A wise boss of mine, after reading a set of threads that I wrote like this, asked me to go think for a day on the difference between "being right" and "being effective."
Some of the things you say in these threads might be "right" but I can assure you that many of them are not effective, which is counterproductive to the goal you are trying to achieve.
This reminds me of something someone said. Something about assume everyone is coming from a place of good intent. Even if they are not, you can communicate with people more effectively without bringing in a form of bias that ends up infecting everything.
Just because you have a belief about something doesn't make it right to always assume the worst from people and that you always have the best answer.
I tend to avoid people that don't come from a place of good faith. And I feel that attacking people because you might be right about something is coming from a place of bad faith and isn't always the best course of action. There is a place for that, when it comes to your freedom being violated or something, but when it comes to having discussions with people, we are all human. Ego can be a determinant.
> I prefer to say what I believe to be true rather than live in fear of how people looking
Again, as we are wondering into tumblr style debates here (ie not listening and just saying what you think they said)
There is a difference between being "right" and being "effective"
Or to put it another way: "perfect is the enemy of good"
However I will break it down a bit more. You agree with me that there is such thing as a horizon of "acceptable opinion" for people? Some have larger windows, some much narrower.
If we agree on that, I would ask, what happens if someone goes in hard (rhetorically) with a viewpoint that is outside of "acceptable opinion"? You begin to discount their opinion, regardless of evidence. Or it requires a much high bar to accept _any_ opinion from that person.
Which leads back to the original point, you may be correct, but you are unable to persuade anyone else that you are correct, because you are not speaking the same language and gently pulling them to your viewpoint.
Hence the "you can be right, or you can be effective"
You can stand by things you said but also learn from them/from people’s responses to them…. For instance, you declare someone’s response virtue signaling… This hit me in a funny way, partly because it’s valid, it’s true, there is a lot of signaling that goes on you learn to see, virtue and otherwise… but also because of how insidious a criticism it is, because it reframes a debate away from correctness and towards who said it, whether they’re posturing…
I think it’s a category error and an ad hominem attack to bring it up in a debate with someone. It doesn’t mean your wrong or can’t still beleive they were virtue signaling, if that’s what you mean by standing by what you said, but more than one thing can be true and that being your reaction is not honest engagement with the criticism… I don’t care think it’s about the joke very much, it’s not especially funny but not all humor has to be, and I don’t love their reaction to it either, but I think you’re confusing the feedback you’re getting here and there and probably elsewhere that your opinions should change… a sibling comment spoke of being right vs effective, and there’s something to that, but there’s also being right vs having a growth mindset, about being open to genuine conflict that sometimes brings new perspective or insight… But that doesn’t happen when one side shuts down the other with ad hominem attacks or uncharitable assumptions. To be fair, it doesn’t happen online in mailing lists or discussion forums at all very often. Maybe you only get these kinds of reactions here and when people seem more real to you in person you engage differently… I know most people engage differently online than in person, and different pseudonymously than using real names. Someone else here compared you to Linus, and there’s probably something there? There’s no doubt you brought some vision and insight to both these projects, as he did, but something changed for him some years back that was a growth moment and caused him new perspective on how he engaged with people online. The same could still happen for you, and it wouldn’t mean you were giving in to a “woke mind virus”, it would mean you were growing.
I can’t respond to your response below but I fully agree “a lot of online criticism is not actually about truth-seeking or honest disagreement”, but I believe by ignoring the principle of charity, you undercut your own credibility and value. You may be able to show people how and where they’re in the wrong by demonstrating how THEY’VE made motive and framing the entire point, WITHOUT personally ascribing that as necessarily being a character weakness or hypocrisy or unconcern for the truth, but perhaps just a error on their part as well all make sometimes… just my $0.02
I was in the midst of obviously baseless allegations being made against me, not because of anything I actually said but because some very nasty[1] people disagreed with a naming decision I had made.
If you ever find yourself in that situation you are way past the principle of charity.
I'm not saying I couldn't have handled it more gracefully and probably would today, remember this was an obscure mailing list post from 3 years ago that someone dug up.
[1] This is not to suggest that everyone who disagreed with my decision behaved badly, it was a small minority
I just want to quickly jump on what you said about Linus. I know a lot of people look at his change and see it as a "growth moment", but my view is that he was forced to change by a growing body of people who take relatively extreme actions against those not seen to be towing the line. There was another group of people like this in history. We rightly condemned that evil group and their actions, and we were once more tolerant and open-minded towards one-another as people. I miss those days.
