
It’s Not Enough to Be Right – You Also Have to Be Kind - victorbojica
https://forge.medium.com/its-not-enough-to-be-right-you-also-have-to-be-kind-b8814111fe1
======
username90
If we accept the premise that you don't listen to messages that are too mean,
then there are two aspects to it:

The nicer you state your messages the more people will listen to you.

The meaner messages you can stomach the more information is accessible to you.

So we'd expect those who demand others to be nice to be less well informed
than those who can tolerate mean communication. For example, a person who
thinks their math teacher is mean when the teacher corrects them will probably
never become great at math. I believe that this is an aspect of communication
we need to talk way more about, since large parts of the population are
currently handicapped like this.

I'm not sure if it is genetic, but if it can be taught then we ought to tell
our kids to listen to everyone and not just what feels comfortable. Fill your
kids heads with statements like "It was a bit mean, but he is right, you
should really try to do FOO". People often have good reasons for being mean,
they could be tired, hungry, depressed or just spoke without thinking, those
are really bad reasons for not listening if the actual message is sound.

~~~
bsder
> The nicer you state your messages the more people will listen to you.

Most of the evidence I see directly contradicts this. The most successful
people I know are generally very nice, but can turn on the assholishness very
_tactically_.

People don't remember Feynman's O-ring demonstration because it was nice, they
remember it because it was a nasty takedown _in spite of_ it not being
strictly correct.

After 30+ years, my father could get most misbehaving high school students to
stop with just a quip that embarrassed them in front of their peers. That may
have pissed off the student, but it was less disruptive to both class and the
student than having to stop class, send the student to the administration, and
invoke overzealous cover-your-ass administration punishment.

In most successful projects I have been involved with, a single person dragged
it's bleeding, broken corpse across the finish line. And, I assure you, they
weren't always being very nice at the end--generally justifiably so to people
in the way.

And, being _nice_ in politics got us where we are today--a resurgent set of
right-wing demagogues in multiple countries.

Sorry, just not seeing it. I"m not saying "You should always be a raging
asshole," but I see precious little evidence that being the "nicer" person
turns out better in the long run.

Game theory, in fact, prefers tit-for-tat, no? Be nice and forgive, but do
punish those who deserve it.

~~~
jedimastert
> _The most successful people I know are generally very nice, but can turn on
> the assholishness very tactically_

I have a manager's manager that's great to talk to, and one of his stated
talents is he can "take a passive-aggressive situation and remove the passive
component quickly and effectively". He's great.

------
kstenerud
I think a large part of this involves personal insecurities. I remember saying
truthful things in very shitty ways during my younger years. But I also had a
lot to prove, having just started out in life as an adult.

Somehow as I grew older (starting in my mid-30s I suppose), I became more and
more aware of how I was affecting other people with my choice of words, and I
had less and less reasons to "defeat" people in conversation. When victory is
no longer the objective in a discussion, you tend relax, and can choose your
words more carefully.

~~~
tomp
Interesting, I find the opposite conclusion.

I think it mostly has to do with _other_ people's insecurities. If I say
something like, "veganism is unhealthy" (because of lack of B12... yes I'm
aware there are nuances), some vegans interpret that as a statement of
opinion, rather than a statement of fact, or even as an attack on their
lifestyle choices, because they are so involved with their egos.

I try to follow Paul Graham's dictum _" keep your identity small"_, the saying
"strong opinions weakly held" and/or I've extremely strong self-confidence
(compared to most people), so I seem to be way less personally affected by
statements like these (though I'm sure I have other triggers)...

Granted I'm only 30 so maybe that will change in a few years, but for the time
being I've started to moderate my stated opinions to spare other people's
feelings (though I still think it would be better if _they_ grew more
emotionally mature, but I realize that's unlikely to happen), to improve
social relations and, frankly, also because it's getting more and more
dangerous out there, with political correctness and/or China-driven character
assassinations.

~~~
ChristianBundy
> I think it mostly has to do with other people's insecurities. If I say
> something like, "veganism is unhealthy" (because of lack of B12... yes I'm
> aware there are nuances), some vegans interpret that as a statement of
> opinion, rather than a statement of fact, or even as an attack on their
> lifestyle choices, because they are so involved with their egos.

I'll bite. It's true that a vegan diet _can_ be unhealthy, and that it's wise
to supplement with B12, but that doesn't mean a vegan diet _is_ unhealthy.

This is like saying "an omnivorous diet is unhealthy because you don't eat
enough vegetables". Sure, some people with omnivorous diets need to eat more
vegetables, but that's not true of all people who eat omnivorous diets.

I'm not sure whether you would benefit from increasing your precision or
accuracy, but the "veganism is unhealthy" line is plain wrong.

~~~
Madmallard
(1) Heme-iron is really the only good way to get iron and it's only in meat
(2) You're not really going to get carnitine from vegetables (3) You're going
to have a really hard time eating enough calories and having balanced ratios
of macro-nutrients. Beans and rice which have protein also have tons of carbs
and no fat. Good luck with that.

I've seen literally dozens and dozens of videos and posts of really really
malnourished people advocating veganism. It's pretty much too hard to execute
for the average person.

------
semiotagonal
I think what matters more than kindness is simply allowing others to save
face. If being wrong incurs a social cost, than any disagreement is going to
become more heated, which may be detrimental to the community where this is
happening.

Of course, sometimes it makes sense to _impose_ a social cost for being wrong,
but that's different from raising the stakes of every disagreement
unintentionally.

