8 ms·

> The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. This is excellent; usi

> The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. This is excellent; using love and persuasion to help someone improve is so much better than by force, compulsion, and fear. How many children rebel against restrictive and domineering parents? but a child who is loved and taught, but allowed to make choices and pursue independence usually ends up much healthier and happier. >I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a specific free software project do not include demographic D, I don't think that the lack of them as a problem that requires action; there is no need to scramble desperately to recruit some Ds. >Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D. This dovetails in so nicely as well. You get more bees with honey than vinegar, and it is better to make a project open, kind, mentor-friendly, and productive-- which furthers the industriousness and quality of a product. Let all come who desire to come and treat them in the spirit of kindness and co-operation, but giving no preference or overt recruitment campaigns, which in themselves could end up sidelining or diverting attention from the true aims of the project. I don't always agree with Stallman, but I think this is a magnificent and well-thought out plan and response.

ubernostrum 8y ago
So, here's the thing. Statements like this? Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D. This is not a new statement. This is what people pushing diversity have been saying for years and years. The only ways for this to be a new and refreshing thing to you are: 1. You were not paying attention, or 2. You were getting all your information from people who were doing their best to misinform you.
- nabla9 8y ago
  >2. You were getting all your information from people who were doing their best to misinform you. When there is moral panic, sensible people who advocated the issues long time are pushed aside and polarization happens.
- debacle 8y ago
  We don't need this kind of accusatory commentary on HN, I don't think.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    On the contrary, I think more often than not, people here need reminders like this. Nothing they said was wrong.
    - mcguire 8y ago
      I agree. Check out the voting patterns in this thread, or the way this thread has not been flagged the every other similar thread has.
    - hueving 8y ago
      What reminder? The OP threw out an awful no true Scotsman argument. Pro diversity programs in all of the big tech companies that specifically target diversity quotas are a blatant example.
      - ubernostrum 8y ago
        Pro diversity programs in all of the big tech companies that specifically target diversity quotas are a blatant example. Quote primary sources from "all of the big tech companies" to back this assertion. Real sources, which really say it, too, not "well I interpret this as quotas" or anything of that sort.
- levythe 8y ago
  It's everything surrounding this statement that is refreshing. Hearing, "Diversity is not our goal; creating an environment that welcomes diversity is," runs counter to the incessant assumptions that going out of our way to collect diversity tokens is the end all and be all to facilitating diversity.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    OK, let's argue the way the "anti-diversity" people normally do in these threads. You assert that advocates of diversity want people: going out of our way to collect diversity tokens You must now present, to me, and separately and individually to any other person who asks it of you, a minimum of five credible primary sources of people who advocate diversity and who have used exactly this phrasing -- no paraphrasing, no "well that's what they meant", nothing other than precisely those literal words -- in an explicit demonstrative factually-intended statement of their goals. (hint: you won't be able to, because you're in the "get all your information from people who want to misinform" camp)
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      You must now present, to me, First off, thanks for that. To think that any random stranger on the internet "must" do something for you... well, that's quality humor right there. and separately and individually to any other person who asks it of you, a minimum of five credible primary sources of people who advocate diversity and who have used exactly this phrasing My guess is that he's capable of original thought, and this might be one of his original thoughts. Not everyone builds a facade of intelligence by regurgitating quotations from other people. Because someone else hasn't posted something on the internet doesn't mean it's not a valid thought.
      - ubernostrum 8y ago
        It's depressingly common in threads about diversity issues that people assert a right to force their interlocutors to re-litigate the entire history of discrimination from first principles, impeccably sourced, on demand. Ironically, the same sorts of people also throw out unsourced assertion after unsourced assertion (see the person who replied to me stating that the BBC has jobs for black people only, and who I suspect honestly and truly believes that, despite the reply to them explaining that that would be very illegal). If it's fair for them to do that, it should be fair for me to do it, too, and for me to explicitly state that.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  The irony of unkind communication in a thread discussing new guidelines around kind communication is just painful. Please don't accuse others of not paying attention. It's not nice, and it does a bad job of communicating your message.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    The irony of unkind communication in a thread discussing new guidelines around kind communication is just painful. If I were the type of the anti-"diversity" person, my retort to this would be that you are obviously attempting to censor my free speech, by making certain types of speech out of bounds, and then assert that free speech is a good in itself -- one of the highest, if not the single highest such good -- and then rain down anger upon you for doing so. Further, I would retreat into weaponizing your own advocated guidelines against you, by asserting that you have uncharitably read things (such as accusation) into my statement when they were not present in the plain text, and then calling for you to be held accountable for the violation. Consider that that's what you are implicitly supporting when you suggest that a factual statement -- people either are not paying attention, or are being misinformed -- is unkind.
