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It’s Not Enough to Be Right – You Also Have to Be Kind
- mcphage 7y ago> If you can’t be kind, if you won’t empathize, then you’re not on the team. And there are people like that out there, too, making decisions that affect us all. How do you treat people who demand you see their humanity, but refuse to see yours? Who, when they see our government hurting people, react with “they’re not hurting the people I wanted them to hurt!”?
- zozbot234 7y ago> How do you treat people who demand you see their humanity, but refuse to see yours? Call their bluff. Being that unempathetic while demanding empathy from others is a lot worse than just neglecting kindness altogether.
- mcphage 7y ago> Call their bluff. What do you think they’re bluffing about?
- irrespective 7y agoMuch of the so-called 'hacker ethos' can be basically boiled down to 'you may be as much of a dick as you want as long as you're technically correct'.
- dang 7y agoThat's not the sense in which we use that term here. The guiding value is curiosity, and people are asked to "Be kind." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- irrespective 7y agoI'm using the word as it's been touted by notorious old school 'hackers' like esr or rms. The infamous guide for asking questions [0] by esr is the archetypal embodiment of this spirit: it's not that the advice in it isn't useful (it certainly is), it's just that esr comes off as a condescending dick when you read it. (This initial impression can be easily confirmed when you dig futher into the man's other writing and beliefs.) As for HN and the way it uses the word 'hacker', I will remain noncommital. I certainly acknowledge that the definition as it's currently employed on the guidelines has shifted since the 1970s, but whether it has actually achieved the kindess expected of it is left as an exercise for the reader. [0] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
- zozbot234 7y ago> it's just that esr comes off as a condescending dick when you read it. That guide doesn't feel all that condescending, from reading it. Of course any guide to "asking smart questions" is going to be somewhat contentious, simply because it's very title implies that it's possible to ask stupid questions, and that people should strive to change their behavior around this. But it seems rather shallow to take issue with such claims.
- dchichkov 7y agoThat guide recommends to be kind: How To Answer Questions in a Helpful Way Be gentle. Problem-related stress can make people seem rude or stupid even when they're not. Reply to a first offender off-line. There is no need of public humiliation for someone who may have made an honest mistake. A real newbie may not know how to search archives or where the FAQ is stored or posted. ... And in a sense, "Ask Questions The Smart Way" is also an exercise in precise (and non-offensive, respectful to other people`s time and kind communication).
- irrespective 7y agoI don't care what it does recommend, the general impression from reading this Proust-long wall of text is that esr is kind of an ass. The intent of a message is only vaguely related to its content which is only vaguely related to the effect it has on its recipient. I can only speculate what esr's intent were, I get the abstract message 'be gentle', but the general impression is that everything screams 'if you toe out of line people are right to be rude to you even if I said they shouldn't'. You can fool people with words but the general vibe of a text can't help but transpire.
- sedeki 7y agoWell, do you consider people you know soley on the internet, friends?
- AgentME 7y agoPersonally, I started making a lot more friends (and an SO!) on the internet when I finally started moving past the "I can be a dick if I'm right, being right matters, being nice is a distraction" mentality. And I think this makes me better, not worse, at communicating the things I think I'm right about.
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoIt's even encouraged to be a overly direct, because being nice is just a waste of precious brain cycles. Perhaps my favourite example is that it's forbidden to thank people on Stack Overflow :-/
- dmos62 7y agoVote up is the thanks gesture in SO. High-traffic forums moderate "thanks" messages because it increases information density, making the content easier to digest. Imagine an SO comment section with 300 thanks messages and you're looking for that one comment with relevant information.
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoI was talking about adding "thanks" in the question, not comments (which wasn't obvious from my previous post I guess).
- sedeki 7y agoYou can be direct and nice at the same time. You’re saying that nice always implies extra, redundant chatter. I don’t consider the SO culture a relevant counter-example. Like, why does a gamified forum hurt your feelings?
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoI don't consider saying "thanks" when asking a question to random strangers as "redundant chatter".
- sedeki 7y agoI agree. I think you misread what I wrote. If we are talking specifically about SO, just realize that it is a gamified forum where comments like ”thanks” is specifically discouraged. On most places it’s not.
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- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- fargle 7y agoNonsense. The hacker ethos is to tinker and learn and there is a very high degree of regard for technical competence. Conversely, incompetence, laziness, especially blatantly so, especially publically is the biggest dick move there is. Wasting other people's metal energy is not nice. In hacker ethos, you are appreciated for doing your homework and being right; that is very nice. You are a dick when you are lazy, wrong, or wasting people's time and energy.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoInteresting that the only discussion of autism in the article is a tangential mention of those who believe in a connection to vaccines. What is to happen to people who are not neurotypical in this brave new world of be nice or be exiled?
- kstenerud 7y agoWe're doing just fine, thanks. Autism doesn't cause a lack of empathy. We're perfectly capable of seeing things from other peoples' perspectives. It's just that certain viewpoints/mindsets are aggravating from an aesthetic standpoint, which is why many don't learn to tolerate them.
- shantly 7y agoI love this notion of others’ viewpoints or selves as aesthetic objects and will definitely, in one form or another and for one purpose or another, be stealing it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- potta_coffee 7y agoI don't think you should be speaking for everyone who is not neurotypical, please.
