I am infuriated when someone starts pushing priority-preserving NULL tokens at me non-stop. It's even more infuriating when I have to do linguistic analysis ca

I am infuriated when someone starts pushing priority-preserving NULL tokens at me non-stop. It's even more infuriating when I have to do linguistic analysis calculations to reduce all those possible content-carrying strings down to to disappointing priority-preserving NULL tokens. I love priority-preserving pauses, maybe even with explicit priority-yielding tokens, but there are so many people that just take any pause in the conversation as their opportunity to seize priority and keep it, and this is what produces the culture of babblers and chatterers. Silence is a resource devoured by the tragedy of the commons. Some people need you to shut up, in order to think their own thoughts. And when they are not allowed to stop and think, they get angry and frustrated with you. So pause. Take a breath. Take another breath. When that silence starts to get uncomfortable for you, that other person is still assembling their meaningful contribution to the conversation into a sentence. Hold it just a few more seconds... aaand... let them speak.