7 ms·

It's an old saw, but we teach children the "sticks and stones" bromide because it's true. Having to bracket everything you say in qualifiers and conditions is w

It's an old saw, but we teach children the "sticks and stones" bromide because it's true. Having to bracket everything you say in qualifiers and conditions is why press releases are completely unreadable dreck. If you're in a field where Things Have To Get Done, stopping every few words to make sure nobody's getting their feelings hurt is a cost with very little benefit, other than airy and nebulous principles like "inclusivity." Not to mention you will never--and I mean never--get people of a certain temperament to go along with an ever-changing set of rules designed to inflict zero emotional distress. And the people of that temperament are very likely to be in technical roles. I mean, you can want it to be different, but you might as well want the sky to rain cheese.

j7ake 5y ago
If you're in a field where "Things Have To Get Done", why add superfluous words like "That is stupid, it won't work because X", when "it won't work because X" is sufficient and is easier on the ears to the listener?
- washadjeffmad 5y ago
  Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick? It's not the word count, it's the density of meaning.
whimsicalism 5y ago
Eh, I think a big part of getting things done is to creating an environment where people feel comfortable getting things done.
- whydoyoucare 5y ago
  I think that is largely a difficult and expensive task, since there is no universally accepted definition of "feeling comfortable", and it is impossible to comfort a snowflake. I'd rather be happy letting people go than chasing some elusive target in the name of political correctness. Sooner or later, I will either end up being miserably alone or with enough smart people who just get things done. I think this risk is worth taking.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I don't know - not calling other people's ideas at work "stupid" seems pretty obvious to me, it doesn't take some great amount of mental effort to just call things "bad" or even "not a good idea." Also, it's possible to have smart people and a failure culture and fail. If people are afraid of posing their ideas because they think they will be shot down as "stupid", that damages your culture.
    - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
      Calling “bad braindead pile of stupid shit” “not so good” devalues “good”.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        Well I'm glad I don't work with you :)
        WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
        A part and parcel of being a professional is being able to successfully work with people you may not personally like, as long as their and your work outputs are not being actively and measurably harmed by said personal traits. I could probably work with you and not mind you calling my work stupid if you could also back it up. Learn something every day, you know.
  - rspeele 5y ago
    There is also no universally accepted definition of "being an asshole", but nevertheless you know it when you see it, right? Maybe some fragile snowflakes should just get over their hysterical emotional need to feel comfortable, and focus on doing real work and getting stuff done. But by the same token, maybe some assholes should get over their pathetic emotional need to belittle others, and stick to what contributes to the work. There is a principle for robustly implementing computer communication protocols called Postel's law: be conservative in what you output, be liberal in what you accept. I think the principle applies equally well to human communication protocols.
XMPPwocky 5y ago
"Not to mention you will never--and I mean never--get people of a certain temperament to go along with an ever-changing set of rules designed to inflict zero emotional distress." Why not? Because they'll throw tantrums, whining about how it's just so unfair that they can't call people stupid? Too bad. They can suck it up and do their jobs- a part of which is effective communication- or they can leave.
- AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
  Shut the fuck up, you stupid cunt.
- deltarholamda 5y ago
  >or they can leave That being the key thing here. They won't throw tantrums--that's pretty much the exclusive domain of the sorts of people who want to control how people speak--but they will just go elsewhere. Or stop mentoring people, because it's more trouble than dealing with thin-skinned people. Interestingly, I'm not suggesting that people have to be brusque or short. The sort of person who demands speech codes is the sort who will brook no personal interactions other than the perfectly harmless and anodyne, which seems pretty authoritarian to me. Quite a few of the technically minded do not care for authoritarianism, and they tend to be way out on the right tail of the Bell curve. You lose those at your risk.
  - rixed 5y ago
    The strong phrasing you use in your comments betray that you are the one showing emotions here. I totally get where those are coming from, and certainty share some of your exasperation, yet I believe this world view of thin-skinned versus thick-skinned is a fantasy.
    - deltarholamda 5y ago
      Nothing wrong with showing emotions. Irritation is an emotion. There is a difference between showing emotion and throwing a tantrum. E.g., you might notice at no point have I demanded anybody's resignation or their groveling public apology. The whole point of the article was a man's journey to understand Feynman's personal definitions of words, which were based on how he thought and understood problems. Knocking all the sharp corners from interpersonal communications means you value conformity over diversity of thought. That seems a poor tradeoff to me.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
> It's an old saw, but we teach children the "sticks and stones" bromide because it's true. Having to bracket everything you say in qualifiers and conditions is why press releases are completely unreadable dreck. How very 1940's of you, is it really that inconvenient for you to be considerate?
- mbg721 5y ago
  Real respect is different from avoiding the magic-words.
  - bettysdiagnose 5y ago
    But if you want to communicate that you respect someone you will avoid the magic words because it's impossible for them to read your mind and understand your true intentions. Just empathy isn't it? If someone calls you a cunt but in their heart of hearts deeply respects you, that's pretty useless isn't it? Because it's impossible to know what is truly in their heart, and you can only judge them by what they say and what they do. If you respect someone why would you communicate in such a way that they could reasonably come to the conclusion that you in fact don't respect them at all?
rspeele 5y ago
In the example being discussed, it's faster to simply change "That's a stupid idea, it won't work because X" to "That won't work because X". If Things Have To Get Done, why waste time making an insulting judgement instead of simply getting to the point?
bettysdiagnose 5y ago