I think it starts with social coercion, intimidation, exclusion, economic pressure and ostracism long before it builds into the confidence to take more overtly violent measures. I don't know him, but it certainly appeared as though he succumbed to these pressures, given the timing of things. I hope people doing these things take some time to reflect on their actions and how closely they follow a dark path we've seen before.
If you think this is a correct communication style for someone who thinks they're a leader, I suggest getting an assistant to write your correspondence, or maybe some socialisation bootcamp.
This is grim.
If you stand by it I'd say good.... luck, yeah, good luck, you're singlehandedly the gravest enemy of the project.
If the use of a single phrase in an obscure three year old mailing list post is enough to make you dismiss someone entirely, that probably says more about you than it does about me.
If you said "vaccines cause autism" it does the same. It's a pattern, a symptom of the deeply unbalanced and, ironically, non-free thinking.
A warning sign.
Look, if everyone around tells you says it sounds like a donkey, looks like a donkey and walks like a donkey, maybe check with a vet?
It's not a conspiracy and not that hard. You'd be embarrassed if you u saw what we see. And indeed, you destroyed the credibility of the project with that.
Why would I answer that when you already said one statement being wrong doesn't matter? If one statement being wrong doesn't matter then why are you changing your mind and asking? Would there be any point in replying?
I've met a lot of folks in software who think contradicting themselves in order to "gotcha" the other person is some form of being clever. You can't really have success reasoning them out of it; they think being incorrigible is the same as winning.
You don't understand. All they have to do is repeat what you've said with a snarky tone, tag it with an extreme insult, then imply that it makes you unfit to be employed, even if you are self-employed. Your duty is to apologize, and promise to do better.
It's wrong because a "woke mind virus" literally doesn't exist, and you just made up the concept, or more likely appropriated it from a Nazi-salute-slinging billionaire whose brain has turned to mush.
It's dishonest because it pretends that people behaving in a way that you don't like are somehow infected by some (literal or metaphorical) contagion, when I am not aware of any evidence that this is the case.
I'd be delighted to be proven wrong on either of the above with studies or other serious sources. I'll wait.
I understand what Critical Social Justice is, and it is not in any way a virus either literally or figuratively. Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I was asking for sources establishing that such a thing as a "woke mind virus" exists. I doubt there are any serious sources which frame critical social justice as such, but once again I'd love to be proven wrong on this. I'm still waiting.
That phrase is on par with "chemtrails" and "vaccine truther" with its ability to vaporize one's credibility, if used unironically as OP did in those emails.
No, i wouldn't be surprised how ignorant, selfish and deceitful other Americans are, you included. Mainstream isn't the same as right.
Dude like this asshole would be fine with us keeping drinking fountains and lunch counters segregated, because thats how we've always done things.
Remember folks, there’s no such thing as “too much perspective” and when you get it wrong you look like this silver
-haired, privileged , rich as fuck bigot.
Keep telling yourself that. Perhaps you want to spew some more bullshit about postmodern neomarxism like a good little JP acolyte, eh? Such a free thinker /s
Holy shit. I’m a long-time admirer of freenet and you just single handedly destroyed any positive view of the project I may have held. Get a fucking grip and seek help if you can’t.
The person who said “the woke mind virus… is the greatest threat to civilization today” is telling me *I* am the one who should go touch grass? That’s hilarious.
A wise boss of mine, after reading a set of threads that I wrote like this, asked me to go think for a day on the difference between "being right" and "being effective."
Some of the things you say in these threads might be "right" but I can assure you that many of them are not effective, which is counterproductive to the goal you are trying to achieve.
I prefer to say what I believe to be true rather than live in fear of how people looking to take offense might misconstrue something.
A culture where people are expected to constantly self-censor to avoid bad-faith interpretations is unhealthy and corrosive.
This reminds me of something someone said. Something about assume everyone is coming from a place of good intent. Even if they are not, you can communicate with people more effectively without bringing in a form of bias that ends up infecting everything.
Just because you have a belief about something doesn't make it right to always assume the worst from people and that you always have the best answer.
I tend to avoid people that don't come from a place of good faith. And I feel that attacking people because you might be right about something is coming from a place of bad faith and isn't always the best course of action. There is a place for that, when it comes to your freedom being violated or something, but when it comes to having discussions with people, we are all human. Ego can be a determinant.
[dead]
> I prefer to say what I believe to be true rather than live in fear of how people looking
Again, as we are wondering into tumblr style debates here (ie not listening and just saying what you think they said)
There is a difference between being "right" and being "effective"
Or to put it another way: "perfect is the enemy of good"
However I will break it down a bit more. You agree with me that there is such thing as a horizon of "acceptable opinion" for people? Some have larger windows, some much narrower.