~~~
js2
_Let the other person save face. Nothing diminishes the dignity of a man quite
like an insult to his pride. If we don 't condemn our employees in front of
others and allow them to save face, they will be motivated to do better in the
future and confident that they can._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People)

~~~
semiotagonal
Exactly! I've never read the book, _but perhaps I 've been influenced by
people who have_.

------
rmellow
I'm a "less fortunate, mistaken, and afraid" immigrant living in Canada.

It would feel so refreshing to get the truth straight sometimes, instead of
the oh-so-subtle and gentle ways Canadians have of dealing with clashing
cultural behaviours.

The end result is I don't know what I'm doing wrong until years later, because
so many think the right thing to do is coddle me.

Many of us want to adapt, and if we don't have access to the ground truth,
it's a painfully slow process that is simply holding us back from fully
integrating into society.

Canadians: I love you guys, but please give it to us straight.

~~~
pshc
This resonates. As a nerdy adolescent in BC, I couldn't understand why I
sometimes felt gaslit and confused after seemingly polite exchanges. Moving to
east coast USA fixed it--I'll take candor and tough love over passive
aggression any day. I recognize it's not for everyone, but this worked for me.

~~~
pseudoramble
This is an interesting point-of-view to me because I've lived on the east
coast of the USA my entire life, roughly split between two places. Between
that and the changes that come with aging, I have mixed feelings about this
point that I don't fully understand myself. I'll try and explain anyway
though.

I like the intent delivered clearly over roundabout ways of getting there. It
can weaken the meaning otherwise to not try and be more direct. So clear
intent is good. And of course I dislike are when people either make criticism
personal, but I think most people feel that way.

What I dislike the most are when people drop their criticism off for you and
let you deal with it. It's weird to not have any room for questions. It's hard
to work with that and improve on the criticism without being able to discuss
it. I also think I find it jarring how few people express any sort of self-
doubt either, or room for the possibility that they may be misunderstanding
something causing their criticism.

The interesting thing is that sometimes people are willing to help out, but
they won't directly say they are, or even drop a subtle hint that they are. If
you sort of go in head-first and just ask the dumb questions you may find
they're very helpful. But that lack-of clarity is bothering to me.

~~~
pshc
Thank you for these insights. I see what you mean--drive-by criticism is just
rude.

------
mncharity
I once saw a research talk at MIT, where the visiting professor ended up in
tears. I've also seen a couple of talks, where a question at the end was
phrased so "softly", that if you weren't already close to seeing the fatal
flaw in the work, you might miss that it was pointed out. I've wondered what
the right thing is. Kind to the person, but unsparing with the ideas, seems...
hard to execute here. The person being so invested in their ideas.

And yet, I once saw someone doing a community outreach road trip. Maybe from
NSF, for Next Generation Science Standards. She was awesome. As in, I sat
there in the audience, and was awed. Some of the questions asked were
emotional, and angry, and too confused to even be wrong. Where I would boggle,
and could think of little more than "okayyyyyy... moving on". And yet she
fielded them with empathy, respect, and grace, extracting value for both the
questioner and the audience. I've long wished I'd tagged the event, so I could
find and ask her, how does one train to do that? I still don't know, but I was
left with a new presumption, that no question is so broken, that a
sufficiently skilled respondent cannot address it with productive kindness.

------
Scapeghost
Recently I was berated on a forum for my "overuse" of "please" and "thanks"
when talking to someone who represented a company.

The angry person argued we shouldn't be so "submissive" and are perfectly in
our right to be demanding etc

My response: "It took me less time and effort to type please than it took you
to get angry and write all this about it."

~~~
bilbo0s
What fascinates me about it is the psychology of it all.

That guy had nothing to gain, nor anything to lose, in your interaction with
the other party. So why was he willing to invest so much clearly emotional
energy into it? It's almost like he wanted to have the aggressive interaction
simply for aggression's sake. Like he needed to feed on the aggressive
emotions or something? There just doesn't really seem to be any sense in this
whole thing?

~~~
FeepingCreature
Nah, it's signaling. Being nice, to the angry person, undermined the social
cohesion of the people asking for change from the company and marked the
person being nice as a potential weak link that the company could placate to
divide and conquer the opposition.

~~~
Scapeghost
That's pretty much it. They wanted a mob.

Not getting a mob means everyone goes home, bored, probably alone, and doesn't
get to participate in making changes.

------
tunesmith
People have got to stop using the term "political correctness" to mean two
entirely different things.

There's a Venn diagram of free speech and respect. It's entirely possible to
have both. Some people rightly criticize PC when it's about inhibiting free
speech. But other people wrongly criticize PC when they just want to speak
disrespectfully.

------
air7
This topic is something I think about a lot. While I am generally for kindness
and empathy, there is something dangerously patronizing about this point of
view. Quote:

> If you can’t be kind, if you won’t empathize, then you’re not on the team.
> That team is Team Humanity, where we are all in this thing together. Where
> we are all flawed and imperfect. Where we treat other people’s point of view
> as charitably as we treat our own. Where we are civilized and respectful
> and, above all, kind to each other—particularly the less fortunate, the
> mistaken, and the afraid.

That bit at the end is the crux of the matter: Instead of having an honest,
fact based (yet perhaps heated) discussion, it purports a "civilized and
respectful" treatment because the other side is to be seen as "less fortunate,
the mistaken, and the afraid". This is hiding an assumption of superiority
towards the other side. _They_ are flawed and imperfect due to their
unfortunate circumstances so _we_ have to nobly accept them as such and be
tolerant about their points-of-view. This to me seems like a worse, more
insidious form of bigotry: Instead of have a leveled argument, where you risk
hurting the other side by calling them out for being wrong (or dumb) but also
allow them to answer back (and perhaps discovering _you_ are wrong or dumb),
you deem them 2nd class, in need of special attention and care. Too
fragile/delicate/uneducated to be able to handle a direct response one would
give to someone they see as "on their level" or above.

Of course context matters and no sweeping generalizations can be made, but (as
per the example in the article) making your grandma cry by articulating her
self-inflicted harm due to smoking is, imo, much kinder and empathic than
being "understanding" and keep quite maintaining her short-term good mood.