Well firstly it's not actually true, what we teach children, in that words absolutely can hurt. And it's not really hard to be respectful: >"That's a stupid idea" versus >"That idea simply will never work" identical information transfer, same amount of time taken, simply subtracting the implicit disrespect. As someone who works in academia (physics no less), IMO the problem is that some people are complete fucking arseholes because for some reason being a complete fucking arsehole in academia is accepted, and the problem is not that some people are sensitive. It's actually not hard to be nice. It's mostly just stuff you learned as a child. I don't accept that being a bit of a cunt makes you a better physicist or makes a team more productive. Having said that working in academia has certainly thickened my skin. I've worked with some legendarily awful wankers in my short time. I don't get phased any more, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
- scotty79 5y ago
  I don't know. "That idea simply will never work." will hurt the fragole person just as efficiently as "This idea is stupid". I think better communication us skip your general assesment of validity and form the objections you have to the idea as your questions about the idea. Or just say "it's stupid" if you are in a hurry and don't care about offending the person but don't expect great interactions in the future.
  - bettysdiagnose 5y ago
    It hurt the fragile person, yes, but let's think of the average person. Calling someone's idea stupid will reasonably insult the average person and make them think you're a cock, unless you know them well enough (in which case all bets are off). I am by no means advocating catering to the lowest common denominator, I'm simply opposed to throwing out all social conventions that have basically been with us for as long as verbal communication has existed because it's "efficient" (no proof either that it's actually efficient). At that rate the OP is simply asking us to stop being humans. It's just nonsense.
    - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
triceratops 5y ago
Your whole post is stupid. See what I mean? > Not to mention you will never--and I mean never--get people of a certain temperament to go along with an ever-changing set of rules In a community that embraced NPM, Gulp, Grunt, Webpack, and god knows what else in a span of 10 years? > we teach children the "sticks and stones" bromide because it's true. We tell them that because tackling bullying is too hard. And it makes us feel better when we verbally lash out at our children ("It's not like I'm really hurting them!").
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  > In a community that embraced NPM, Gulp, Grunt, Webpack, and god knows what else in a span of 10 years? Hey hey, I’m a programmer, but I’m not with those guys. They may like to embrace squishy turds for all I care. I suffer through their choices, if anything. > We tell them that because tackling bullying is too hard. And also not giving a shit — especially if it’s only verbal — deprives bullies of their get-offs, which is a good thing. Or you propose to reeducate all bullies overnight, maybe in specialized facilities like, ehm, concentration camps? Do you also whine that the weather be fixed every time rain soaks you through?
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > Hey hey, I’m a programmer, but I’m not with those guys. Whatever tech you work on, I guarantee you it's filled with incomprehensible, arbitrary rules, and weird edge cases that make no sense to someone outside your field. > And also not giving a shit — especially if it’s only verbal — deprives bullies of their get-offs, which is a good thing. And we all know how children (and, indeed, all human beings on the face of the earth) are famed Zen masters, capable of controlling their emotional responses perfectly. Also it's utter horseshit that ignoring a bully makes them go away. I don't know where you got that idea from. A bully escalates until they get a response or whatever else they want from you; a casual reading of history would teach you that. You either have to fight off a bully (or at least inflict enough damage to make it not worth their while), have an authority figure intervene, or the bully has to change from within. > Or you propose to reeducate all bullies overnight, maybe in specialized facilities like, ehm, concentration camps? Ah Godwin's law strikes again.
deanCommie 5y ago
We teach them this concept because the world is full of a-holes who won't take the bare minimum step of being a decent person to others and consider their feelings or how their words may have someone feel. I work in a field where Things Have TO Get Done. We pride ourselves on directness, honesty, and precision. NONE OF THOSE THINGS REQUIRE YOU TO BE A DICK. You don't use words like "stupid". You phrase your criticism surgically to be specific about the idea and not the person. Too many people don't want to learn social graces and use the excuse that they are just efficient direct and honest to justify being a dick.
tshaddox 5y ago
I don't think that a professional environment setting expectations for how to communicate criticism is as difficult or unrealistic as the sky raining cheese.
zebraswan 5y ago
Would it be a crazy idea to consider that deploying emotional intelligence has less obvious, higher order effects, that make up for the initial investment?
andrepd 5y ago
> stopping every few words to make sure nobody's getting their feelings hurt is a cost with very little benefit Fortunately, nobody is saying to stop every few words to confirm the consent of your interlocutor, so that's just a stupid fucking straw man, isn't it? > other than airy and nebulous principles like "inclusivity." Ah, I see. You're one of those people on a perpetual crusade against "political correctness" (funnily enough, an airy and nebulous principle!) > If you're in a field where Things Have To Get Done Man I work in academia, so I assure you I've met a million guys of your type. Guys who are oh-so smart and oh-so intelligent (as per their own assessment of course) and have a planet-sized ego, who think they are so above the riffraff and their attention is oh-so important that they don't even owe their colleagues the courtesy of basic manners. Nope, sorry, you're not so special that you can't say "I think that's a bad idea [because X]" instead of "That's stupid [because of X]". Excuse me the brashness of my post, but hey, I'm trying to correspond to your desired level of discussion :)
cbozeman 5y ago
Reminds of this exchange from the movie Whiplash: Andrew Neyman: But is there a line? You know, maybe you go too far and discourage the next Charlie Parker from ever becoming Charlie Parker? Terence Fletcher: No, man, no. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged. I am convinced Fletcher's attitude is not only morally right, but factually correct. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  There’s a bit of difference. Terrence Fletcher probably wouldn’t accept a comeback containing language just as harsh. And this is the important bit. I’m all for throwing many kinds of words around when working with peers. Once there’s a significant power difference, ouch. Unless you know each other so well you can safely assume you’re both above it.