    - yebyen 8y ago
      > a factual statement -- people either are not paying attention, or are being misinformed -- is unkind. That is bluntly unkind. You've taken an opinion and phrased it as "a factual statement." The "fact" you're positing is that there are two camps, those that don't understand because they are purely ignorant, and those that don't understand because they are intentionally fed false information. (How charitable!) What was the original "factual statement" again? I don't even know, because you've told "me" that whatever my opinion is, if it disagrees with yours, then I'm in one of two camps and they're both wrong. (NB: you didn't tell me anything, I'm just trying to engage you in this thought exercise that you seem to want to have.)
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      I don't appreciate you putting words into my mouth.
- hueving 8y ago
  The fact that companies have programs targeting recruitment specifically to minorities says otherwise.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    The point of recruiting from non-traditional sources (and remember, here, in tech "non-traditional" almost means "anywhere other than exclusively the campuses of Stanford and a couple other presumed-elite universities") is to cast a wider net and try to find people who are qualified but who've been excluded due to biases in the current/historic system. This is a perfectly fair and valid thing to do, yet it's always portrayed by opponents as "tokenism", "gotta catch 'em all", etc., and then asserted to be "diversity for diversity's sake". As I originally said, such people either have not been paying attention, or have been misinformed (and are now actively spreading misinformation). This is why I challenged someone's "collect diversity tokens" assertion by telling them to source the phrase in actual claims made by companies. I know they won't be able to, but I know they also deeply and likely unshakably believe -- because they're been bombarded with the message in HN threads, and on other social media -- that that's the real goal. But for you, let's just flip the script: the unspoken principle behind your comment: The fact that companies have programs targeting recruitment specifically to minorities says otherwise. is that companies explicitly choose their recruiting pipelines and should be held responsible for the demographics which come out of those pipelines. I would agree with that principle, but I suspect you would find extreme distaste for it if it were actually to be neutrally applied. Current recruiting pipelines produce dismal demographics precisely because of who they target, and if companies were held responsible for that they'd have to make large-scale changes.
- prepend 8y ago
  What I like about this kind communication guideline is that it really makes you need to restricted your last two bullets. There are certainly other ways and the two you point out are pretty harsh on stallman saying either he’s uninformed through stupidity or through biased sources. So it makes for an awkward and,likely, nonproductive conversation because it has a basic tenant that stallman is stupid because pet doesn’t believe how you do. It’s logically not sound and emotionally charged up for a battle.
nabla9 8y ago
Agree. I'm fan of Nonviolent Communication a.k.a Collaborative Communication. NVC acknowledges that moralistic judgments and demands make communication harder, not easier. Still it's important that people should be able to communicate the feelings, needs and make requests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication
- x220 8y ago
  I love to promote this whenever I can. This method has a fantastic reward given the time it takes to learn and practice it and has made my in-person communication a lot better whenever I use it.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    I have heard about it, but always sorta wrote it of because while I can learn it, most other people wouldn't. I do wonder though, how does it work when only one side practice it? Do the user get the suckers payout?
    - komali2 8y ago
      Not really, at least for me because even if someone else "doesn't use it," you still have the satisfaction of knowing you're following your well defined value system to the letter, and there's nothing you could have done anyway without acting outside your value system. Dale Carnegie was writing about this stuff decades ago, so another way to look at it, if you really need a reason other than "feels good," is it gives you a tremendous advantage in social situations of all kinds. You're more likely to "get what you want" in the end, though that kind of thinking is not really the point imo.
    - dvdkhlng 8y ago
      No, I think it works pretty well if practiced uni-laterally. There are two sides to NVC: speaking and listening. Even if the other side in a conversation lacks motivation or skills to talk non-violently, NVC gives you a perspective to interpret the other's message in a NVC way, thereby making the conversation much less stressful and (in my experience) steering it into a more productive and less heated direction. [edited to add:] With "interpreting the other's message a NVC way" I refer to e.g. seeing the anger of somebody disagreeing with you as something caused by violated expectations and needs that can be talked about, without immedeately feeling the urge to defend oneself and feeling guilty about the situation.