~~~
jmull
If you're getting decent at being kind and empathizing, you naturally won't
end up being patronizing. Being patronizing _is_ a lack of empathy: you're not
understanding the others point of view. And, of course, it's insulting, which
is unkind.

In terms of promoting kindness, I wouldn't worry much about that. If you're
trying to be kind but end of patronizing, you probably just need some more
practice.

Anyway, there's definitely a difference between coddling and being kind while
telling the truth. It's not necessarily easy to find, especially since it
often depends heavily on the other person's perspective (hence all the talk of
empathy).

> ...making your grandma cry by articulating her self-inflicted harm due to
> smoking is, imo, much kinder and empathic than being "understanding" and
> keep quite maintaining her short-term good mood.

I don't think that's true. I suppose you're thinking that confronting Grandma
with the facts will help her quit.

However, it's likely she knows those facts, yet has been unable to quit anyway
(hence the bursting into tears -- you're reminding her of her failure, her
accelerated mortality, and the associated anxiety and feelings about failure).
So you aren't helping by providing her with facts she already has. You're
_only_ making your Grandma miserable. A better approach to helping your
grandma might be to encourage her about cessation treatments and focus on what
she has to gain (not what she's already lost).

------
WillDaSilva
>After spending years and millions of words and hours of video on this, we’ve
had almost zero success. Why? Because you can’t reason people out of positions
they didn’t reason themselves into. No one responds well to having their
identity attacked. No argument made in bad faith—that the person on the other
side is a moron or a dupe or a racist or a snowflake—is ever going to be
received in good faith.

Unfortunately it seems that even compassionate arguments made in good faith
are ineffective for most people. As the author states: "you can’t reason
people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into", and most people
don't reason themselves into the positions they believe.

~~~
Udik
True, I've been trying to be polite and respectful and _subtle_ at least in
online conversations (I am far too emotional to do it effectively in real
life, which is a big handicap). And I am not getting much results anyway.

But maybe the problem is also that we expect immediate satisfaction: we want
the other person convinced there and then, in the course of one exchange.
Probably we should accept the fact that without inciting polarization, and
being open to being convinced as well as convincing, eventually we'll
contribute in changing some opinions, or we'll change ours. It will take time
and we won't be there to witness the "flip", the moment when the other
suddenly starts seeing our point of view. Ideas don't change during a heated
confrontation; they change at random times, sometimes when we're alone and
maybe thinking about something else.

------
mfringel
Being needlessly blunt is like throwing a grenade with a message attached. You
can tell it's delivered when you hear the KABOOM, but you can't guarantee
anything else.

In my experience, being kind has the advantage of reducing the probability of
side-effects. There are typically no bonus points awarded for causing someone
to get defensive, when your only goal was to correct their mistake.

~~~
baked_ziti
On the other hand, the inability to be blunt is a serious deficiency and
indicates you're sacrificing honesty somewhere.

~~~
lugg
There is a middle ground.

You can err toward honesty but still remove hostility.

~~~
baked_ziti
I totally agree. I actually find this whole discussion encouraging because it
indicates to me that people are trying to find that middle ground by talking
the whole thing out.

------
sandov
In my opinion:

Being right and nice is better than being right and mean.

Being right and mean is better than being wrong and nice.

Being wrong and nice is better than being wrong and mean.

~~~
s1artibartfast
Where would you place saying nothing in your hierarchy.

I think that saying nothing is better than being right and mean, because being
right and mean is usually counter productive and reinforces the wong belief.

Humans are simply wired to use aggression as overriding evidence of the person
being wrong. If your goal is to change minds, it just doesn't work.

~~~
username90
> Humans are simply wired to use aggression as overriding evidence of the
> person being wrong.

This is not always true, many mathematicians and physicists can be mean when
they argue but they still listen to each other and acknowledge when they are
wrong.

~~~
s1artibartfast
I agree that there are fringe cases where individuals can separate emotional
reactions from factual arguments. I would argue that it is the exception to
the norm, and there is usually an implicit understanding of mutual respect

------
unboogyman
You will rarely change a person's mind, and never right away, but you can do a
lot to start their journey towards seeing things different (assuming you're
right) by having them realize that people on "the other side" are decent,
well-intentioned, rational people too.

------
goatherders
I deleted Twitter last week because I found myself working harder to be clever
and cruel instead kind. Social media is everyone screaming and very few
listening. In fact, those with the loudest voices (politicians, entertainers)
listen least. I haven't missed it at all.