j7ake 5y ago

If you're in a field where "Things Have To Get Done", why add superfluous words like "That is stupid, it won't work because X", when "it won't work because X" is sufficient and is easier on the ears to the listener?

washadjeffmad 5y ago
Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick? It's not the word count, it's the density of meaning.

whimsicalism 5y ago

Eh, I think a big part of getting things done is to creating an environment where people feel comfortable getting things done.

whydoyoucare 5y ago
I think that is largely a difficult and expensive task, since there is no universally accepted definition of "feeling comfortable", and it is impossible to comfort a snowflake. I'd rather be happy letting people go than chasing some elusive target in the name of political correctness. Sooner or later, I will either end up being miserably alone or with enough smart people who just get things done. I think this risk is worth taking.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I don't know - not calling other people's ideas at work "stupid" seems pretty obvious to me, it doesn't take some great amount of mental effort to just call things "bad" or even "not a good idea." Also, it's possible to have smart people and a failure culture and fail. If people are afraid of posing their ideas because they think they will be shot down as "stupid", that damages your culture.
  - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
    Calling “bad braindead pile of stupid shit” “not so good” devalues “good”.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Well I'm glad I don't work with you :)
      - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
        A part and parcel of being a professional is being able to successfully work with people you may not personally like, as long as their and your work outputs are not being actively and measurably harmed by said personal traits. I could probably work with you and not mind you calling my work stupid if you could also back it up. Learn something every day, you know.
- rspeele 5y ago
  There is also no universally accepted definition of "being an asshole", but nevertheless you know it when you see it, right? Maybe some fragile snowflakes should just get over their hysterical emotional need to feel comfortable, and focus on doing real work and getting stuff done. But by the same token, maybe some assholes should get over their pathetic emotional need to belittle others, and stick to what contributes to the work. There is a principle for robustly implementing computer communication protocols called Postel's law: be conservative in what you output, be liberal in what you accept. I think the principle applies equally well to human communication protocols.