- bigj0n 7y agoThis is highly contextual. One community I find myself going to on occasion is the archlinux IRC channel. Manners are very much not their highest priority. While they dont go out of their way to be mean, they dont really do it to be kind either. But the result is a channel that is a very effective means of support when the documentation or wiki doesnt have what you need. Communication is a game of compromise. Sometimes it makes sense to compromise on clarity or brevity to be nice. But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. The author mentioned Bezos' grandmother being hurt when he mentioned she smoked away 9 years of her life. Is it really Bezos' manners that hurt her feelings? I would imagine that that realization hits hard and does damage on it's own. I think it would be very hard to get that message hard without it hurting. You can attempt to veil the message and lessen the impact, or distract from it somehow- but now you've impacted the integrity of the message.
- calcifer 7y ago> But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. That's begging the question. You take it is a given that when solving a problem clarity and kindness are mutually exclusive, but you've provided no evidence to support that.
- zozbot234 7y agoWhat if that problem is "convince your grandma to quit smoking"? It seems that telling grandma she's been smoking away 9 years of her life is somehow "unkind", and yet we all do very similar things as a society, such as putting disgusting images on grandma's cigarette packages, with clear warnings that smoking is a very serious health hazard - and very few people seem to take issue with this or find it unkind.
- irrespective 7y agoFine. Both are bad. What's your point?
- semiotagonal 7y agoI think what matters more than kindness is simply allowing others to save face. If being wrong incurs a social cost, than any disagreement is going to become more heated, which may be detrimental to the community where this is happening. Of course, sometimes it makes sense to impose a social cost for being wrong, but that's different from raising the stakes of every disagreement unintentionally.
- dmos62 7y agoA book on Nonviolent Communication helped me a lot with conflicts. When studying it, one of the first things you learn that's really useful is how to not evoke defensiveness (or aggression) in the other party. A whole realm of new possibilities opens up; sometimes you have trouble believing you're talking to the same person.
- 1996 7y agoYes, but I know too much about saving face, and I don't like how it's growing in the west. About costs for being wrong, last time I quoted a RFC about a topic I know well and said to someone that their information was outdated, I ended up downvoted as usual - even more in the reply, while providing a link to the RFC and even apologizing for insisting that the right information should be spread because how important it is - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21430096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21430096 In the end, I decided to stop caring. Now I stick to being factual. If I hurt someone sentiments and do not allow them to save face, so be it. Let the objective truth decide, social consequences (like karma) be damned.
- Carpetsmoker 7y agoInteresting related article: https://archive.is/mxE4p https://archive.is/mxE4p (original seems down at the moment)
- stakhanov 7y agoRe "You can be an asshole, as long as you're right": While there are individuals who think that, I don't think it's true to say that society as a whole has adopted that viewpoint. There are also individuals who act on the opposite principle: "If you can claim hurt feelings, you've automatically won the debate." This goes so far, that arguments often get to a point where one person dares another to hurt their feelings so that they can have an easy win. Like "A: Vaccines are safe, and not vaccinating your children exposes them to health risks. B: Well, I don't vaccinate MY children. Are you saying I'm a bad mother? [A: Well yes, kind of.]" Also, I think that this opposite principle is exactly the principle that has lead to where we are as a society regarding the ridiculousness of political correctness. The thing is: Cognitive dissonance reduction always trumps rationality as a mechanism whereby people form beliefs. So, the theoretical ideal would be to make a rational persuasive argument that somehow steers clear of creating cognitive dissonance in anybody (neither people on the same side, nor people on the other side of the debate). But I also think that the article is right in asserting that, in today's world, there is just no room for lengthy and nuanced argument. They just don't get any airtime when all the media that matter, like social media and word-of-mouth are based on resonance, and attention spans of average people are fast approaching infinitesimal dimensions. ...so I really don't know where that leaves us as a society. I don't really see a way out to be honest.
- JasonFruit 7y agoYou point is generally good, but I don't see it as a contradiction to the article. There's nothing inconsistent in saying, "You should be considerate in your manner of communication," while at the same time saying, "When you are criticized or contradicted, try not to take offense." The two guidelines are compatible.
- stakhanov 7y agoI agree. The advice is sound. I wasn't taking issue with the advice, only with the premise that society as a whole has adopted the standard "You can be an asshole, as long as you're right." Maybe, phrasing it more positively, I would add to the advice. (1) Try not to be an asshole, as you're winning an argument. (2) Don't try to win an argument by demonstrating that your opponent is an asshole. Some people tend to foget about (1). Others tend to forget about (2).
- jes 7y agoI think it's important to practice the ability to evoke compassion for all living things.
- kstenerud 7y agoI think a large part of this involves personal insecurities. I remember saying truthful things in very shitty ways during my younger years. But I also had a lot to prove, having just started out in life as an adult. Somehow as I grew older (starting in my mid-30s I suppose), I became more and more aware of how I was affecting other people with my choice of words, and I had less and less reasons to "defeat" people in conversation. When victory is no longer the objective in a discussion, you tend relax, and can choose your words more carefully.
