Comment by abelhabel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abelhabel | Hacker News Reader

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This is my experience as well. I am from Scandinavia and now living in Canada and I have only met a handful of individuals who do not interrupt others while speaking. Unlike you I tell them to shut up, which is the way it is where I come from but doesn't translate well.

Furthermore, I have never seen any american interviewer not interrupting their subjects.

This is my bias, so I never see sexism nor racism in this context. I only see idiots who think more of themselves than they should.

In this particular case and in regards to sexism, however, the voice that should be listened to most, in my opinion, is the voice of the subject. If we don't consider her voice the most important voice we put her in the subaltern and that is the worst position you can have. The subaltern being women in the context of patriarchal history.

The person who said 'Let her speak please.', should also be heard, regardless of her motives. The interviewers should shut up and let their subjects speak at all times, so we need more of this social courage.

Why is it weird to have conversations this way?

I would find it very odd to save a string of questions until the end.

It's much more fun to engage in the conversation actively.

I'm not saying control the conversation. Good conversationalists listen more than they speak.

But having fun in a conversation is engaging in it. Not replying paragraph after paragraph, in my opinion.

For me it is disrespectful to interrupt someone speaking, so that is why I find it "weird". But it is most probably a matter of preference. I don't think everyone should have discussions on my terms.

In the context of interviewer<-->interviewee, though, I think it is generally more interesting to listen to the interviewee than the interviewer. It seems to me that the whole premise of the interviewer<-->interviewee is for the interviewer to get the interviewee to talk.

Absolutely. People who don’t understand that an interview isn’t the same as a chat between buddies at the pub make terrible interviewers.

An interviewer’s job is to let the interviewee speak to the audience, even though the audience doesn’t get to directly ask questions.

In general nobody cares what the interviewer thinks, and we don’t want to hear them blab about themselves.

(This makes many “podcasts” unlistenable.)

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