XMPPwocky 5y ago

"Not to mention you will never--and I mean never--get people of a certain temperament to go along with an ever-changing set of rules designed to inflict zero emotional distress." Why not? Because they'll throw tantrums, whining about how it's just so unfair that they can't call people stupid? Too bad. They can suck it up and do their jobs- a part of which is effective communication- or they can leave.

AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
Shut the fuck up, you stupid cunt.
deltarholamda 5y ago
>or they can leave That being the key thing here. They won't throw tantrums--that's pretty much the exclusive domain of the sorts of people who want to control how people speak--but they will just go elsewhere. Or stop mentoring people, because it's more trouble than dealing with thin-skinned people. Interestingly, I'm not suggesting that people have to be brusque or short. The sort of person who demands speech codes is the sort who will brook no personal interactions other than the perfectly harmless and anodyne, which seems pretty authoritarian to me. Quite a few of the technically minded do not care for authoritarianism, and they tend to be way out on the right tail of the Bell curve. You lose those at your risk.
- rixed 5y ago
  The strong phrasing you use in your comments betray that you are the one showing emotions here. I totally get where those are coming from, and certainty share some of your exasperation, yet I believe this world view of thin-skinned versus thick-skinned is a fantasy.
  - deltarholamda 5y ago
    Nothing wrong with showing emotions. Irritation is an emotion. There is a difference between showing emotion and throwing a tantrum. E.g., you might notice at no point have I demanded anybody's resignation or their groveling public apology. The whole point of the article was a man's journey to understand Feynman's personal definitions of words, which were based on how he thought and understood problems. Knocking all the sharp corners from interpersonal communications means you value conformity over diversity of thought. That seems a poor tradeoff to me.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

> It's an old saw, but we teach children the "sticks and stones" bromide because it's true. Having to bracket everything you say in qualifiers and conditions is why press releases are completely unreadable dreck. How very 1940's of you, is it really that inconvenient for you to be considerate?

mbg721 5y ago
Real respect is different from avoiding the magic-words.
- bettysdiagnose 5y ago
  But if you want to communicate that you respect someone you will avoid the magic words because it's impossible for them to read your mind and understand your true intentions. Just empathy isn't it? If someone calls you a cunt but in their heart of hearts deeply respects you, that's pretty useless isn't it? Because it's impossible to know what is truly in their heart, and you can only judge them by what they say and what they do. If you respect someone why would you communicate in such a way that they could reasonably come to the conclusion that you in fact don't respect them at all?

rspeele 5y ago

In the example being discussed, it's faster to simply change "That's a stupid idea, it won't work because X" to "That won't work because X". If Things Have To Get Done, why waste time making an insulting judgement instead of simply getting to the point?

bettysdiagnose 5y ago

Well firstly it's not actually true, what we teach children, in that words absolutely can hurt. And it's not really hard to be respectful: >"That's a stupid idea" versus >"That idea simply will never work" identical information transfer, same amount of time taken, simply subtracting the implicit disrespect. As someone who works in academia (physics no less), IMO the problem is that some people are complete fucking arseholes because for some reason being a complete fucking arsehole in academia is accepted, and the problem is not that some people are sensitive. It's actually not hard to be nice. It's mostly just stuff you learned as a child. I don't accept that being a bit of a cunt makes you a better physicist or makes a team more productive. Having said that working in academia has certainly thickened my skin. I've worked with some legendarily awful wankers in my short time. I don't get phased any more, but that's not necessarily a good thing.

scotty79 5y ago
I don't know. "That idea simply will never work." will hurt the fragole person just as efficiently as "This idea is stupid". I think better communication us skip your general assesment of validity and form the objections you have to the idea as your questions about the idea. Or just say "it's stupid" if you are in a hurry and don't care about offending the person but don't expect great interactions in the future.
- bettysdiagnose 5y ago
  It hurt the fragile person, yes, but let's think of the average person. Calling someone's idea stupid will reasonably insult the average person and make them think you're a cock, unless you know them well enough (in which case all bets are off). I am by no means advocating catering to the lowest common denominator, I'm simply opposed to throwing out all social conventions that have basically been with us for as long as verbal communication has existed because it's "efficient" (no proof either that it's actually efficient). At that rate the OP is simply asking us to stop being humans. It's just nonsense.
  - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

triceratops 5y ago

Your whole post is stupid. See what I mean? > Not to mention you will never--and I mean never--get people of a certain temperament to go along with an ever-changing set of rules In a community that embraced NPM, Gulp, Grunt, Webpack, and god knows what else in a span of 10 years? > we teach children the "sticks and stones" bromide because it's true. We tell them that because tackling bullying is too hard. And it makes us feel better when we verbally lash out at our children ("It's not like I'm really hurting them!").