- beefhash 7y ago> Somehow as I grew older (starting in my mid-30s I suppose), I became more and more aware of how I was affecting other people with my choice of words, and I had less and less reasons to "defeat" people in conversation. When victory is no longer the objective in a discussion, you tend relax, and can choose your words more carefully. Without trying to invalidate what it is you're saying: Would it be false to say that, you have also realized that how you say things will have consequences on your personal reputation and may be subconsciously taking them into consideration as well?
- adjkant 7y agoNot OP but 100% no for me. The difference here really is motivational difference of empathy vs selfishness. I think if you've learned the latter there's still much to be gained, even if the actions in this specific case are the same.
- kstenerud 7y agoMost definitely this would be a part of it, but only when dealing with people with whom you'll have recurring interactions, or within your tribe (where word gets around). Online this tends to disappear (at least to our perception). When there's no face-to-face interaction, we seem to lose that reputation instinct rather quickly...
- brudgers 7y agoThere’s nothing wrong with being known as the type of person you want to be. It’s a side effect of being a version of you that you like. Of being able to live with yourself.
- dfilppi 7y agoThat was the secret to Steve Jobs success.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoIn corporate culture I have found this advice to unfortunately be very ineffective. Delivering critical feedback or trying to lobby to convince others of a course of action very often requires dispensing with pleasantries and bullshit and just get it out in the open. It can cost you big time if you try to spare feelings or water down the case you’re making for kindness. I mean, it can be the difference between having to fire someone or not, or getting resources so people don’t burn out. Or getting someone to stop wasting your team’s time while you’re on a critical project.
- LaserToy 7y agoI wonder why the author used Bezos as an example. It doesn’t look like he took his grandfather’s lesson to the heart.
- username90 7y agoAnd it doesn't look like it hurt his career much either. It seems that in many cases it is more important to be a bit more right than it is to be a bit more nice.
- sullyj3 7y agoMany people base their decisions on whether to emulate someone on more than the success of that person's career.
- WillDaSilva 7y ago>After spending years and millions of words and hours of video on this, we’ve had almost zero success. Why? Because you can’t reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into. No one responds well to having their identity attacked. No argument made in bad faith—that the person on the other side is a moron or a dupe or a racist or a snowflake—is ever going to be received in good faith. Unfortunately it seems that even compassionate arguments made in good faith are ineffective for most people. As the author states: "you can’t reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into", and most people don't reason themselves into the positions they believe.
- Udik 7y agoTrue, I've been trying to be polite and respectful and subtle at least in online conversations (I am far too emotional to do it effectively in real life, which is a big handicap). And I am not getting much results anyway. But maybe the problem is also that we expect immediate satisfaction: we want the other person convinced there and then, in the course of one exchange. Probably we should accept the fact that without inciting polarization, and being open to being convinced as well as convincing, eventually we'll contribute in changing some opinions, or we'll change ours. It will take time and we won't be there to witness the "flip", the moment when the other suddenly starts seeing our point of view. Ideas don't change during a heated confrontation; they change at random times, sometimes when we're alone and maybe thinking about something else.
- chrisweekly 7y agoDefault: subjective wrt self, objective wrt others. Ideal: objective wrt self, subjective wrt others.
- Scapeghost 7y agoRecently I was berated on a forum for my "overuse" of "please" and "thanks" when talking to someone who represented a company. The angry person argued we shouldn't be so "submissive" and are perfectly in our right to be demanding etc My response: "It took me less time and effort to type please than it took you to get angry and write all this about it."
- bilbo0s 7y agoWhat fascinates me about it is the psychology of it all. That guy had nothing to gain, nor anything to lose, in your interaction with the other party. So why was he willing to invest so much clearly emotional energy into it? It's almost like he wanted to have the aggressive interaction simply for aggression's sake. Like he needed to feed on the aggressive emotions or something? There just doesn't really seem to be any sense in this whole thing?
- FeepingCreature 7y agoNah, it's signaling. Being nice, to the angry person, undermined the social cohesion of the people asking for change from the company and marked the person being nice as a potential weak link that the company could placate to divide and conquer the opposition.
- Scapeghost 7y agoThat's pretty much it. They wanted a mob. Not getting a mob means everyone goes home, bored, probably alone, and doesn't get to participate in making changes.
- heavyset_go 7y agoThere's a certain type of person who sees niceness or agreeability as weaknesses, and not strategies for cohesion.
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- brm 7y agoYou don't have to be kind. You just shouldn't be unkind.
- kd3 7y agoPersuasion is mind manipulation. Facts and truth should be stated as plainly and objectively as possible. It is up to each person how they decide to handle it. Being kind is highly subjective and a slippery slope.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoThis is entirely goal specific. Your position is fine when you don't need to build consensus.
- 0-_-0 7y agoAlthough not being offensive is an important skill, not being offended is an important skill as well.
- wffurr 7y agoWhen you are communicating to someone, you only control one of those.
- username90 7y agoAnd when you are listening to someone, you control the other. In a dialogue, both parts has to do a bit of both. Getting offended is basically never a good thing because it stops you from hearing their message. Similarly offending others is basically never a good thing because it stops them from hearing your message. So the best way to communicate is to be liberal with what you accept and strict with what you send out. Also called the robustness principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
- cobbzilla 7y agoWhat happens when you are actively trying not to be offensive, trying to empathize and be nice, and yet the other person takes offense? Do you really have control of anything?
