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(not the gp) I agree with you, ethbro, it is a valuable life lesson. I can personally attribute most of my social successes to the ability to gauge the interlo

• ethbro 7y ago
  Not in reference to the aforementioned children, because that's normal behavior for kids, but I think of active listening as not being a conversational sociopath. I'm convinced some people instead have a mantra of "When do I get to talk again?" looping in their head whenever someone else is speaking.
  • derefr 7y ago
    On the other hand, I feel like some people have internalized this idea a bit too well, and apply it in places it doesn’t belong, becoming offended (for social-norm-violation reasons) when someone gives a tangential reply in a threaded comment system like HN’s or Reddit’s, because the tangent is “derailing the conversation” or “not addressing the topic.” Except, of course, that’s impossible; a tangential reply likely won’t even be the first reply people see in the sub-thread, after they get re-sorted by vote, so the only people who will engage with it are the people who never cared about the original topic in the first place.