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
> In a community that embraced NPM, Gulp, Grunt, Webpack, and god knows what else in a span of 10 years? Hey hey, I’m a programmer, but I’m not with those guys. They may like to embrace squishy turds for all I care. I suffer through their choices, if anything. > We tell them that because tackling bullying is too hard. And also not giving a shit — especially if it’s only verbal — deprives bullies of their get-offs, which is a good thing. Or you propose to reeducate all bullies overnight, maybe in specialized facilities like, ehm, concentration camps? Do you also whine that the weather be fixed every time rain soaks you through?
- triceratops 5y ago
  > Hey hey, I’m a programmer, but I’m not with those guys. Whatever tech you work on, I guarantee you it's filled with incomprehensible, arbitrary rules, and weird edge cases that make no sense to someone outside your field. > And also not giving a shit — especially if it’s only verbal — deprives bullies of their get-offs, which is a good thing. And we all know how children (and, indeed, all human beings on the face of the earth) are famed Zen masters, capable of controlling their emotional responses perfectly. Also it's utter horseshit that ignoring a bully makes them go away. I don't know where you got that idea from. A bully escalates until they get a response or whatever else they want from you; a casual reading of history would teach you that. You either have to fight off a bully (or at least inflict enough damage to make it not worth their while), have an authority figure intervene, or the bully has to change from within. > Or you propose to reeducate all bullies overnight, maybe in specialized facilities like, ehm, concentration camps? Ah Godwin's law strikes again.

deanCommie 5y ago

We teach them this concept because the world is full of a-holes who won't take the bare minimum step of being a decent person to others and consider their feelings or how their words may have someone feel. I work in a field where Things Have TO Get Done. We pride ourselves on directness, honesty, and precision. NONE OF THOSE THINGS REQUIRE YOU TO BE A DICK. You don't use words like "stupid". You phrase your criticism surgically to be specific about the idea and not the person. Too many people don't want to learn social graces and use the excuse that they are just efficient direct and honest to justify being a dick.

tshaddox 5y ago

I don't think that a professional environment setting expectations for how to communicate criticism is as difficult or unrealistic as the sky raining cheese.

zebraswan 5y ago

Would it be a crazy idea to consider that deploying emotional intelligence has less obvious, higher order effects, that make up for the initial investment?

andrepd 5y ago

> stopping every few words to make sure nobody's getting their feelings hurt is a cost with very little benefit Fortunately, nobody is saying to stop every few words to confirm the consent of your interlocutor, so that's just a stupid fucking straw man, isn't it? > other than airy and nebulous principles like "inclusivity." Ah, I see. You're one of those people on a perpetual crusade against "political correctness" (funnily enough, an airy and nebulous principle!) > If you're in a field where Things Have To Get Done Man I work in academia, so I assure you I've met a million guys of your type. Guys who are oh-so smart and oh-so intelligent (as per their own assessment of course) and have a planet-sized ego, who think they are so above the riffraff and their attention is oh-so important that they don't even owe their colleagues the courtesy of basic manners. Nope, sorry, you're not so special that you can't say "I think that's a bad idea [because X]" instead of "That's stupid [because of X]". Excuse me the brashness of my post, but hey, I'm trying to correspond to your desired level of discussion :)

cbozeman 5y ago

Reminds of this exchange from the movie Whiplash: Andrew Neyman: But is there a line? You know, maybe you go too far and discourage the next Charlie Parker from ever becoming Charlie Parker? Terence Fletcher: No, man, no. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged. I am convinced Fletcher's attitude is not only morally right, but factually correct. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
There’s a bit of difference. Terrence Fletcher probably wouldn’t accept a comeback containing language just as harsh. And this is the important bit. I’m all for throwing many kinds of words around when working with peers. Once there’s a significant power difference, ouch. Unless you know each other so well you can safely assume you’re both above it.