Cultures differ. There are some cultures where direct communication and quickly exposing conflict is normal. It seems to me that they consider it impolite to w

Cultures differ. There are some cultures where direct communication and quickly exposing conflict is normal. It seems to me that they consider it impolite to waste people's time by hiding conflict. I have personally experienced this from German and Dutch people, and I believe it's also the norm in Scandinavian and Icelandic countries. If you're experiencing a huge skew between places like Hacker News and "real life", I guess you might live in North America. However, this isn't to say that indirect communication is useless. North America is odd because there's a tradition of valuing democratic free speech even when it's upsetting. But personal manners have become increasingly indirect - to preserve harmony, to avoid premature judgment of differing experiences, to preserve pride, to provide space for enthusiasm. These aren't always bad things either. So, I would say, for North America in 2022, harmonious small talk isn't exactly useless - it's how you slowly gain the credibility to say more substantial things. An Oklahoman educator I follow online, who has remarkable success engaging right-wing and rural Americans to discuss science, said "Nobody cares that you know until they know that you care". This might be especially true for the North American mode.