claudiawerner 8y ago
On the relationship between persuasion and force from a psychoanalytical perspective, Zizek has a nice example showing in what ways persuasion can actually be more subversive: >The psychoanalytic concept that designates the short-circuit between the repression and what it represses is the superego. As Lacan emphasised again and again, the essential content of the superego’s injunction is ‘Enjoy!’ A father works hard to organise a Sunday excursion, which has to be postponed again and again. When it finally takes place, he is fed up with the whole idea and shouts at his children: ‘Now you’d better enjoy it!’ The superego works in a different way from the symbolic law. The parental figure who is simply ‘repressive’ in the mode of symbolic authority tells a child: ‘You must go to grandma’s birthday party and behave nicely, even if you are bored to death – I don’t care whether you want to, just do it!’ The superego figure, in contrast, says to the child: ‘Although you know how much grandma would like to see you, you should go to her party only if you really want to – if you don’t, you should stay at home.’ The trick performed by the superego is to seem to offer the child a free choice, when, as every child knows, he is not being given any choice at all. Worse than that, he is being given an order and told to smile at the same time. Not only: ‘You must visit your grandma, whatever you feel,’ but: ‘You must visit your grandma, and you must be glad to do it!’ The superego orders you to enjoy doing what you have to do. What happens, after all, if the child takes it that he has a genuinely free choice and says ‘no’? The parent will make him feel terrible. ‘How can you say that!’ his mother will say: ‘How can you be so cruel! What did your poor grandma do to make you not want to see her?’
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  That's assuming the child really doesn't have a choice. First of all, if I give a child a choice then I will accept the answer they give. I will try to persuade them of why it is good to go before giving them the choice, and I would express disappointment in a mature and reasonable way if they choose something that I think is counter-productive, but I wouldn't lie to a child about their choice. Children are much smarter about that than a lot of people realize. But in some things, they don't have a choice. They may _really_ want to run into the road; I'm not going to allow it. They probably don't really understand, and I've got a responsibility to protect as a parent or guardian. Where is the line? Not sure; I think that's part of the art form called parenting.
waterhouse 8y ago
>>I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a specific free software project do not include demographic D, I don't think that the lack of them as a problem that requires action; there is no need to scramble desperately to recruit some Ds. >Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D. Just as long as we're clear that demographic D being underrepresented relative to the general population is not evidence that we make demographic D feel unwelcome. Representation relative to the population of graduated CS majors or working programmers is better, but still not necessarily the right comparison. Representation relative to, say, the population of programmers who are experts in your implementation language, or who are users of the project, or the intersection of the above, might be better. Even then, that's not direct evidence that making D "unwelcome" is the specific reason. Direct evidence would probably be something like, take some online exchanges and show them to a bunch of {working programmers or some other decent approximation to the population your volunteers might come from}, and ask them a few questions about how they would react to these exchanges, how much it would discourage them from volunteering, whether things like it have discouraged them from volunteering in the past, etc., and then show that demographic D has a much worse response. By the way, has anyone done studies that showed that women respond much more negatively to harsh online exchanges than men? I have a feeling they would be called sexist if they were published, but... The closest one I can think of is Pew's online harassment study[1], which said, among other things, "Women were more likely than men to find their most recent experience with online harassment extremely or very upsetting—38% of harassed women said so of their most recent experience, compared with 17% of harassed men." http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/
- komali2 8y ago
  Such a study would be extremely difficult to interpret, given societal pressure on men to "close off" their emotions, and societal pressure on women teaching them that they are "emotional creatures." I guess if it was treated like an anthropological analysis of Western culture, sure, but as a psychological or physiological one dealing with actual brain chemistry, no way.
samirm 8y ago
> You get more bees with honey than vinegar What does this mean? Don't bees make honey? Why would you try attracting bees with honey or vinegar in the first place?
- LukeShu 8y ago
  It's usually said with "flies" rather than "bees". You catch more flies with honey than vinegar is a well-known English proverb. The literal meaning being that you have flies in your home, you will have better success catching them with honey than with vinegar. The broader meaning is that in life, you will have more success if you go about things with sweetness than with acidity. (Though I've heard that--despite the proverb--vinegar actually does work better than honey at catching fruit flies.)
  - samirm 8y ago
    Not sure why I was downvoted, but thank you.

