4 ms·

I notice most comments broadly support this message. Well, I think you are all stupid and wrong ;P (kidding!) But I do believe there is a big difference betwee

by feral 15y ago

I notice most comments broadly support this message. Well, I think you are all stupid and wrong ;P (kidding!) But I do believe there is a big difference between being humble, and being falsely humble. I believe in being humble, to a point, but typically not in being falsely humble. Being humble is generally good. Maybe you are better at maths than someone, or better at arguing logically. It is good to be humble, and to realise that even if you are smarter than someone in one dimension, they may still have plenty to teach you, and that there may still be a lot of worth to what they say. As a result, its a mistake to write off their beliefs, or to come out and perhaps tell them you are smarter 'overall'! But I think its ethically problematic when you decide to 'one-two' other people, by deliberately downplaying your abilities. The author is effectively saying "You know you are smarter - but you should hide that, so you can effectively manipulate others." I don't think this is a good attitude. For one, I think it shows the very social cluelessness that the author is accusing others of. Your human relationships should not be treated as if you were a spy behind enemy lines. If you think this is an appropriate framework with which to reason about your human relationships, you are doing something /very wrong/. I think the attitude expressed in the blog post, is, frankly, condescending, manipulative, and very patronising to the people the author chooses to mislead. If someone did that to me, I'd lose respect for them. Now, I must make two things clear: While I think its good to strive for honesty in human relationships, obviously you have to take care for other peoples feelings. It is, of course, necessary, to give gentle feedback, or to sometimes leave things unsaid, for the greater good. But this should ideally be done with their interests in mind - not yours. And sometimes - perhaps you are in a critical business context, where some one who genuinely is a moron in the ways that matter, and not a nice person, and is going to cause your company a lot of damage, unless you massage their ego - or perhaps you are, indeed, a spy; in which case it is necessary to use techniques like the authors 'one-two'. But this should be used only when its unavoidable. Its not a desirable state of affairs, and its not what we should aspire to in our interpersonal relationships. If you build this culture in your startup, for example, you'll have a situation where people won't know they can trust each others opinions. The author writes: >"Even after you know it was a lie, the false-humility still gives you warm feelings. Now when this guy later turns around and says "Aw, naw, not really; well, I guess kind of I dabble in the Ultimate Truth", I'll probably listen." Well, I'd instantly be suspicious that whatever he was telling me about the ultimate truth, was to serve his own ends. Be nice to people, definitely - but strive for honesty, and don't set out to manipulate.

nostrademons 15y ago
I think you and the article may be operating on different areas of the stack. You're talking about how to live your life with integrity. It's a matter of policy, what should you do. The article is talking about if you do this, then people will react in this way. It's a matter of mechanism, how the world works. You can know the mechanics of how to win friends and influence people, but how you choose to use that knowledge is up to you. It reminds me a bit of Machiavelli, which has since become a synonym for evil and dastardly deeds. But if you read The Prince, it's basically just a how-to manual for how to get and keep power. Machiavelli was writing for the Medicis, so it was assumed that they would want to stay in power. But questions about whether power was a good thing or not were out-of-scope for Machiavelli: he simply wrote about what one had to do if you wanted to gain power. Also reminds me a bit of Feynman's views on technology and science, particularly the Manhattan Project. Feynman thought that technology was just a tool - it gives you the ability to do things you would otherwise be unable to, but it's up to you to decide whether you should do them. But wouldn't you rather have the ability to choose? It's the same with social hacks - you can do good things with them, you can do evil things, but at least you're aware of the effects of your actions.
bxr 15y ago
>Your human relationships should not be treated as if you were a spy behind enemy lines. If you think this is an appropriate framework with which to reason about your human relationships, you are doing something /very wrong/. I agree with you on this, but I think (or at least hope) the author's intended message was a bit different. If someone is going to be operating like a spy in the sense that they're lying to everyone around you to manipulate them into having the desired interaction with them, it is at best incredibly dishonest. I think the analogy the author used is a bit over the top, because where being a spy is about lying and using social interaction as the means to achieve your own ends, in the case of learning to be social, being social is its own end. If you scale back the analogy I think the takeaway is more along the lines of "you're out of place, fake it until you make it". The blog post, overall completely misses the target and really is about becoming a "functional anti-social" rather than actually learning to be social. I don't think of this as a malicious article, its just written by someone who doesn't have the understanding necessary to give advice yet. Back when I forced myself to stop being an introvert I was often conflicted by the fact I felt like I was lying about who I was when I was just was biting my tongue or making an effort to talk to someone. The author seems to be of the mind that everything other than blurting out exactly what you're thinking is at the same level of acceptability, so you might as well run with it.

by feral 15y ago

nostrademons 15y ago

I think you and the article may be operating on different areas of the stack. You're talking about how to live your life with integrity. It's a matter of policy, what should you do. The article is talking about if you do this, then people will react in this way. It's a matter of mechanism, how the world works. You can know the mechanics of how to win friends and influence people, but how you choose to use that knowledge is up to you. It reminds me a bit of Machiavelli, which has since become a synonym for evil and dastardly deeds. But if you read The Prince, it's basically just a how-to manual for how to get and keep power. Machiavelli was writing for the Medicis, so it was assumed that they would want to stay in power. But questions about whether power was a good thing or not were out-of-scope for Machiavelli: he simply wrote about what one had to do if you wanted to gain power. Also reminds me a bit of Feynman's views on technology and science, particularly the Manhattan Project. Feynman thought that technology was just a tool - it gives you the ability to do things you would otherwise be unable to, but it's up to you to decide whether you should do them. But wouldn't you rather have the ability to choose? It's the same with social hacks - you can do good things with them, you can do evil things, but at least you're aware of the effects of your actions.

bxr 15y ago

>Your human relationships should not be treated as if you were a spy behind enemy lines. If you think this is an appropriate framework with which to reason about your human relationships, you are doing something /very wrong/. I agree with you on this, but I think (or at least hope) the author's intended message was a bit different. If someone is going to be operating like a spy in the sense that they're lying to everyone around you to manipulate them into having the desired interaction with them, it is at best incredibly dishonest. I think the analogy the author used is a bit over the top, because where being a spy is about lying and using social interaction as the means to achieve your own ends, in the case of learning to be social, being social is its own end. If you scale back the analogy I think the takeaway is more along the lines of "you're out of place, fake it until you make it". The blog post, overall completely misses the target and really is about becoming a "functional anti-social" rather than actually learning to be social. I don't think of this as a malicious article, its just written by someone who doesn't have the understanding necessary to give advice yet. Back when I forced myself to stop being an introvert I was often conflicted by the fact I felt like I was lying about who I was when I was just was biting my tongue or making an effort to talk to someone. The author seems to be of the mind that everything other than blurting out exactly what you're thinking is at the same level of acceptability, so you might as well run with it.