~~~
oconnor663
It also consistently amplifies the angriest and least reasonable voices from
the _other_ side, so you don't get to spend any time listening to folks who
could actually teach you something new.

------
PhasmaFelis
This is an important message, and I don't want to distract from it, but
there's some brutal irony in being lectured about the important of kindness by
_Jeff Bezos._ Amazon is the home of "Nearly every person I worked with, I saw
cry at their desk" and fires pregnant women for taking too many bathroom
breaks.

Come to think, this is actually a pretty good example of the importance of
framing your message properly if you want to be heard.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-
amazon-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-
wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html)

[https://www.cnet.com/features/amazon-fired-
these-7-pregnant-...](https://www.cnet.com/features/amazon-fired-
these-7-pregnant-workers-then-came-the-lawsuits/)

------
proc0
The problem with empathy is that it doesn't scale, and in fact at scale it is
more harmful than helpful. Basing your decisions on a few instances of a
problem (because those images were so powerful _cries_ ) might not work when
the problem has to do with millions of people across multiple countries.

The Universe just doesn't care about how you feel. It is what it is. Letting
people's personality traits and/or flaws get in the way of objective truths is
just dumb. One exists regardless of the other.

~~~
didericis
I think there’s a hybrid approach.

You’re right; you can’t take in the experiences of the entire world and feel
as they all feel. It’s impossible.

But I do think it’s roughly possible to scale up a desire to listen to your
effects. When you see a stadium of people reacting, for example, you can find
one guy that’s cheering and have him act as a sort of avatar for the section
of the crowd that is happy. You can find a guy that’s booing and view him as
an avatar for the section of the crowd that is not. You can find a guy that’s
apathetic and view him as an avatar for the section of the crowd that is
apathetic. So on and so forth.

People are combinations of many different characteristics, so you cannot
separate them into those types of avatars with perfect fidelity. But you can
get close.

Then you can attempt to empathize with those abstract representations of
people, with the knowledge that it’s rough, and that you must pair your
empathy with a very rational, calculating look at whether or not the avatars
you are constructing are reasonable representatives of the people underlying
them.

But I definitely agree that empathy shouldn’t get in the way of truth
regardless of how you employ it, and find some of the talk around this sort of
thing worrisome.

------
anotherevan
“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I
admire kind people.”

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

Words I am always reminded of whenever I try to be too clever on the internet.

------
neilobremski
My wife and I have been talking a lot about giving license to make mistakes
and that means letting others do what they're going to do without mocking them
for it. Be ready to help them with the "right" way if they fail but also for a
pleasant surprise if it works out. As a lead at work, I often hear solutions I
doubt will pan out and sometimes I can't help myself correct things. But this
"fixing" is actually creating long-term problems and undermining
responsibility and ownership.

Anyway, this is what I thought of about halfway through the article when it
veered off into contemporary politics.

------
coldtea
> _Some people might say that young Bezos did nothing wrong. They’re just
> facts, and the truth hurts. How else do you expect someone to recognize the
> seriousness of what they’re doing to themselves? There’s something to that,
> but it captures the central conceit of a dangerous assumption we seem to
> have made as a culture these days: that being right is a license to be a
> total, unrepentant asshole. After all, why would you need to repent if you
> haven’t committed the ultimate sin of being wrong? Some say there’s no
> reason to care about other people’s feelings if the facts are on your side._

People do believe the above, but if one thinks rationally (Vulcan style) about
it, it's a bizarro idea.

What would be the logical necessity be that makes it OK "not to care about
other people’s feelings if the facts are on your side"?

What matters to people is what people decide that matters. Whether that's the
facts or the delivery of the facts or your tone etc, is a subjective decision.

So why would a 100% logical person assume that being correct should trump
everything else? It's an illogical conclusion to arrive at. By what logical
reasoning / axiomatic induction etc did they conclude that being correct is
enough?

I say there's none. Instead it's their prejudice towards accuracy and
correctness that makes them consider so. In other words, those people think
they're logical in that assumption (that being right trumps your
tone/delivery/etc), but they're just all too human...

~~~
friendlybus
What you call prejudice is a debated value structure. You can weigh the cost
of negative emotions against all kinds of ideas and have the ideas come out
ahead.

It's weird to see you say "What matters to people is what people decide
matters" and then assume the other party has no reasoning behind their
actions. Peculiar indeed.

~~~
coldtea
> _It 's weird to see you say "What matters to people is what people decide
> matters" and then assume the other party has no reasoning behind their
> actions. Peculiar indeed._

I don't assume that. If anything, I do the exact opposite.

The "other party" says that they have reasoning behind their actions (and only
reasoning).

I point how they indeed have reasoning, but that this reasoning is based on an
implicit value structure, and is not some "pure reasoning" as claimed, and
that furthermore, that it is wrong, because their conclusion on "what matters"
should have taken into account the Other.

Let me break it down to a number of statements to make it simpler:

1) if you think of yourself as a perfectly rational agent,

2) and your goal is to point a very bad habbit in someone, e.g. that their
drinking/eating will kill them,

3) ig you say it without kindness and tailored to their personality

4) because you think only the fact that it's true shoiuld be enough

5) then you're undermining the success of your own intervention. The person
could close down to you, double down on their habbit, etc because of the hurt
of your words.

So a perfectly rational agent should include (5) in their calculations, as
it's a fact about the world and how people react. Yet many (as in TFA) don't.
Their rationality stops at first order thinking, and doesn't include people's
reactions and other second order effects.

So, my whole point is: you're not really rational if you skip (5). You just
have an incomplete model of the world, and your conclusions about "what
matters" (just the truth, the delivery shouldn't count) is flawed under a
rational utilitarian assessment.