If we agree on that, I would ask, what happens if someone goes in hard (rhetorically) with a viewpoint that is outside of "acceptable opinion"? You begin to discount their opinion, regardless of evidence. Or it requires a much high bar to accept _any_ opinion from that person.
Which leads back to the original point, you may be correct, but you are unable to persuade anyone else that you are correct, because you are not speaking the same language and gently pulling them to your viewpoint.
Hence the "you can be right, or you can be effective"
I, for one, don’t think I’ve misconstrued anything — you’ve shown exactly who you are relatively clearly in those posts.
Sure, then just avoid me and I'll avoid you and we'll both be happier.
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You can stand by things you said but also learn from them/from people’s responses to them…. For instance, you declare someone’s response virtue signaling… This hit me in a funny way, partly because it’s valid, it’s true, there is a lot of signaling that goes on you learn to see, virtue and otherwise… but also because of how insidious a criticism it is, because it reframes a debate away from correctness and towards who said it, whether they’re posturing…
I think it’s a category error and an ad hominem attack to bring it up in a debate with someone. It doesn’t mean your wrong or can’t still beleive they were virtue signaling, if that’s what you mean by standing by what you said, but more than one thing can be true and that being your reaction is not honest engagement with the criticism… I don’t care think it’s about the joke very much, it’s not especially funny but not all humor has to be, and I don’t love their reaction to it either, but I think you’re confusing the feedback you’re getting here and there and probably elsewhere that your opinions should change… a sibling comment spoke of being right vs effective, and there’s something to that, but there’s also being right vs having a growth mindset, about being open to genuine conflict that sometimes brings new perspective or insight… But that doesn’t happen when one side shuts down the other with ad hominem attacks or uncharitable assumptions. To be fair, it doesn’t happen online in mailing lists or discussion forums at all very often. Maybe you only get these kinds of reactions here and when people seem more real to you in person you engage differently… I know most people engage differently online than in person, and different pseudonymously than using real names. Someone else here compared you to Linus, and there’s probably something there? There’s no doubt you brought some vision and insight to both these projects, as he did, but something changed for him some years back that was a growth moment and caused him new perspective on how he engaged with people online. The same could still happen for you, and it wouldn’t mean you were giving in to a “woke mind virus”, it would mean you were growing.
I can’t respond to your response below but I fully agree “a lot of online criticism is not actually about truth-seeking or honest disagreement”, but I believe by ignoring the principle of charity, you undercut your own credibility and value. You may be able to show people how and where they’re in the wrong by demonstrating how THEY’VE made motive and framing the entire point, WITHOUT personally ascribing that as necessarily being a character weakness or hypocrisy or unconcern for the truth, but perhaps just a error on their part as well all make sometimes… just my $0.02
You need to remember the context.
I was in the midst of obviously baseless allegations being made against me, not because of anything I actually said but because some very nasty[1] people disagreed with a naming decision I had made.
If you ever find yourself in that situation you are way past the principle of charity.
I'm not saying I couldn't have handled it more gracefully and probably would today, remember this was an obscure mailing list post from 3 years ago that someone dug up.
[1] This is not to suggest that everyone who disagreed with my decision behaved badly, it was a small minority
HN is full of those types of people, always wanting to tear others down over perceived offenses while contributing nothing much themselves.
I just want to quickly jump on what you said about Linus. I know a lot of people look at his change and see it as a "growth moment", but my view is that he was forced to change by a growing body of people who take relatively extreme actions against those not seen to be towing the line. There was another group of people like this in history. We rightly condemned that evil group and their actions, and we were once more tolerant and open-minded towards one-another as people. I miss those days.
You think that Linus changed because of threats of violence?
I think it starts with social coercion, intimidation, exclusion, economic pressure and ostracism long before it builds into the confidence to take more overtly violent measures. I don't know him, but it certainly appeared as though he succumbed to these pressures, given the timing of things. I hope people doing these things take some time to reflect on their actions and how closely they follow a dark path we've seen before.
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If you think this is a correct communication style for someone who thinks they're a leader, I suggest getting an assistant to write your correspondence, or maybe some socialisation bootcamp.
This is grim.
If you stand by it I'd say good.... luck, yeah, good luck, you're singlehandedly the gravest enemy of the project.
Yes, I stand by what I wrote. I'm not going to pretend otherwise because someone dug up an old mailing list post.
If you think a specific statement was wrong, harmful, or dishonest, then explain why. I'll wait.
It is hard to take anyone seriously that says “The woke mind virus.”
That is what is wrong with it.
