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I 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 m
by semiotagonal 7y ago
I 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for being wrong, last time I quoted a RFC about a topic I know well and said to someone that their information was outdated, I ended up downvoted as usual - even more in the reply, while providing a link to the RFC and even apologizing for insisting that the right information should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.
- CharlesW 7y agoIt sounds like you believe that you're simply delivering the unvarnished, objective truth, but this method is just a different (and less-persuasive) type of varnish. Even if there's some "protocol overhead", a more effective communication/persuasion style benefits both parties. Plus, it's more fun!
- macintux 7y agoWhy not be factual without being aggressive? > This is factually wrong. Your information is deprecated. ... > Please read the outlined section 3-3 of RFC 8314 from 2018 that explain just that if you don't believe me. You both started and ended your factual information with hostile phrasing. You’re within your rights, of course, to keep being hostile with facts, but it’s possible to be both factual and friendly.
- johnchristopher 7y agoI have seen far worse passive-aggressiveness here (most often it's a variation of "why anyone would think X is beyond me" or "You do X ? I do Y because of reasons and I would certainly never do X but do it if you want."). It might be a globish issue but I don't see any hostilities in OP's comments. [0] > > This is factually wrong. Your information is deprecated. How would you phrase that ? [0] but I also believe that HN has members from many different cultures and lot of what is being discussed suffer from too much variety in communication style.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago> How would you phrase that ? Maybe "I am not entirely sure I feel convinced that nobody would disagree with this description providing sufficient convergence with what might be argued is a valid way to interpret reality". Or maybe "that's being disingenuous", another classic of sophisticated kindness.
- tsumnia 7y agoI disagree with that style of writing. Your example sentence comes off as heavily passive voiced rather than sophisticated kindness.
- js2 7y agoLet the other person save face. Nothing diminishes the dignity of a man quite like an insult to his pride. If we don't condemn our employees in front of others and allow them to save face, they will be motivated to do better in the future and confident that they can. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...
- semiotagonal 7y agoExactly! I've never read the book, but perhaps I've been influenced by people who have.
- hrktb 7y ago> Nothing diminishes the dignity of a man quite like an insult to his pride This makes me realize how much the notion of “pride” applied to people feels such a dirty word by today’s standards. Being proud of something, having pride in doing something is highly valued. Pride towards ourself is ridden with corrosive imagery from the cold war area, undue self boasting and narcism. I am happy with humility and openness becoming a better valued trait.
- ycombinete 7y agoIt’s for this reason that, when I was still on Facebook, I would take arguments to private messages when they were either getting heated, or embarrassing for my counterpart. It would immediately change the tone of the interaction, as it was no longer a performance, it was a discussion.
- fapjacks 7y agoThe problem with Facebook and other shithole social media is that these networks promote Pavlov strategy which is actually really awful for any kind of discussion. Before the internet, using this strategy socially was called "gossip" and rightly recognized as damaging. It would be very interesting to see the effect of every post on Facebook having a big red banner above it that said, "THIS IS GOSSIP" (before the utility of that UI wore off like old school banner ads). People are incentivized to open with "exploitative" cheap shot comments in order to increase the largesse of their social signaling. This is why I flatly refuse to engage in certain kinds of "discussions" unless in a private group or chat or after limiting the audience of a post (and stating in the opening sentence that the audience is limited and therefore devaluing the post's capacity for exploitation by others). And we're back to the basic trust problem.
- matwood 7y agoYou can shear a sheep over and over, you can only skin it once. How you say you are right matters.