- jmcqk6 7y agoYou always have control over your own actions, including your reaction when someone takes offence to something you say or do. I've found that if someone is offended, if you react with openness and a willingness to listen to what they are saying, then the outcome will likely be positive. If you are more concerned with defending yourself than listening to the other person, then it's likely the outcome is going to be negative. This isn't rocket science. The problem is that people tend to react defensively. The only utility in such a reaction is a protection of your own ego. The irony is that in attempting to protect your own ego, you just end up making the situation worse, including for yourself. Listening is a superpower.
- air7 7y agoThis topic is something I think about a lot. While I am generally for kindness and empathy, there is something dangerously patronizing about this point of view. Quote: > If you can’t be kind, if you won’t empathize, then you’re not on the team. That team is Team Humanity, where we are all in this thing together. Where we are all flawed and imperfect. Where we treat other people’s point of view as charitably as we treat our own. Where we are civilized and respectful and, above all, kind to each other—particularly the less fortunate, the mistaken, and the afraid. That bit at the end is the crux of the matter: Instead of having an honest, fact based (yet perhaps heated) discussion, it purports a "civilized and respectful" treatment because the other side is to be seen as "less fortunate, the mistaken, and the afraid". This is hiding an assumption of superiority towards the other side. They are flawed and imperfect due to their unfortunate circumstances so we have to nobly accept them as such and be tolerant about their points-of-view. This to me seems like a worse, more insidious form of bigotry: Instead of have a leveled argument, where you risk hurting the other side by calling them out for being wrong (or dumb) but also allow them to answer back (and perhaps discovering you are wrong or dumb), you deem them 2nd class, in need of special attention and care. Too fragile/delicate/uneducated to be able to handle a direct response one would give to someone they see as "on their level" or above. Of course context matters and no sweeping generalizations can be made, but (as per the example in the article) making your grandma cry by articulating her self-inflicted harm due to smoking is, imo, much kinder and empathic than being "understanding" and keep quite maintaining her short-term good mood.
- s1artibartfast 7y ago>Of course context matters and no sweeping generalizations can be made, but (as per the example in the article) making your grandma cry by articulating her self-inflicted harm due to smoking is, imo, much kinder and empathic than being "understanding" and keep quite maintaining her short-term good mood. That is only true if you believe making the grandma cry is in some way productive or helpful. If not, it is simply cruel. That said, I think this example isn't the best for the article's message.
- jmull 7y agoIf you're getting decent at being kind and empathizing, you naturally won't end up being patronizing. Being patronizing is a lack of empathy: you're not understanding the others point of view. And, of course, it's insulting, which is unkind. In terms of promoting kindness, I wouldn't worry much about that. If you're trying to be kind but end of patronizing, you probably just need some more practice. Anyway, there's definitely a difference between coddling and being kind while telling the truth. It's not necessarily easy to find, especially since it often depends heavily on the other person's perspective (hence all the talk of empathy). > ...making your grandma cry by articulating her self-inflicted harm due to smoking is, imo, much kinder and empathic than being "understanding" and keep quite maintaining her short-term good mood. I don't think that's true. I suppose you're thinking that confronting Grandma with the facts will help her quit. However, it's likely she knows those facts, yet has been unable to quit anyway (hence the bursting into tears -- you're reminding her of her failure, her accelerated mortality, and the associated anxiety and feelings about failure). So you aren't helping by providing her with facts she already has. You're only making your Grandma miserable. A better approach to helping your grandma might be to encourage her about cessation treatments and focus on what she has to gain (not what she's already lost).
- young_unixer 7y agoIn my opinion: Being right and nice is better than being right and mean. Being right and mean is better than being wrong and nice. Being wrong and nice is better than being wrong and mean.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoWhere would you place saying nothing in your hierarchy. I think that saying nothing is better than being right and mean, because being right and mean is usually counter productive and reinforces the wong belief. Humans are simply wired to use aggression as overriding evidence of the person being wrong. If your goal is to change minds, it just doesn't work.
- username90 7y ago> Humans are simply wired to use aggression as overriding evidence of the person being wrong. This is not always true, many mathematicians and physicists can be mean when they argue but they still listen to each other and acknowledge when they are wrong.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoI agree that there are fringe cases where individuals can separate emotional reactions from factual arguments. I would argue that it is the exception to the norm, and there is usually an implicit understanding of mutual respect
- sandov 7y agoIt depends on how much you have to win or lose. If you win practically nothing by telling the truth, saying nothing is better. If saying nothing means that people will treat you or others unfairly, then I would say that being mean and right is better than saying nothing. The problem with this is that one can never really know when one is right. This is just my ethical judgement though, not a practical guide to convince people. Maybe being mean is never convenient, or maybe it's convenient but unethical(?).
- neilobremski 7y agoMy wife and I have been talking a lot about giving license to make mistakes and that means letting others do what they're going to do without mocking them for it. Be ready to help them with the "right" way if they fail but also for a pleasant surprise if it works out. As a lead at work, I often hear solutions I doubt will pan out and sometimes I can't help myself correct things. But this "fixing" is actually creating long-term problems and undermining responsibility and ownership. Anyway, this is what I thought of about halfway through the article when it veered off into contemporary politics.