If the use of a single phrase in an obscure three year old mailing list post is enough to make you dismiss someone entirely, that probably says more about you than it does about me.
> a single phrase in an obscure three year old mailing list post
> I stand by every word I said in that thread
Correct, I don't respond to demands that I disavow my own words, even if they weren't the words I'd use today.
If you said "vaccines cause autism" it does the same. It's a pattern, a symptom of the deeply unbalanced and, ironically, non-free thinking.
A warning sign.
Look, if everyone around tells you says it sounds like a donkey, looks like a donkey and walks like a donkey, maybe check with a vet?
It's not a conspiracy and not that hard. You'd be embarrassed if you u saw what we see. And indeed, you destroyed the credibility of the project with that.
[flagged]
> "If you think a specific statement was wrong, harmful, or dishonest, then explain why"
> someone picks a specific statement
> "If the use of a single phrase... is enough to make you dismiss someone entirely"
Bro, you asked for a specific statement. Was GP actually supposed to provide N specific statements, where N is a hidden number known only to you?
How was that "wrong, harmful, or dishonest" - specifically?
Why would I answer that when you already said one statement being wrong doesn't matter? If one statement being wrong doesn't matter then why are you changing your mind and asking? Would there be any point in replying?
I've met a lot of folks in software who think contradicting themselves in order to "gotcha" the other person is some form of being clever. You can't really have success reasoning them out of it; they think being incorrigible is the same as winning.
> Why would I answer that when you already said one statement being wrong doesn't matter?
I never said that.
Your goal, I think, is to build a movement around Freenet.
How does bringing in "the woke mind virus" or "virtue signaling" into a technical conversation help build your movement vs. cause people to tune out?
I didn't bring in anything, someone dug up and linked to 3-year-old out of context posts to a mailing list - I explained the context.
You don't understand. All they have to do is repeat what you've said with a snarky tone, tag it with an extreme insult, then imply that it makes you unfit to be employed, even if you are self-employed. Your duty is to apologize, and promise to do better.
Specificity is literally gaslighting.
It's wrong because a "woke mind virus" literally doesn't exist, and you just made up the concept, or more likely appropriated it from a Nazi-salute-slinging billionaire whose brain has turned to mush.
It's dishonest because it pretends that people behaving in a way that you don't like are somehow infected by some (literal or metaphorical) contagion, when I am not aware of any evidence that this is the case.
I'd be delighted to be proven wrong on either of the above with studies or other serious sources. I'll wait.
It refers to Critical Social Justice ideology. There are entire books, academic papers, and debates about it from across the political spectrum.
I understand what Critical Social Justice is, and it is not in any way a virus either literally or figuratively. Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I was asking for sources establishing that such a thing as a "woke mind virus" exists. I doubt there are any serious sources which frame critical social justice as such, but once again I'd love to be proven wrong on this. I'm still waiting.
That phrase is on par with "chemtrails" and "vaccine truther" with its ability to vaporize one's credibility, if used unironically as OP did in those emails.
Your need to sort people based on trigger phrases says it all.
No, it really doesn't. You're reacting super defensively throughout this entire thread. It's a really bad look.
He's actually being measured and fair, even in the face of aggressive insults from strangers.
It's not the phrase that's the issue, but you knew that.
> The woke mind virus, more formally postmodern neo-marxism, is the greatest threat to civilization today.
"The woke mind virus" really? You used that non-ironically? This is not something a serious or sane person would say for real.
You'd be surprised how mainstream these views are outside certain bubbles.
inside other bubbles.
Why do you get to bypass the HN global rate limit?
Probably manually lifted.
No, i wouldn't be surprised how ignorant, selfish and deceitful other Americans are, you included. Mainstream isn't the same as right.
Dude like this asshole would be fine with us keeping drinking fountains and lunch counters segregated, because thats how we've always done things.
Remember folks, there’s no such thing as “too much perspective” and when you get it wrong you look like this silver -haired, privileged , rich as fuck bigot.
The personal insults really lend credibility to your argument.
Keep telling yourself that. Perhaps you want to spew some more bullshit about postmodern neomarxism like a good little JP acolyte, eh? Such a free thinker /s
Good chat.
Holy shit. I’m a long-time admirer of freenet and you just single handedly destroyed any positive view of the project I may have held. Get a fucking grip and seek help if you can’t.
[flagged]
What? I don’t understand.
He's telling you to go and touch grass
The person who said “the woke mind virus… is the greatest threat to civilization today” is telling me *I* am the one who should go touch grass? That’s hilarious.
Yup, it really is.
Touching grass is woke mind virus /s