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This article could be titled "Will people less smart than me shut the fuck up already? Part N of Infinity" I haven't been a fan of previous ones and this is no

This article could be titled "Will people less smart than me shut the fuck up already? Part N of Infinity" I haven't been a fan of previous ones and this is no different. People will always be wrong. And it's easy to say it's because they're not thinking about something clearly enough, because very often they aren't. I'm sure it's cathartic to complain about them on the internet, but it won't change anything. So either ignore them or help them. Having productive conversations rather than just satisfying the human urges around disagreement is a life skill. Understanding how to identify when conversation is destined to go nowhere and exit it effectively is a life skill. This article could have chosen how to build and exercise those skills in the face of this kind of wrongness. But it didn't and neither have most the comments. It chose to pontificate on a root cause. It doesn't do anyone a service by writing hypothetical stories about how and why every person wrong in a particular way came to be wrong. Yes, it's 100% correct that those assessments could be useful in finding a way to conversationally bride the gap, but in practice they're just used to make someone feel superior to the other person in addition to being right. It's a first step down the path that ends in political memes of the form "$OTHER_PARTY only believes in $BAD_IDEA because $INSULTING_BULLSHIT."

vsskanth 7y ago
The problem is some of these debates have consequences that you would be forced to deal with (choice of language, framework, architecture etc.) and needless pedantry can be a huge blocker to adopting a better solution to the requirement at hand. At that point, either you can "exit" the debate and deal with the choices, or you can "exit" the situation in search of better co-workers. Both of them have real costs to you (which are not your doing). I don't know what kind of life skills would help there. If you have any thoughts, I am all ears.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  The kind of situation you describe happens... sometimes. Most of the time when you run into this kind of behavior, though, it's not in a situation with real consequences. It's somewhere like HN. (Have I seen this here? Yes. Have I done it here? Let's just let that question pass, shall we?) What do you do then? Call them on it, for the sake of the rest of the people in the discussion? Ignore it (don't feed the troll)? Call them on it once, then just walk away? What do you do when you are the one doing it, and someone calls you on it? Do you double down, or do you realize that you were being a pedantic jerk, and stop? Maybe even apologize? And how do you tell where the line is between "valid nuance" and "pedantic irrelevance"? There's plenty of room for life skills here. They may not help you in every instance of this kind of behavior, but they can help in many of them.
vehementi 7y ago
I don't think it's really about pontificating about why, just why, other people who aren't me are stupid, it's about identifying patterns and maybe coming up with a way (like you are talking about) to combat (possibly involving teaching) these things. Without putting it into words you just see the pedantic correction fucking up your conversation and don't really have words or a coherent understanding in the moment to get why it was a useless thing to say. Now with this article some people will know to identify those situations to correct them, and some people will identify the behavior in themselves. That's all good, and isn't "ugh dumb people exist"

vsskanth 7y ago

The problem is some of these debates have consequences that you would be forced to deal with (choice of language, framework, architecture etc.) and needless pedantry can be a huge blocker to adopting a better solution to the requirement at hand. At that point, either you can "exit" the debate and deal with the choices, or you can "exit" the situation in search of better co-workers. Both of them have real costs to you (which are not your doing). I don't know what kind of life skills would help there. If you have any thoughts, I am all ears.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
The kind of situation you describe happens... sometimes. Most of the time when you run into this kind of behavior, though, it's not in a situation with real consequences. It's somewhere like HN. (Have I seen this here? Yes. Have I done it here? Let's just let that question pass, shall we?) What do you do then? Call them on it, for the sake of the rest of the people in the discussion? Ignore it (don't feed the troll)? Call them on it once, then just walk away? What do you do when you are the one doing it, and someone calls you on it? Do you double down, or do you realize that you were being a pedantic jerk, and stop? Maybe even apologize? And how do you tell where the line is between "valid nuance" and "pedantic irrelevance"? There's plenty of room for life skills here. They may not help you in every instance of this kind of behavior, but they can help in many of them.

vehementi 7y ago

I don't think it's really about pontificating about why, just why, other people who aren't me are stupid, it's about identifying patterns and maybe coming up with a way (like you are talking about) to combat (possibly involving teaching) these things. Without putting it into words you just see the pedantic correction fucking up your conversation and don't really have words or a coherent understanding in the moment to get why it was a useless thing to say. Now with this article some people will know to identify those situations to correct them, and some people will identify the behavior in themselves. That's all good, and isn't "ugh dumb people exist"