~~~
friendlybus
You do assume that.

>By what logical reasoning / axiomatic induction etc did >they conclude that
being correct is enough? > >I say there's none.

I don't think myself or people as perfectly rational. Tests have shown we are
mostly subconscious beings. We are not masters in our own house.

Tailoring everything to the other person and being kind can lend into being
straight up manipulative. We have an identity in the world that effects how
people hear what is said. My kindness can be less effective than yours because
of my identity. Wielding all of my outward facing tools to achieve a goal can
include being just the right amount of challenging so that the content of what
I say is heard as plausible, credible and valuable. Many attempts at kindness
can leave the words in the wind, in one ear and out the other.

A value structure is taking all ideas in and bringing them into an order.
Utilitarianism would be one idea that is ranked among others, as would
rationality and politeness and kindness. There's light and dark to all of
them, you couldn't pigeon hole someone as executing on just one of the tools
or ideas listed.

~~~
coldtea
> _You do assume that._

The quote you pasted is about axiomatic reasoning not being able to conclude
that "being correct is enough". Not that the people I mention didn't use any
logical reasoning / axiomatic induction at all. As I wrote, they used some,
but combined with ignoring some necessary steps (either because they didn't
occur to them, or because of an implicit bias).

> _I don 't think myself or people as perfectly rational._

No, but some people do. In anycase, I wasn't talking about people who "think
themselves as perfectly rational". I was talking about people who think that
their reasoning that "truth trumps delivery" came in a perfectly rational way
(whether they consider themselves otherwise rational in their other
ideas/behavior or not).

> _Tailoring everything to the other person and being kind can lend into being
> straight up manipulative._

Or it might not. It's how you use it. One can also use the truth
manipulatively (e.g. to hurt the other, invoke some inferiority complex and
numerous other ways), in cases when a little white lie would not have had the
desired effect on the other.

------
0-_-0
Although not being offensive is an important skill, not being offended is an
important skill as well.

~~~
wffurr
When you are communicating to someone, you only control one of those.

~~~
cobbzilla
What happens when you are actively trying not to be offensive, trying to
empathize and be nice, and yet the other person takes offense?

Do you really have control of anything?

~~~
jmcqk6
You always have control over your own actions, including your reaction when
someone takes offence to something you say or do.

I've found that if someone is offended, if you react with openness and a
willingness to listen to what they are saying, then the outcome will likely be
positive.

If you are more concerned with defending yourself than listening to the other
person, then it's likely the outcome is going to be negative.

This isn't rocket science. The problem is that people tend to react
defensively. The only utility in such a reaction is a protection of your own
ego. The irony is that in attempting to protect your own ego, you just end up
making the situation worse, including for yourself.

Listening is a superpower.

~~~
baked_ziti
> You always have control over your own actions

By your logic the person who is offended has it entirely within their power
not to be offended. Since in this scenario they are the one having the more
extreme emotional reaction, perhaps it would be more reasonable to ask that
they regulate their emotions to some degree, rather than criticize the way in
which the person absorbing the brunt of their emotional onslaught does so.

> This isn't rocket science.

That's a bit condescending.

> The problem is that people tend to react defensively

I really don't think it is.

------
mahathu
As German philosopher and scholar Hans Peter Baxxter once famously proclaimed:
"It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."

------
jes
I think it's important to practice the ability to evoke compassion for all
living things.

------
wenc
Maybe it's possible to do both?

I've always been told to always "address the ideas, not the person" (never
attack someone's character) and to adopt a pose of "curiosity".

In discourse, it's perfectly fine to dispute ideas (it's the foundation of
Western civilization and of analytical thought, and is a means to knowledge
and wisdom).

If we cannot argue in a marketplace of ideas, we are prevented from having
hard but necessary conversations. We need to adhere to parameters of civility
of course, but to me, a necessary freedom is the freedom to disagree/dispute.
Some ideas are truly wrong and they need to be put through the crucible.

~~~
akman
>Maybe it's possible to do both?

I agree, and I think that's part of Ryan Holiday's thesis. That also happens
to be the message in the book Crucial Conversations.

------
yowlingcat
"If you can't be kind, if you won't empathize, then you're not on the team.
That team is Team Humanity, where we are all in this thing together. Where we
are all flawed and imperfect. Where we treat other people's point of view as
charitably as we treat our own. Where we are civilized and respectful and,
above all, kind to each other - particularly the less fortunate, the mistaken,
and the afraid."

Flawed conclusion. I really dislike when people think of empathy as this
strange, bland, chore-like sort of service. In reality, it seems artistic to
me. You are putting yourself into a completely different world. Have some fun
with it! Engage in some creativity!

Plenty of people are horrific to others and yet kind to those within their
tribe. Plenty more people hurt members of their own tribe - clumsily, by
mistake. Kindness won't get you out of your own head, or out of your own way.
It's not enough to just respect the things that exist outside of your head
that you don't agree with. You have to want to do the hard work of going
through the thought process of someone foreign to your world, in good faith
until you can render their world in a reasonably lifelike fashion as they
would.