ubernostrum 8y ago

So, here's the thing. Statements like this? Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D. This is not a new statement. This is what people pushing diversity have been saying for years and years. The only ways for this to be a new and refreshing thing to you are: 1. You were not paying attention, or 2. You were getting all your information from people who were doing their best to misinform you.

nabla9 8y ago
>2. You were getting all your information from people who were doing their best to misinform you. When there is moral panic, sensible people who advocated the issues long time are pushed aside and polarization happens.
debacle 8y ago
We don't need this kind of accusatory commentary on HN, I don't think.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  On the contrary, I think more often than not, people here need reminders like this. Nothing they said was wrong.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    I agree. Check out the voting patterns in this thread, or the way this thread has not been flagged the every other similar thread has.
  - hueving 8y ago
    What reminder? The OP threw out an awful no true Scotsman argument. Pro diversity programs in all of the big tech companies that specifically target diversity quotas are a blatant example.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      Pro diversity programs in all of the big tech companies that specifically target diversity quotas are a blatant example. Quote primary sources from "all of the big tech companies" to back this assertion. Real sources, which really say it, too, not "well I interpret this as quotas" or anything of that sort.
levythe 8y ago
It's everything surrounding this statement that is refreshing. Hearing, "Diversity is not our goal; creating an environment that welcomes diversity is," runs counter to the incessant assumptions that going out of our way to collect diversity tokens is the end all and be all to facilitating diversity.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  OK, let's argue the way the "anti-diversity" people normally do in these threads. You assert that advocates of diversity want people: going out of our way to collect diversity tokens You must now present, to me, and separately and individually to any other person who asks it of you, a minimum of five credible primary sources of people who advocate diversity and who have used exactly this phrasing -- no paraphrasing, no "well that's what they meant", nothing other than precisely those literal words -- in an explicit demonstrative factually-intended statement of their goals. (hint: you won't be able to, because you're in the "get all your information from people who want to misinform" camp)
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    You must now present, to me, First off, thanks for that. To think that any random stranger on the internet "must" do something for you... well, that's quality humor right there. and separately and individually to any other person who asks it of you, a minimum of five credible primary sources of people who advocate diversity and who have used exactly this phrasing My guess is that he's capable of original thought, and this might be one of his original thoughts. Not everyone builds a facade of intelligence by regurgitating quotations from other people. Because someone else hasn't posted something on the internet doesn't mean it's not a valid thought.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      It's depressingly common in threads about diversity issues that people assert a right to force their interlocutors to re-litigate the entire history of discrimination from first principles, impeccably sourced, on demand. Ironically, the same sorts of people also throw out unsourced assertion after unsourced assertion (see the person who replied to me stating that the BBC has jobs for black people only, and who I suspect honestly and truly believes that, despite the reply to them explaining that that would be very illegal). If it's fair for them to do that, it should be fair for me to do it, too, and for me to explicitly state that.
village-idiot 8y ago
The irony of unkind communication in a thread discussing new guidelines around kind communication is just painful. Please don't accuse others of not paying attention. It's not nice, and it does a bad job of communicating your message.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  The irony of unkind communication in a thread discussing new guidelines around kind communication is just painful. If I were the type of the anti-"diversity" person, my retort to this would be that you are obviously attempting to censor my free speech, by making certain types of speech out of bounds, and then assert that free speech is a good in itself -- one of the highest, if not the single highest such good -- and then rain down anger upon you for doing so. Further, I would retreat into weaponizing your own advocated guidelines against you, by asserting that you have uncharitably read things (such as accusation) into my statement when they were not present in the plain text, and then calling for you to be held accountable for the violation. Consider that that's what you are implicitly supporting when you suggest that a factual statement -- people either are not paying attention, or are being misinformed -- is unkind.
  - yebyen 8y ago
    > a factual statement -- people either are not paying attention, or are being misinformed -- is unkind. That is bluntly unkind. You've taken an opinion and phrased it as "a factual statement." The "fact" you're positing is that there are two camps, those that don't understand because they are purely ignorant, and those that don't understand because they are intentionally fed false information. (How charitable!) What was the original "factual statement" again? I don't even know, because you've told "me" that whatever my opinion is, if it disagrees with yours, then I'm in one of two camps and they're both wrong. (NB: you didn't tell me anything, I'm just trying to engage you in this thought exercise that you seem to want to have.)
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    I don't appreciate you putting words into my mouth.
hueving 8y ago
The fact that companies have programs targeting recruitment specifically to minorities says otherwise.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  The point of recruiting from non-traditional sources (and remember, here, in tech "non-traditional" almost means "anywhere other than exclusively the campuses of Stanford and a couple other presumed-elite universities") is to cast a wider net and try to find people who are qualified but who've been excluded due to biases in the current/historic system. This is a perfectly fair and valid thing to do, yet it's always portrayed by opponents as "tokenism", "gotta catch 'em all", etc., and then asserted to be "diversity for diversity's sake". As I originally said, such people either have not been paying attention, or have been misinformed (and are now actively spreading misinformation). This is why I challenged someone's "collect diversity tokens" assertion by telling them to source the phrase in actual claims made by companies. I know they won't be able to, but I know they also deeply and likely unshakably believe -- because they're been bombarded with the message in HN threads, and on other social media -- that that's the real goal. But for you, let's just flip the script: the unspoken principle behind your comment: The fact that companies have programs targeting recruitment specifically to minorities says otherwise. is that companies explicitly choose their recruiting pipelines and should be held responsible for the demographics which come out of those pipelines. I would agree with that principle, but I suspect you would find extreme distaste for it if it were actually to be neutrally applied. Current recruiting pipelines produce dismal demographics precisely because of who they target, and if companies were held responsible for that they'd have to make large-scale changes.
prepend 8y ago
What I like about this kind communication guideline is that it really makes you need to restricted your last two bullets. There are certainly other ways and the two you point out are pretty harsh on stallman saying either he’s uninformed through stupidity or through biased sources. So it makes for an awkward and,likely, nonproductive conversation because it has a basic tenant that stallman is stupid because pet doesn’t believe how you do. It’s logically not sound and emotionally charged up for a battle.

