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"We don't have social skills like most people. That's fine. Why is that a bad thing? Those people wear lack of knowledge of logic and mathematics as though it w

"We don't have social skills like most people. That's fine. Why is that a bad thing? Those people wear lack of knowledge of logic and mathematics as though it were some badge to be proud of. Which is again, fine! Just don't force me into your archetype of having social skills." Far too often, "lack of social skills" is used as an excuse for being a jerk, and refusing to think about what their words and their actions.

wolfgke 8y ago
> Far too often, "lack of social skills" is used as an excuse for being a jerk, and refusing to think about what their words and their actions. I disagree. If you have a very bad model of how something is perceived by others, you will commit blunders. And if you think in a very different way than your counterpart, you often have such a very bad model. Most people act similarly clumsily towards "engineers"/"programmers", but because they think as the majority thinks, this is not called "social inaptitude", though it is exactly the same problem (perople talking to each other who are "wired very differently").
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  And if you repeatedly commit blunders on accident, that are repeatedly called out by a majority, this whole situation has just magnified the problem by a non-trivial factor. Because you are literally telling a person 'don't do things on this list' ... Okay ... What can I do? 'oh, figure it out' Why does it not make sense that people like this have to be acutely intelligent super insanely fast? You've basically been conditioned to solve a problem that is np hard because every new person has different preferences and every old person eventually gets tired of you not adapting to them quickly enough. And honestly, the bottom line is this all may happen because of something insanely stupid - like having acne, freckles, a big nose, whatever. So you can never win with these people! And eventually you realize that and find real friends, and we all live happily ever after, just like everyone else is allowed to. The end.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    "And if you repeatedly commit blunders on accident" Once or twice is an accident. "Repeatedly" demonstrates an unwillingness to change.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > Once or twice is an accident. "Repeatedly" demonstrates an unwillingness to change. This assumes that you make the same mistake multiple times. There are so many unwritten social rules (which actually hardly anybody can consciously "put into explicit rules") that there exists a giant "potential" for social blunders without making any mistake twice.
      - s-shellfish 8y ago
        Thank you. The difference between my differences and your differences are an intellectual construct. You can't make comparisons saying someone is doing identically the same problem you have with them unless you actually literally become them identically and can then make the comparison.
    - s-shellfish 8y ago
      "Repeatedly" is from your perspective and demonstrates your need to control things without actually working those things out through proper communication. Why do you want people to change? Why is that your designation as your identity? What gives you that right? I don't have answers for you in your life because I don't know you. But throwing out general advice to people without actually having the compassion to allow them to understand just demonstrates that you have insecurities too, and are just as unwilling to work through the really really fucking hard stuff because you can't take the time to understand the way the people you direct understand things.
- flukus 8y ago
  > Most people act similarly clumsily towards "engineers"/"programmers", but because they think as the majority thinks, this is not called "social inaptitude", though it is exactly the same problem (perople talking to each other who are "wired very differently"). Even in smaller context where we are the majority it seems the onus is always on us to adapt our model to fit the greater societies, the reverse happening seems to be some unspoken heresy. How many times have we heard "programmers need to understand business needs", "programmers need to learn to talk to stakeholders" or "programmers need to understand their users" and similar? It's always a one way street, no one is telling managers how to talk to programmers, no one is telling users to think of the business data consistency. As software eats more and more of the world I wonder if their will be a tipping point where the wider world has to develop a model more like ours?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
s-shellfish 8y ago
That's not what I'm specifically talking about and that should be very clear from the words I used to describe the problem. But if you don't understand it, no problem right?

wolfgke 8y ago

> Far too often, "lack of social skills" is used as an excuse for being a jerk, and refusing to think about what their words and their actions. I disagree. If you have a very bad model of how something is perceived by others, you will commit blunders. And if you think in a very different way than your counterpart, you often have such a very bad model. Most people act similarly clumsily towards "engineers"/"programmers", but because they think as the majority thinks, this is not called "social inaptitude", though it is exactly the same problem (perople talking to each other who are "wired very differently").

s-shellfish 8y ago
And if you repeatedly commit blunders on accident, that are repeatedly called out by a majority, this whole situation has just magnified the problem by a non-trivial factor. Because you are literally telling a person 'don't do things on this list' ... Okay ... What can I do? 'oh, figure it out' Why does it not make sense that people like this have to be acutely intelligent super insanely fast? You've basically been conditioned to solve a problem that is np hard because every new person has different preferences and every old person eventually gets tired of you not adapting to them quickly enough. And honestly, the bottom line is this all may happen because of something insanely stupid - like having acne, freckles, a big nose, whatever. So you can never win with these people! And eventually you realize that and find real friends, and we all live happily ever after, just like everyone else is allowed to. The end.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "And if you repeatedly commit blunders on accident" Once or twice is an accident. "Repeatedly" demonstrates an unwillingness to change.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > Once or twice is an accident. "Repeatedly" demonstrates an unwillingness to change. This assumes that you make the same mistake multiple times. There are so many unwritten social rules (which actually hardly anybody can consciously "put into explicit rules") that there exists a giant "potential" for social blunders without making any mistake twice.
    - s-shellfish 8y ago
      Thank you. The difference between my differences and your differences are an intellectual construct. You can't make comparisons saying someone is doing identically the same problem you have with them unless you actually literally become them identically and can then make the comparison.
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    "Repeatedly" is from your perspective and demonstrates your need to control things without actually working those things out through proper communication. Why do you want people to change? Why is that your designation as your identity? What gives you that right? I don't have answers for you in your life because I don't know you. But throwing out general advice to people without actually having the compassion to allow them to understand just demonstrates that you have insecurities too, and are just as unwilling to work through the really really fucking hard stuff because you can't take the time to understand the way the people you direct understand things.
flukus 8y ago
> Most people act similarly clumsily towards "engineers"/"programmers", but because they think as the majority thinks, this is not called "social inaptitude", though it is exactly the same problem (perople talking to each other who are "wired very differently"). Even in smaller context where we are the majority it seems the onus is always on us to adapt our model to fit the greater societies, the reverse happening seems to be some unspoken heresy. How many times have we heard "programmers need to understand business needs", "programmers need to learn to talk to stakeholders" or "programmers need to understand their users" and similar? It's always a one way street, no one is telling managers how to talk to programmers, no one is telling users to think of the business data consistency. As software eats more and more of the world I wonder if their will be a tipping point where the wider world has to develop a model more like ours?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

s-shellfish 8y ago

That's not what I'm specifically talking about and that should be very clear from the words I used to describe the problem. But if you don't understand it, no problem right?