All the kindness in the world without that mental exercise, or research, or
attempt to speak someone else's language -- it's better than nothing, but not
by much. We should focus on the larger task at hand: getting to know one
another's way of lives better and strengthening community.

------
natmaka
There is just a step from this to avoiding expressing anything which may be
hurt, even slightly by misinterpretation.

It seems to me that many try to smooth things up to the point of actively
avoiding anything remotely resembling even "I don't agree" (there is no better
excipient than no excipient), and this is dangerous.

Granted, every principle/method becomes counter-productive when pushed to its
max, however on this one many inadvertently go over this limit.

------
bigj0n
This is highly contextual. One community I find myself going to on occasion is
the archlinux IRC channel. Manners are very much not their highest priority.
While they dont go out of their way to be mean, they dont really do it to be
kind either.

But the result is a channel that is a very effective means of support when the
documentation or wiki doesnt have what you need.

Communication is a game of compromise. Sometimes it makes sense to compromise
on clarity or brevity to be nice. But when your goal is to solve difficult,
material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else.

The author mentioned Bezos' grandmother being hurt when he mentioned she
smoked away 9 years of her life. Is it really Bezos' manners that hurt her
feelings? I would imagine that that realization hits hard and does damage on
it's own. I think it would be very hard to get that message hard without it
hurting. You can attempt to veil the message and lessen the impact, or
distract from it somehow- but now you've impacted the integrity of the
message.

~~~
Carpetsmoker
_> Communication is a game of compromise. Sometimes it makes sense to
compromise on clarity or brevity to be nice. But when your goal is to solve
difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over
all else._

I am not convinced that this friction exists. Often times things can be
rephrased quite easily, e.g. "you're just plain wrong" can be "I don't think
that's correct" or "I feel this may be mistaken".

These examples are simple, but in my own writing I've never noticed an example
where I wanted to be clear, but wasn't able to do so while still being nice.

It _is_ true that truly _constructive_ comments are much harder to write,
since they take significantly more effort: you need to carefully read the
original article, think about it, maybe do a bit of additional research, etc,
whereas a quick "this is just wrong because [X]" after reading the title is
much easier.

~~~
bigj0n
> significantly more effort

Which often takes time. And limits engagement. The maintainers of pacman have
a limited amount of energy they're willing to spend on free support- I'm happy
for then to save effort wherever they can.

I wont argue that if you can be kind while sacrificing absolutely nothing
else- absolutely be kind.

But anybody who has ever played a competitive sport or even team lifted a
couch knows that sometimes barking an order is the best way of doing things-
and you just have to have somewhat thick skin.

To live in a world where the perfect message always exists would be great. We
dont live in that world.

~~~
fapjacks
Or, for example, on a battlefield.

~~~
Carpetsmoker
Yeah, developing open source software is _exactly_ like war

~~~
fapjacks
Shift the goalposts some more. The post I replied to made a point and gave an
example. I added another example.

------
LaserToy
I wonder why the author used Bezos as an example. It doesn’t look like he took
his grandfather’s lesson to the heart.

~~~
username90
And it doesn't look like it hurt his career much either. It seems that in many
cases it is more important to be a bit more right than it is to be a bit more
nice.

~~~
sullyj3
Many people base their decisions on whether to emulate someone on more than
the success of that person's career.

------
cryptica
I think people should not try to be kind. They should just be themselves.

Criticism is good and useful and should be delivered in the most direct way
possible. People should just toughen up. It's unbelievable to think that 80
years ago, people were killing each other with guns and bombs but today's
people get offended if someone doesn't press the 'like' button on their
Facebook photos. We are too weak; that's the real problem.

Being weak is bad. Political correctness poses a threat to our freedom of
speech.

I can't stand this dystopian corporate rhetoric that 'being nice' and 'feeling
safe' are important. They are not. Both of these things make us weaker.

~~~
TomMarius
I think you misunderstand the word kind. You can be kind and constructively
critical at the same time, and being kind enhances the result of the
criticism.

I wouldn't bring shooting people into this at all.

~~~
cryptica
Mean people make us stronger. I'm grateful to all the jerks I met in my life
who built my character.

~~~
TomMarius
That does not mean one should strive to be mean.

------
Dowwie
Some of the most helpful, knowledgeable, and experienced people I've had the
honor to work with have been abrasive, rude and occasionally insulting. It
takes grit to work with them but it's largely worthwhile.

------
chrisweekly
Default: subjective wrt self, objective wrt others.

Ideal: objective wrt self, subjective wrt others.

------
Carpetsmoker
Interesting related article:
[https://archive.is/mxE4p](https://archive.is/mxE4p) (original seems down at
the moment)

------
axilmar
Telling the truth is more important than being kind. We live in a reality that
truth matters a lot more in the long run than not hurting someone's feelings.

If one cannot stomach the truth, they are in for a nasty surprise when reality
kicks their door.

We all shall learn how to argue by ignoring emotions and use logic. Logic is
the only way forward.

------
drewcoo
Yet the example of Rogan being "kind" involves forming up two "teams" and
telling people if they don't perceive something like Joe does "they're on the
wrong team." This sort of kindness seems to be emotional manipulation, which
he confuses with empathy. Yes, that works, but it certainly doesn't fit my
definition of kind.