- rmellow 7y agoI'm a "less fortunate, mistaken, and afraid" immigrant living in Canada. It would feel so refreshing to get the truth straight sometimes, instead of the oh-so-subtle and gentle ways Canadians have of dealing with clashing cultural behaviours. The end result is I don't know what I'm doing wrong until years later, because so many think the right thing to do is coddle me. Many of us want to adapt, and if we don't have access to the ground truth, it's a painfully slow process that is simply holding us back from fully integrating into society. Canadians: I love you guys, but please give it to us straight.
- sharkbot 7y agoAs a Canadian who lived outside the country for a few years, I would say that most Canadians* are ignorant of the unwritten rules that underpin our culture, just due to the fact it’s hard to see the arbitrary choices that lead to our current society without deeply experiencing another. It’s not malicious, it’s misunderstanding. Ask for feedback on your perceived missteps (prefer “what” and “how” questions), and you’ll likely get answers. I also believe that it will lead to a learning opportunity for both parties. * I would add that you could replace “Canadian” with any identity that has any sense of isolation.
- pshc 7y agoThis resonates. As a nerdy adolescent in BC, I couldn't understand why I sometimes felt gaslit and confused after seemingly polite exchanges. Moving to east coast USA fixed it--I'll take candor and tough love over passive aggression any day. I recognize it's not for everyone, but this worked for me.
- pseudoramble 7y agoThis is an interesting point-of-view to me because I've lived on the east coast of the USA my entire life, roughly split between two places. Between that and the changes that come with aging, I have mixed feelings about this point that I don't fully understand myself. I'll try and explain anyway though. I like the intent delivered clearly over roundabout ways of getting there. It can weaken the meaning otherwise to not try and be more direct. So clear intent is good. And of course I dislike are when people either make criticism personal, but I think most people feel that way. What I dislike the most are when people drop their criticism off for you and let you deal with it. It's weird to not have any room for questions. It's hard to work with that and improve on the criticism without being able to discuss it. I also think I find it jarring how few people express any sort of self-doubt either, or room for the possibility that they may be misunderstanding something causing their criticism. The interesting thing is that sometimes people are willing to help out, but they won't directly say they are, or even drop a subtle hint that they are. If you sort of go in head-first and just ask the dumb questions you may find they're very helpful. But that lack-of clarity is bothering to me.
- unboogyman 7y agoYou will rarely change a person's mind, and never right away, but you can do a lot to start their journey towards seeing things different (assuming you're right) by having them realize that people on "the other side" are decent, well-intentioned, rational people too.
- goatherders 7y agoI deleted Twitter last week because I found myself working harder to be clever and cruel instead kind. Social media is everyone screaming and very few listening. In fact, those with the loudest voices (politicians, entertainers) listen least. I haven't missed it at all.
- oconnor663 7y agoIt also consistently amplifies the angriest and least reasonable voices from the other side, so you don't get to spend any time listening to folks who could actually teach you something new.
- droithomme 7y agoMostly everyone pushing kindness these days are sadistic manipulative bullies promoting an agenda. They gang up with others of their kind to destroy the lives of those who have displeased them or questioned their agenda. Kindness is overrated. Not being a sadistic manipulative bully? Now that is a great thing to advocate for.
- tunesmith 7y agoPeople have got to stop using the term "political correctness" to mean two entirely different things. There's a Venn diagram of free speech and respect. It's entirely possible to have both. Some people rightly criticize PC when it's about inhibiting free speech. But other people wrongly criticize PC when they just want to speak disrespectfully.
- paulpauper 7y agogood points but does come across as patronizing at time.s it's like "pity those unreasonable people and their positions they didn't reason themselves into. "
- cryptica 7y agoI think people should not try to be kind. They should just be themselves. Criticism is good and useful and should be delivered in the most direct way possible. People should just toughen up. It's unbelievable to think that 80 years ago, people were killing each other with guns and bombs but today's people get offended if someone doesn't press the 'like' button on their Facebook photos. We are too weak; that's the real problem. Being weak is bad. Political correctness poses a threat to our freedom of speech. I can't stand this dystopian corporate rhetoric that 'being nice' and 'feeling safe' are important. They are not. Both of these things make us weaker.
- TomMarius 7y agoI think you misunderstand the word kind. You can be kind and constructively critical at the same time, and being kind enhances the result of the criticism. I wouldn't bring shooting people into this at all.
- Pimpus 7y agoI agree with you. I try to be nice, but acting out my will , and God's will, with authenticity is a higher priority. I am increasingly aware, as I become more "myself", that people are offended and intimidated by my mere participation in the world. I respect moral boundaries, not social ones. Some people appreciate it more than others.
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- username90 7y agoIf we accept the premise that you don't listen to messages that are too mean, then there are two aspects to it: The nicer you state your messages the more people will listen to you. The meaner messages you can stomach the more information is accessible to you. So we'd expect those who demand others to be nice to be less well informed than those who can tolerate mean communication. For example, a person who thinks their math teacher is mean when the teacher corrects them will probably never become great at math. I believe that this is an aspect of communication we need to talk way more about, since large parts of the population are currently handicapped like this. I'm not sure if it is genetic, but if it can be taught then we ought to tell our kids to listen to everyone and not just what feels comfortable. Fill your kids heads with statements like "It was a bit mean, but he is right, you should really try to do FOO". People often have good reasons for being mean, they could be tired, hungry, depressed or just spoke without thinking, those are really bad reasons for not listening if the actual message is sound.
