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Returning a very terse answer to a person who has taken the time to make complex, well reasoned argument/request is rude though. And we all know that. With spee

Returning a very terse answer to a person who has taken the time to make complex, well reasoned argument/request is rude though. And we all know that. With speech, the trick is to anticipate someone is building up to a "big ask", and cut it short, politely. Otherwise you're letting the other humiliate themself for a long time when you know your answer is going to have to be 'no'. Brevity is occasionally good. A quick and confident response can signal honesty. Or be efficient. At officer school they teach you "not to umm and err", or to "soften" speech. But most of the time, a response that isn't commensurate seems haughty. I notice some HN commentators doing it when they just write one word: "citatation?" Sure, it's mocking Wikipedia, I get that, but it's still jolly uncivil. (cue a dozen replies of "citation?" :)

tootie 5y ago
I also never say "no" to a valuable request. It's more a question of when. If your plate is full of higher priority work then the answer is "later". If it's a better use of time then everything else on my plate, everything else goes later. That's just agile 101.
tejtm 5y ago
I understand and agree from an all things being equal perspective. But thing are not all equal. I have worked with folks who could talk circles around a flock of Toastmaster clubs and weaponizing words in meetings relaying on social norms of "civil" as cover happens. The expected 10x effort to counter a falsehood can be inflated to 100x if it is dressed up real pretty. A Volumocracy, where the more verbose or apparently civil sounding party (not your stereotypical programmer) wins every argument might be a viable strategy when it is rhetoric, opinions, semi-solid-science (quagmire?) but there is absolutely a place for; "No." And though I agree more should be stated, I do strive to remain civil.
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  > Volumocracy Nice. edit: Sorry to come back in edit but you just made me think of something. Britain still has an insidious class system. A top engineer I know, absolutely formidable in mind and manner, said that during a C-level meeting he'd been "outposhed" by some Rupert (apologies to any actual Ruperts). The tactic is: talk very loudly in a plumby offensively over-confident RP accent, with a slight snorting sneer. Boris Johnson is the paradigmatic example - all the more because he's actually a not-posh kid who got beasted at boarding school into some serious over-compensation.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > The expected 10x effort to counter a falsehood can be inflated to 100x if it is dressed up real pretty. This has become an overwhelming problem on the internet, and fundamentally it's why we have downvotes: it takes hundreds of keypresses and careful thought to counter nonsense or weaponized civility, and only one to downvote.
pjc50 5y ago
> At officer school they teach you "not to umm and err", or to "soften" speech. Many years ago, in a social rather than work setting, a friend of mine (A) who presented in the normal geek manner of appearance was trying to explain someone when another friend tried to talk on top of him. However, A had had a previous life where he'd joined the navy at 16, so he simply raised his voice to be heard while maintaining a conversational tone. The interrupter backed off, but tried again later, and was met with a full volume "JAMES I AM TALKING". A was allowed to finish his anecdote with no further interruptions. (This was at Cambridge, so all of us were several points ahead in "posh" to start with. It took me some years to fully appreciate how badly people who'd made it there on pure merit from a working class background could simply get conversationally "run over" all the time) Interpersonal power politics is real, even among a group of friends who have chosen each others company, and it can be quite sharp at the office, while at the same time it's usually constrained to not "breaking the surface". Hence the development of non-blunt no-equivalents such as "that's against policy" or "you'll have to clear that with X". But occasionally you do have to risk being seen as the bad guy in order to assert your position in the power hierarchy. (obligatory disclaimer too that many of these things have very different outcomes if the same words or manner of speech are used by a woman or non-white or second-language person)

tootie 5y ago

I also never say "no" to a valuable request. It's more a question of when. If your plate is full of higher priority work then the answer is "later". If it's a better use of time then everything else on my plate, everything else goes later. That's just agile 101.

tejtm 5y ago

I understand and agree from an all things being equal perspective. But thing are not all equal. I have worked with folks who could talk circles around a flock of Toastmaster clubs and weaponizing words in meetings relaying on social norms of "civil" as cover happens. The expected 10x effort to counter a falsehood can be inflated to 100x if it is dressed up real pretty. A Volumocracy, where the more verbose or apparently civil sounding party (not your stereotypical programmer) wins every argument might be a viable strategy when it is rhetoric, opinions, semi-solid-science (quagmire?) but there is absolutely a place for; "No." And though I agree more should be stated, I do strive to remain civil.

nonrandomstring 5y ago
> Volumocracy Nice. edit: Sorry to come back in edit but you just made me think of something. Britain still has an insidious class system. A top engineer I know, absolutely formidable in mind and manner, said that during a C-level meeting he'd been "outposhed" by some Rupert (apologies to any actual Ruperts). The tactic is: talk very loudly in a plumby offensively over-confident RP accent, with a slight snorting sneer. Boris Johnson is the paradigmatic example - all the more because he's actually a not-posh kid who got beasted at boarding school into some serious over-compensation.
pjc50 5y ago
> The expected 10x effort to counter a falsehood can be inflated to 100x if it is dressed up real pretty. This has become an overwhelming problem on the internet, and fundamentally it's why we have downvotes: it takes hundreds of keypresses and careful thought to counter nonsense or weaponized civility, and only one to downvote.

pjc50 5y ago

> At officer school they teach you "not to umm and err", or to "soften" speech. Many years ago, in a social rather than work setting, a friend of mine (A) who presented in the normal geek manner of appearance was trying to explain someone when another friend tried to talk on top of him. However, A had had a previous life where he'd joined the navy at 16, so he simply raised his voice to be heard while maintaining a conversational tone. The interrupter backed off, but tried again later, and was met with a full volume "JAMES I AM TALKING". A was allowed to finish his anecdote with no further interruptions. (This was at Cambridge, so all of us were several points ahead in "posh" to start with. It took me some years to fully appreciate how badly people who'd made it there on pure merit from a working class background could simply get conversationally "run over" all the time) Interpersonal power politics is real, even among a group of friends who have chosen each others company, and it can be quite sharp at the office, while at the same time it's usually constrained to not "breaking the surface". Hence the development of non-blunt no-equivalents such as "that's against policy" or "you'll have to clear that with X". But occasionally you do have to risk being seen as the bad guy in order to assert your position in the power hierarchy. (obligatory disclaimer too that many of these things have very different outcomes if the same words or manner of speech are used by a woman or non-white or second-language person)