nabla9 8y ago

Agree. I'm fan of Nonviolent Communication a.k.a Collaborative Communication. NVC acknowledges that moralistic judgments and demands make communication harder, not easier. Still it's important that people should be able to communicate the feelings, needs and make requests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

x220 8y ago
I love to promote this whenever I can. This method has a fantastic reward given the time it takes to learn and practice it and has made my in-person communication a lot better whenever I use it.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  I have heard about it, but always sorta wrote it of because while I can learn it, most other people wouldn't. I do wonder though, how does it work when only one side practice it? Do the user get the suckers payout?
  - komali2 8y ago
    Not really, at least for me because even if someone else "doesn't use it," you still have the satisfaction of knowing you're following your well defined value system to the letter, and there's nothing you could have done anyway without acting outside your value system. Dale Carnegie was writing about this stuff decades ago, so another way to look at it, if you really need a reason other than "feels good," is it gives you a tremendous advantage in social situations of all kinds. You're more likely to "get what you want" in the end, though that kind of thinking is not really the point imo.
  - dvdkhlng 8y ago
    No, I think it works pretty well if practiced uni-laterally. There are two sides to NVC: speaking and listening. Even if the other side in a conversation lacks motivation or skills to talk non-violently, NVC gives you a perspective to interpret the other's message in a NVC way, thereby making the conversation much less stressful and (in my experience) steering it into a more productive and less heated direction. [edited to add:] With "interpreting the other's message a NVC way" I refer to e.g. seeing the anger of somebody disagreeing with you as something caused by violated expectations and needs that can be talked about, without immedeately feeling the urge to defend oneself and feeling guilty about the situation.