- WalterBright 7y agoI've received many unkind messages that I needed to hear, and was made better off.
- tunesmith 7y agoIt's possible that every single one of those messages you needed to hear could also have been said kindly.
- WalterBright 7y agoAbsolutely. But I was better off hearing it unkindly than not hearing it at all. Also, and unkind message might jolt me into taking it more seriously.
- tunesmith 7y agoYeah, I get curious about the latter. I get it, those jolts appear to help sometimes, but ideally we'd treat it with the seriousness it deserves whether it was presented kindly or unkindly.
- mfringel 7y agoBeing needlessly blunt is like throwing a grenade with a message attached. You can tell it's delivered when you hear the KABOOM, but you can't guarantee anything else. In my experience, being kind has the advantage of reducing the probability of side-effects. There are typically no bonus points awarded for causing someone to get defensive, when your only goal was to correct their mistake.
- baked_ziti 7y agoOn the other hand, the inability to be blunt is a serious deficiency and indicates you're sacrificing honesty somewhere.
- lugg 7y agoThere is a middle ground. You can err toward honesty but still remove hostility.
- baked_ziti 7y agoI totally agree. I actually find this whole discussion encouraging because it indicates to me that people are trying to find that middle ground by talking the whole thing out.
- watwut 7y agoKABOOM, blunt and mean messages sacrifice honesty too. They intentionally downplay positives and exaggerate wrongs for effect. Like, most of what is expressed as kaboom is not straightforward telling truth at all. Extremely common way to be dishonest are jokes/mockery that imply things that are not entirely true, the expletives that imply more bad that actually is and such. These are as dishonest as sugarcoating if not more.
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- PhasmaFelis 7y agoThis is an important message, and I don't want to distract from it, but there's some brutal irony in being lectured about the important of kindness by Jeff Bezos. Amazon is the home of "Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk" and fires pregnant women for taking too many bathroom breaks. Come to think, this is actually a pretty good example of the importance of framing your message properly if you want to be heard. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-... https://www.cnet.com/features/amazon-fired-these-7-pregnant-workers-then-came-the-lawsuits/ https://www.cnet.com/features/amazon-fired-these-7-pregnant-...
- proc0 7y agoThe problem with empathy is that it doesn't scale, and in fact at scale it is more harmful than helpful. Basing your decisions on a few instances of a problem (because those images were so powerful cries) might not work when the problem has to do with millions of people across multiple countries. The Universe just doesn't care about how you feel. It is what it is. Letting people's personality traits and/or flaws get in the way of objective truths is just dumb. One exists regardless of the other.
- didericis 7y agoI think there’s a hybrid approach. You’re right; you can’t take in the experiences of the entire world and feel as they all feel. It’s impossible. But I do think it’s roughly possible to scale up a desire to listen to your effects. When you see a stadium of people reacting, for example, you can find one guy that’s cheering and have him act as a sort of avatar for the section of the crowd that is happy. You can find a guy that’s booing and view him as an avatar for the section of the crowd that is not. You can find a guy that’s apathetic and view him as an avatar for the section of the crowd that is apathetic. So on and so forth. People are combinations of many different characteristics, so you cannot separate them into those types of avatars with perfect fidelity. But you can get close. Then you can attempt to empathize with those abstract representations of people, with the knowledge that it’s rough, and that you must pair your empathy with a very rational, calculating look at whether or not the avatars you are constructing are reasonable representatives of the people underlying them. But I definitely agree that empathy shouldn’t get in the way of truth regardless of how you employ it, and find some of the talk around this sort of thing worrisome.
- anotherevan 7y ago“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel Words I am always reminded of whenever I try to be too clever on the internet.
- austincheney 7y agoThis title and article strike me as an incredibly naive and possibly immature perspective. When your goal is to neither prove a point or be kind there is nothing left but the clearest intent of the message.
- wenc 7y agoMaybe it's possible to do both? I've always been told to always "address the ideas, not the person" (never attack someone's character) and to adopt a pose of "curiosity". In discourse, it's perfectly fine to dispute ideas (it's the foundation of Western civilization and of analytical thought, and is a means to knowledge and wisdom). If we cannot argue in a marketplace of ideas, we are prevented from having hard but necessary conversations. We need to adhere to parameters of civility of course, but to me, a necessary freedom is the freedom to disagree/dispute. Some ideas are truly wrong and they need to be put through the crucible.
- akman 7y ago>Maybe it's possible to do both? I agree, and I think that's part of Ryan Holiday's thesis. That also happens to be the message in the book Crucial Conversations.
- mahathu 7y agoAs German philosopher and scholar Hans Peter Baxxter once famously proclaimed: "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."
- drewcoo 7y agoYet the example of Rogan being "kind" involves forming up two "teams" and telling people if they don't perceive something like Joe does "they're on the wrong team." This sort of kindness seems to be emotional manipulation, which he confuses with empathy. Yes, that works, but it certainly doesn't fit my definition of kind.
