why they are wrong does not generally improve matters, as people usually stop honestly listening as soon as they hear "You're wrong". As you say, it does run the risk of coming off as patronizing. It's hard to avoid that entirely, as different people sometimes have drastically different standards.
- pathseeker 9y ago
  >As you say, it does run the risk of coming off as patronizing. It's hard to avoid that entirely, as different people sometimes have drastically different standards. Definitely. I read your post as very patronizing (even though I agree with it) because you started with "Your heart is in the right place." That's just a sugar-coated way tell a child "nice try but you're extremely naive". IMO it's better to skip telling someone they are wrong like a child and skip right to the rebuttal without including any references to the parent author (an ad-hominem).
  - Kalium 9y ago
    In the abstract, I agree with you. In practice, I've found that a lot of people react to being treated that way in the same way they might react to being slapped. This is not always the best way to further a productive conversation.
    - kungito 9y ago
      They actually taught us this in Business English class. They said we should do this when talking to people from the States which was really weird for us since most Europeans said they find it patronizing.
alew1 9y ago
I wonder if it could be done in a less grating way? I agree with the general idea of affirming the good in others' viewpoints, but I do find GP's phrasing patronizing. Why not something like: I agree, and I think there'd be a lot of developers who feel the same way (re: wanting to help, valuing freedom of access to scientific information). I wonder, though, if there's really that much we can do as developers. There are of course some vulnerabilities that can be mitigated with good code on the server, but most attacks are impossible to prevent without the resources that a company like CloudFlare can marshal. Unfortunately, the state of the art for responding to DDoS attacks requires a big network, a lot of bandwidth, and active management.
- Kalium 9y ago
  Ideally, I'd like to be able to say "Your offer is well-intended, but of little value against the kind of bandwidth-flood-type attacks CloudFlare is very valuable against. This is because the solution to that problem is servers and bandwidth, not more devs hacking things out server-side." But, obviously, I did not. What I've found is that, if you run light on the praise and ego-stroking, people often either view it as token and ignore it or skip past it entirely. It's a fishhook that lets you smuggle your actual points past defensive mechanisms. You have to set it deep before it's actually useful. And then you have to wrap your point in completely unjustified uncertainty anyway, to be sure that whoever you're interacting with doesn't feel attacked. People who feel attacked generally aren't listening to, engaging with, or learning from your points.
  - alew1 9y ago
    Makes sense! I tend to take the "wrapping your point in uncertainty" approach, without all the ego-stroking. Nothing against ego-stroking; it just seems hard to make it feel genuine enough for it to work. Most comments (mine included!) contain little enough insight that any praise more intense than "good point!" or "agreed!" or "that's totally right!" feels somewhat disingenuous.

Just want to say that your style of argument has me in awe. It's feels close to the patronizing line, but it's obviously not. I think you just assume the best from people and I really like that.

Kalium 9y ago

Thank you. I appreciate that. Mostly I assume people mean well but suggest silly things because they're ignorant. Reading Dale Carnegie taught me that you have to tell people they're right and stroke their egos a bit before you can imply that they might have the wonderful opportunity to become more right. It's honestly exhausting to implement. It's a lot of hoops to jump through to tell someone that they don't actually understand what they're talking about. However... most people do not typically respond well to being flatly told they're wrong. Explaining how and why they are wrong does not generally improve matters, as people usually stop honestly listening as soon as they hear "You're wrong". As you say, it does run the risk of coming off as patronizing. It's hard to avoid that entirely, as different people sometimes have drastically different standards.

pathseeker 9y ago
>As you say, it does run the risk of coming off as patronizing. It's hard to avoid that entirely, as different people sometimes have drastically different standards. Definitely. I read your post as very patronizing (even though I agree with it) because you started with "Your heart is in the right place." That's just a sugar-coated way tell a child "nice try but you're extremely naive". IMO it's better to skip telling someone they are wrong like a child and skip right to the rebuttal without including any references to the parent author (an ad-hominem).
- Kalium 9y ago
  In the abstract, I agree with you. In practice, I've found that a lot of people react to being treated that way in the same way they might react to being slapped. This is not always the best way to further a productive conversation.
  - kungito 9y ago
    They actually taught us this in Business English class. They said we should do this when talking to people from the States which was really weird for us since most Europeans said they find it patronizing.

alew1 9y ago

I wonder if it could be done in a less grating way? I agree with the general idea of affirming the good in others' viewpoints, but I do find GP's phrasing patronizing. Why not something like: I agree, and I think there'd be a lot of developers who feel the same way (re: wanting to help, valuing freedom of access to scientific information). I wonder, though, if there's really that much we can do as developers. There are of course some vulnerabilities that can be mitigated with good code on the server, but most attacks are impossible to prevent without the resources that a company like CloudFlare can marshal. Unfortunately, the state of the art for responding to DDoS attacks requires a big network, a lot of bandwidth, and active management.

Kalium 9y ago
Ideally, I'd like to be able to say "Your offer is well-intended, but of little value against the kind of bandwidth-flood-type attacks CloudFlare is very valuable against. This is because the solution to that problem is servers and bandwidth, not more devs hacking things out server-side." But, obviously, I did not. What I've found is that, if you run light on the praise and ego-stroking, people often either view it as token and ignore it or skip past it entirely. It's a fishhook that lets you smuggle your actual points past defensive mechanisms. You have to set it deep before it's actually useful. And then you have to wrap your point in completely unjustified uncertainty anyway, to be sure that whoever you're interacting with doesn't feel attacked. People who feel attacked generally aren't listening to, engaging with, or learning from your points.
- alew1 9y ago
  Makes sense! I tend to take the "wrapping your point in uncertainty" approach, without all the ego-stroking. Nothing against ego-stroking; it just seems hard to make it feel genuine enough for it to work. Most comments (mine included!) contain little enough insight that any praise more intense than "good point!" or "agreed!" or "that's totally right!" feels somewhat disingenuous.