claudiawerner 8y ago

On the relationship between persuasion and force from a psychoanalytical perspective, Zizek has a nice example showing in what ways persuasion can actually be more subversive: >The psychoanalytic concept that designates the short-circuit between the repression and what it represses is the superego. As Lacan emphasised again and again, the essential content of the superego’s injunction is ‘Enjoy!’ A father works hard to organise a Sunday excursion, which has to be postponed again and again. When it finally takes place, he is fed up with the whole idea and shouts at his children: ‘Now you’d better enjoy it!’ The superego works in a different way from the symbolic law. The parental figure who is simply ‘repressive’ in the mode of symbolic authority tells a child: ‘You must go to grandma’s birthday party and behave nicely, even if you are bored to death – I don’t care whether you want to, just do it!’ The superego figure, in contrast, says to the child: ‘Although you know how much grandma would like to see you, you should go to her party only if you really want to – if you don’t, you should stay at home.’ The trick performed by the superego is to seem to offer the child a free choice, when, as every child knows, he is not being given any choice at all. Worse than that, he is being given an order and told to smile at the same time. Not only: ‘You must visit your grandma, whatever you feel,’ but: ‘You must visit your grandma, and you must be glad to do it!’ The superego orders you to enjoy doing what you have to do. What happens, after all, if the child takes it that he has a genuinely free choice and says ‘no’? The parent will make him feel terrible. ‘How can you say that!’ his mother will say: ‘How can you be so cruel! What did your poor grandma do to make you not want to see her?’

brobdingnagians 8y ago
That's assuming the child really doesn't have a choice. First of all, if I give a child a choice then I will accept the answer they give. I will try to persuade them of why it is good to go before giving them the choice, and I would express disappointment in a mature and reasonable way if they choose something that I think is counter-productive, but I wouldn't lie to a child about their choice. Children are much smarter about that than a lot of people realize. But in some things, they don't have a choice. They may _really_ want to run into the road; I'm not going to allow it. They probably don't really understand, and I've got a responsibility to protect as a parent or guardian. Where is the line? Not sure; I think that's part of the art form called parenting.

waterhouse 8y ago

>>I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a specific free software project do not include demographic D, I don't think that the lack of them as a problem that requires action; there is no need to scramble desperately to recruit some Ds. >Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D. Just as long as we're clear that demographic D being underrepresented relative to the general population is not evidence that we make demographic D feel unwelcome. Representation relative to the population of graduated CS majors or working programmers is better, but still not necessarily the right comparison. Representation relative to, say, the population of programmers who are experts in your implementation language, or who are users of the project, or the intersection of the above, might be better. Even then, that's not direct evidence that making D "unwelcome" is the specific reason. Direct evidence would probably be something like, take some online exchanges and show them to a bunch of {working programmers or some other decent approximation to the population your volunteers might come from}, and ask them a few questions about how they would react to these exchanges, how much it would discourage them from volunteering, whether things like it have discouraged them from volunteering in the past, etc., and then show that demographic D has a much worse response. By the way, has anyone done studies that showed that women respond much more negatively to harsh online exchanges than men? I have a feeling they would be called sexist if they were published, but... The closest one I can think of is Pew's online harassment study[1], which said, among other things, "Women were more likely than men to find their most recent experience with online harassment extremely or very upsetting—38% of harassed women said so of their most recent experience, compared with 17% of harassed men." http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/

komali2 8y ago
Such a study would be extremely difficult to interpret, given societal pressure on men to "close off" their emotions, and societal pressure on women teaching them that they are "emotional creatures." I guess if it was treated like an anthropological analysis of Western culture, sure, but as a psychological or physiological one dealing with actual brain chemistry, no way.

samirm 8y ago

> You get more bees with honey than vinegar What does this mean? Don't bees make honey? Why would you try attracting bees with honey or vinegar in the first place?

LukeShu 8y ago
It's usually said with "flies" rather than "bees". You catch more flies with honey than vinegar is a well-known English proverb. The literal meaning being that you have flies in your home, you will have better success catching them with honey than with vinegar. The broader meaning is that in life, you will have more success if you go about things with sweetness than with acidity. (Though I've heard that--despite the proverb--vinegar actually does work better than honey at catching fruit flies.)
- samirm 8y ago
  Not sure why I was downvoted, but thank you.