- t-h-e-chief 7y agoThanks for posting this. It needs to be spammed into most of the world's email boxes. So tired of people trolling other people just because they are right.
- perl4ever 7y agoThere are two kinds of criticism, the kind that is a rejection of you and your ability, and the kind that implies you should be able to do better, that the person criticizing knows you can do better, which is implicitly a compliment. The former type can be expressed very politely, and still hurt infinitely worse than the latter expressed most harshly.
- yowlingcat 7y ago"If you can't be kind, if you won't empathize, then you're not on the team. That team is Team Humanity, where we are all in this thing together. Where we are all flawed and imperfect. Where we treat other people's point of view as charitably as we treat our own. Where we are civilized and respectful and, above all, kind to each other - particularly the less fortunate, the mistaken, and the afraid." Flawed conclusion. I really dislike when people think of empathy as this strange, bland, chore-like sort of service. In reality, it seems artistic to me. You are putting yourself into a completely different world. Have some fun with it! Engage in some creativity! Plenty of people are horrific to others and yet kind to those within their tribe. Plenty more people hurt members of their own tribe - clumsily, by mistake. Kindness won't get you out of your own head, or out of your own way. It's not enough to just respect the things that exist outside of your head that you don't agree with. You have to want to do the hard work of going through the thought process of someone foreign to your world, in good faith until you can render their world in a reasonably lifelike fashion as they would. All the kindness in the world without that mental exercise, or research, or attempt to speak someone else's language -- it's better than nothing, but not by much. We should focus on the larger task at hand: getting to know one another's way of lives better and strengthening community.
- mncharity 7y agoI once saw a research talk at MIT, where the visiting professor ended up in tears. I've also seen a couple of talks, where a question at the end was phrased so "softly", that if you weren't already close to seeing the fatal flaw in the work, you might miss that it was pointed out. I've wondered what the right thing is. Kind to the person, but unsparing with the ideas, seems... hard to execute here. The person being so invested in their ideas. And yet, I once saw someone doing a community outreach road trip. Maybe from NSF, for Next Generation Science Standards. She was awesome. As in, I sat there in the audience, and was awed. Some of the questions asked were emotional, and angry, and too confused to even be wrong. Where I would boggle, and could think of little more than "okayyyyyy... moving on". And yet she fielded them with empathy, respect, and grace, extracting value for both the questioner and the audience. I've long wished I'd tagged the event, so I could find and ask her, how does one train to do that? I still don't know, but I was left with a new presumption, that no question is so broken, that a sufficiently skilled respondent cannot address it with productive kindness.
- coldtea 7y ago>Some people might say that young Bezos did nothing wrong. They’re just facts, and the truth hurts. How else do you expect someone to recognize the seriousness of what they’re doing to themselves? There’s something to that, but it captures the central conceit of a dangerous assumption we seem to have made as a culture these days: that being right is a license to be a total, unrepentant asshole. After all, why would you need to repent if you haven’t committed the ultimate sin of being wrong? Some say there’s no reason to care about other people’s feelings if the facts are on your side. People do believe the above, but if one thinks rationally (Vulcan style) about it, it's a bizarro idea. What would be the logical necessity be that makes it OK "not to care about other people’s feelings if the facts are on your side"? What matters to people is what people decide that matters. Whether that's the facts or the delivery of the facts or your tone etc, is a subjective decision. So why would a 100% logical person assume that being correct should trump everything else? It's an illogical conclusion to arrive at. By what logical reasoning / axiomatic induction etc did they conclude that being correct is enough? I say there's none. Instead it's their prejudice towards accuracy and correctness that makes them consider so. In other words, those people think they're logical in that assumption (that being right trumps your tone/delivery/etc), but they're just all too human...
- friendlybus 7y agoWhat you call prejudice is a debated value structure. You can weigh the cost of negative emotions against all kinds of ideas and have the ideas come out ahead. It's weird to see you say "What matters to people is what people decide matters" and then assume the other party has no reasoning behind their actions. Peculiar indeed.
- coldtea 7y ago>It's weird to see you say "What matters to people is what people decide matters" and then assume the other party has no reasoning behind their actions. Peculiar indeed. I don't assume that. If anything, I do the exact opposite. The "other party" says that they have reasoning behind their actions (and only reasoning). I point how they indeed have reasoning, but that this reasoning is based on an implicit value structure, and is not some "pure reasoning" as claimed, and that furthermore, that it is wrong, because their conclusion on "what matters" should have taken into account the Other. Let me break it down to a number of statements to make it simpler: 1) if you think of yourself as a perfectly rational agent, 2) and your goal is to point a very bad habbit in someone, e.g. that their drinking/eating will kill them, 3) ig you say it without kindness and tailored to their personality 4) because you think only the fact that it's true shoiuld be enough 5) then you're undermining the success of your own intervention. The person could close down to you, double down on their habbit, etc because of the hurt of your words. So a perfectly rational agent should include (5) in their calculations, as it's a fact about the world and how people react. Yet many (as in TFA) don't. Their rationality stops at first order thinking, and doesn't include people's reactions and other second order effects. So, my whole point is: you're not really rational if you skip (5). You just have an incomplete model of the world, and your conclusions about "what matters" (just the truth, the delivery shouldn't count) is flawed under a rational utilitarian assessment.
