

Reciprocal Altruism or Why Not to Screw People Over in Silicon Valley - emreas
http://startuphoodlum.com/2011/06/26/reciprocal-altruism-why-the-valley-works-and-why-not-to-screw-over-people/

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grovulent
Okay so - person A commits an act which person B believes to be a betrayal.
Community opinion splits. Intuitions go either way. Particularly - those who
converse more with A and have greater allegiance with him, view the matter as
he does, and vice versa with person B.

As per the principle advocated in the article - B hates A and refuses to
further interact. And that's it. If they're lucky - they'll cause a divisive
rift in their entire social group.

I've seen many examples of above stated sort of case. I haven't seen that many
where it's just clearly obvious that one person was the a-hole - to the point
where intuitions on the matter don't split to a significant degree. But of
course most people when IN the situation believe that it is in fact black and
white - just as this author supposes. Well - more often than not, that's
hubris.

So here is some contrarian advice.

As I see it - trust and understanding only comes after the overcoming of a
thousand mis-understandings. It comes after a mountain of forgiveness from
both sides. I've never had a single friendship of any significance that did
not involve a large degree of conflict.

So take some time to cool off - let some water flow under the bridge - then
call em up and buy em a beer. Admit that you were probably just as much of an
a-hole, even if you don't entirely understand why - and talk to the guy as
much as you can to figure out if maybe... just maybe... you got things wrong.