------
miguelmota
Anger is the strongest emotion, stronger emotion than love. It's almost like
second nature to be clever when you know some facts to prove the counterparty
wrong because of anger. Learning to control emotion (ie stoicism) prevents
impulse arguments because you reflect and think on why you're feeling that way
before before instigating something.

------
perl4ever
There are two kinds of criticism, the kind that is a rejection of you and your
ability, and the kind that implies you _should_ be able to do better, that the
person criticizing _knows_ you can do better, which is implicitly a
compliment.

The former type can be expressed very politely, and still hurt infinitely
worse than the latter expressed most harshly.

------
Tomis02
Sometimes if you're right, being kind signals to others that it's ok to ignore
you (e.g. "it's just her/his opinion"). Whereas if you're more direct and skip
the niceties it can be more likely your ideas are acknowledged.

------
stakhanov
Re "You can be an asshole, as long as you're right": While there are
individuals who think that, I don't think it's true to say that society as a
whole has adopted that viewpoint.

There are also individuals who act on the opposite principle: "If you can
claim hurt feelings, you've automatically won the debate." This goes so far,
that arguments often get to a point where one person dares another to hurt
their feelings so that they can have an easy win. Like "A: Vaccines are safe,
and not vaccinating your children exposes them to health risks. B: Well, I
don't vaccinate MY children. Are you saying I'm a bad mother? [A: Well yes,
kind of.]"

Also, I think that this opposite principle is exactly the principle that has
lead to where we are as a society regarding the ridiculousness of political
correctness.

The thing is: Cognitive dissonance reduction always trumps rationality as a
mechanism whereby people form beliefs. So, the theoretical ideal would be to
make a rational persuasive argument that somehow steers clear of creating
cognitive dissonance in anybody (neither people on the same side, nor people
on the other side of the debate).

But I also think that the article is right in asserting that, in today's
world, there is just no room for lengthy and nuanced argument. They just don't
get any airtime when all the media that matter, like social media and word-of-
mouth are based on resonance, and attention spans of average people are fast
approaching infinitesimal dimensions.

...so I really don't know where that leaves us as a society. I don't really
see a way out to be honest.

~~~
JasonFruit
You point is generally good, but I don't see it as a contradiction to the
article. There's nothing inconsistent in saying, "You should be considerate in
your manner of communication," while at the same time saying, "When you are
criticized or contradicted, try not to take offense." The two guidelines are
compatible.

~~~
stakhanov
I agree. The advice is sound. I wasn't taking issue with the advice, only with
the premise that society as a whole has adopted the standard "You can be an
asshole, as long as you're right."

Maybe, phrasing it more positively, I would _add_ to the advice. (1) Try not
to be an asshole, as you're winning an argument. (2) Don't try to win an
argument by demonstrating that your opponent is an asshole.

Some people tend to foget about (1). Others tend to forget about (2).

~~~
JasonFruit
That's well put. I misunderstood at first.

------
davegri
This reminds me of a simple rule that we all should follow. Before speaking,
ask yourself, is what I'm saying both honest and kind? If not, reconsider :)

------
mahmoudimus
Reminds me of an article by Andrew Bosworth: [https://boz.com/articles/be-
kind](https://boz.com/articles/be-kind)

This advice is correct.

------
brm
You don't have to be kind. You just shouldn't be unkind.

------
t-h-e-chief
Thanks for posting this. It needs to be spammed into most of the world's email
boxes. So tired of people trolling other people just because they are right.

------
Mountain_Skies
Interesting that the only discussion of autism in the article is a tangential
mention of those who believe in a connection to vaccines. What is to happen to
people who are not neurotypical in this brave new world of be nice or be
exiled?