- mahmoudimus 7y agoReminds me of an article by Andrew Bosworth: https://boz.com/articles/be-kind https://boz.com/articles/be-kind This advice is correct.
- ben509 7y ago> There’s something to that, but it captures the central conceit of a dangerous assumption we seem to have made as a culture these days: that being right is a license to be a total, unrepentant asshole. I don't think this is true. I think politeness and civility have degraded over time and this is a symptom of a deeper decay of cultural mores. It's normal behavior among human beings for the strong to exert dominance over the weak, and not all cultures reject this. Western culture is one that does, and civility is one way we've traditionally done so. > Anti-intellectualism is also a real problem. We should be worried about the death of expertise. This is also a symptom. Imagine if large numbers of people were getting food poisoning, you'd see "anti-agriculturalism" because people would fear that the institution of farming was in crisis. Elitism isn't simply a belief, it's a process whereby an institution maintains its elite status by enforcing high standards. Populism is what you get when people percieve that the elite aren't maintaining their standards, and in the modern context, it's often the perception that objectivity is sacrificed to a narrow political agenda. > Yet, no amount of yelling or condescension or trolling is going to fix any of this. It never has and never will. My reading of history is that politics has been far worse in the past and then people have behaved better. I don't know what mechanism causes this. Perhaps nastiness does level out like some kind of repeated prisoners' dilemma[1]. It could be because human beings can't maintain a high level of arousal indefinitely. It could be that the most incendiary individuals have to burn their bridges so that the more reasonable people are the only ones left standing. But I think that generally the voices calling for civility and moderation can only establish a civil norm after a certain amount of incivility has run its course, so I'd argue that's how yelling / condescension / etc does, in fact, fix it. > There is a great clip of Joe Rogan talking during the immigration crisis last year. ... The clip has been seen millions of times now and undoubtedly has changed more minds than a government shutdown, than the squabbles and fights on CNN, than the endless op-eds and think-tank reports. I think this gets at the heart of my problem with the kindness mantra. When you're speaking on a subject persuasively, you absolutely need empathy to be effective. You need to recognize how you might cause a person to lose face or feel shame. You want to figure out how to make that human connection. None of this is inherently morally good, and I think labelling it as "kind" is falsely suggesting that. After all, a conman does the exact same thing, "con" stands for "confidence", gaining the mark's trust. Yes, if I'm going to push your buttons, I'd like to be nice about it, but I'm ultimately pushing your buttons. My problem with claiming this is about "kindness" is that I'm still pushing my agenda. That agenda still needs to be justified. > Some say there’s no reason to care about other people’s feelings if the facts are on your side. Ben Shapiro specifically says "facts don't care about your feelings," and this neatly demonstrates casual defamation is presented with language about kindness and empathy. Shapiro's point is that for an agenda to align with "team humanity" it has to work in practice, that good intentions are not enough. He's generally responding to the charge that he's only against welfare / minimum wage / etc because he doesn't care about poor people / sick people / is racist / etc. And vile accusations dressed up as heart-warming platitudes are so common that he's made his counter to them a slogan. I know I've heard them consistently my entire adult life. And that's why if you're a liberal who wants to empathize with conservatives, you need to understand that when you start talking about empathy and kindness, it comes across as utterly insincere. Is it fair to you individually? Sorry, your peers have been poisoning the well for decades. So my advice: if you think it's the right thing to do or that it's more persuasive, spare us the sermon and just do it. [1]: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/iterated-prisoners-dilemma.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/iterated-prisoners-dile...
- miguelmota 7y agoAnger is the strongest emotion, stronger emotion than love. It's almost like second nature to be clever when you know some facts to prove the counterparty wrong because of anger. Learning to control emotion (ie stoicism) prevents impulse arguments because you reflect and think on why you're feeling that way before before instigating something.
- lngnmn1 7y agoNo. Just no. You are asking too much for nothing (in return).
- Dowwie 7y agoSome of the most helpful, knowledgeable, and experienced people I've had the honor to work with have been abrasive, rude and occasionally insulting. It takes grit to work with them but it's largely worthwhile.
- Keltullis 7y agoI found this out the hard way, by losing a good friendship.
- natmaka 7y agoThere is just a step from this to avoiding expressing anything which may be hurt, even slightly by misinterpretation. It seems to me that many try to smooth things up to the point of actively avoiding anything remotely resembling even "I don't agree" (there is no better excipient than no excipient), and this is dangerous. Granted, every principle/method becomes counter-productive when pushed to its max, however on this one many inadvertently go over this limit.
- Tomis02 7y agoSometimes if you're right, being kind signals to others that it's ok to ignore you (e.g. "it's just her/his opinion"). Whereas if you're more direct and skip the niceties it can be more likely your ideas are acknowledged.
- axilmar 7y agoTelling the truth is more important than being kind. We live in a reality that truth matters a lot more in the long run than not hurting someone's feelings. If one cannot stomach the truth, they are in for a nasty surprise when reality kicks their door. We all shall learn how to argue by ignoring emotions and use logic. Logic is the only way forward.
- davegri 7y agoThis reminds me of a simple rule that we all should follow. Before speaking, ask yourself, is what I'm saying both honest and kind? If not, reconsider :)