~~~
kstenerud
We're doing just fine, thanks. Autism doesn't cause a lack of empathy. We're
perfectly capable of seeing things from other peoples' perspectives. It's just
that certain viewpoints/mindsets are aggravating from an aesthetic standpoint,
which is why many don't learn to tolerate them.

~~~
shantly
I love this notion of others’ viewpoints or _selves_ as aesthetic objects and
will definitely, in one form or another and for one purpose or another, be
stealing it.

------
paulpauper
good points but does come across as patronizing at time.s it's like "pity
those unreasonable people and their positions they didn't reason themselves
into. "

------
Keltullis
I found this out the hard way, by losing a good friendship.

------
dfilppi
That was the secret to Steve Jobs success.

------
ben509
> There’s something to that, but it captures the central conceit of a
> dangerous assumption we seem to have made as a culture these days: that
> being right is a license to be a total, unrepentant asshole.

I don't think this is true. I think politeness and civility have degraded over
time and this is a symptom of a deeper decay of cultural mores.

It's normal behavior among human beings for the strong to exert dominance over
the weak, and not all cultures reject this. Western culture is one that does,
and civility is one way we've traditionally done so.

> Anti-intellectualism is also a real problem. We should be worried about the
> death of expertise.

This is also a symptom. Imagine if large numbers of people were getting food
poisoning, you'd see "anti-agriculturalism" because people would fear that the
institution of farming was in crisis.

Elitism isn't simply a belief, it's a process whereby an institution maintains
its elite status by enforcing high standards. Populism is what you get when
people percieve that the elite aren't maintaining their standards, and in the
modern context, it's often the perception that objectivity is sacrificed to a
narrow political agenda.

> Yet, no amount of yelling or condescension or trolling is going to fix any
> of this. It never has and never will.

My reading of history is that politics has been far worse in the past and then
people have behaved better. I don't know what mechanism causes this. Perhaps
nastiness does level out like some kind of repeated prisoners' dilemma[1]. It
could be because human beings can't maintain a high level of arousal
indefinitely. It could be that the most incendiary individuals have to burn
their bridges so that the more reasonable people are the only ones left
standing.

But I think that generally the voices calling for civility and moderation can
only establish a civil norm after a certain amount of incivility has run its
course, so I'd argue that's how yelling / condescension / etc does, in fact,
fix it.

> There is a great clip of Joe Rogan talking during the immigration crisis
> last year. ... The clip has been seen millions of times now and undoubtedly
> has changed more minds than a government shutdown, than the squabbles and
> fights on CNN, than the endless op-eds and think-tank reports.

I think this gets at the heart of my problem with the kindness mantra.

When you're speaking on a subject persuasively, you absolutely need empathy to
be effective. You need to recognize how you might cause a person to lose face
or feel shame. You want to figure out how to make that human connection.

None of this is inherently morally good, and I think labelling it as "kind" is
falsely suggesting that. After all, a conman does the _exact_ same thing,
"con" stands for "confidence", gaining the mark's trust.

Yes, if I'm going to push your buttons, I'd like to be nice about it, but I'm
ultimately pushing your buttons. My problem with claiming this is about
"kindness" is that I'm still pushing my agenda.

That agenda still needs to be justified.

> Some say there’s no reason to care about other people’s feelings if the
> facts are on your side.

Ben Shapiro specifically says "facts don't care about your feelings," and this
neatly demonstrates casual defamation is presented with language about
kindness and empathy.

Shapiro's point is that for an agenda to align with "team humanity" it has to
work in practice, that good intentions are not enough. He's generally
responding to the charge that he's only against welfare / minimum wage / etc
because he doesn't care about poor people / sick people / is racist / etc.

And vile accusations dressed up as heart-warming platitudes are so common that
he's made his counter to them a slogan. I know I've heard them consistently my
entire adult life.

And that's why if you're a liberal who wants to empathize with conservatives,
you need to understand that when you start talking about empathy and kindness,
it comes across as utterly insincere. Is it fair to you individually? Sorry,
your peers have been poisoning the well for decades.

So my advice: if you think it's the right thing to do or that it's more
persuasive, spare us the sermon and just do it.

[1]: [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/iterated-prisoners-
dile...](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/iterated-prisoners-dilemma.asp)

------
irrespective
Much of the so-called 'hacker ethos' can be basically boiled down to 'you may
be as much of a dick as you want as long as you're technically correct'.

~~~
Carpetsmoker
It's even encouraged to be a overly direct, because being nice is just a waste
of precious brain cycles.

Perhaps my favourite example is that it's forbidden to thank people on Stack
Overflow :-/

~~~
sedeki
You can be direct and nice at the same time. You’re saying that nice always
implies extra, redundant chatter.

I don’t consider the SO culture a relevant counter-example. Like, why does a
gamified forum hurt your feelings?

~~~
irrespective
No one's feelings are hurt, it just comes off as sounding like a dick. Just
like the expression 'hurt your feelings'. (Nothing personal though, I'm sure
you're swell in real life.)

~~~
sedeki
I am not a native English speaker, first of all. My point is that SO is _not_
a representative example of general internet culture, given its rules and
gamified aspect(s).

------
austincheney
This title and article strike me as an incredibly naive and possibly immature
perspective. When your goal is to neither prove a point or be kind there is
nothing left but the clearest intent of the message.

------
kd3
Persuasion is mind manipulation. Facts and truth should be stated as plainly
and objectively as possible. It is up to each person how they decide to handle
it. Being kind is highly subjective and a slippery slope.

~~~
s1artibartfast
This is entirely goal specific. Your position is fine when you don't need to
build consensus.

------
mlthoughts2018
In corporate culture I have found this advice to unfortunately be very
ineffective.

Delivering critical feedback or trying to lobby to convince others of a course
of action very often requires dispensing with pleasantries and bullshit and
just get it out in the open.

It can cost you big time if you try to spare feelings or water down the case
you’re making for kindness.

I mean, it can be the difference between having to fire someone or not, or
getting resources so people don’t burn out. Or getting someone to stop wasting
your team’s time while you’re on a critical project.

------
droithomme
Mostly everyone pushing kindness these days are sadistic manipulative bullies
promoting an agenda. They gang up with others of their kind to destroy the
lives of those who have displeased them or questioned their agenda.

Kindness is overrated. Not being a sadistic manipulative bully? Now that is a
great thing to advocate for.

------
mcphage
> If you can’t be kind, if you won’t empathize, then you’re not on the team.

And there are people like that out there, too, making decisions that affect us
all. How do you treat people who demand you see their humanity, but refuse to
see yours? Who, when they see our government hurting people, react with
“they’re not hurting the people I wanted them to hurt!”?

~~~
zozbot234
> How do you treat people who demand you see their humanity, but refuse to see
> yours?

Call their bluff. Being _that_ unempathetic while demanding empathy from
others is a lot worse than just neglecting kindness altogether.

~~~
mcphage
> Call their bluff.

What do you think they’re bluffing about?

