Hacker News Reader

"Can you take a step back and" isn't "ceremony", it's an intentional phrasing to produce the desired effect and context change in the reader. It's very easy to get caught up in the minutiae, and phrasing like "Can you take a step back" is a request to switch to higher-level considerations. "Can you explain your goal here?" could produce a result like "Well, I'm trying to do X so I can Y", whereupon you then have to say "No, no, go up a level; why are you trying to Y?". "Can you take a step back and explain your goal here?" encourages someone to provide a considered response, and up-level their reasoning.

That holds especially true when your job is to provide that broader picture for others, and the person you're talking to might not have your perspective.

Having had to give the equivalent of the "No, no, I meant" follow-up response there more than once, I've learned to provide the additional signals to up-level.

>"Can you take a step back and" isn't "ceremony", it's an intentional phrasing

Then it depends on how we perceive word choices. To me, "take a step back" has become so overused that it's a "dead metaphor".[1] It has become the opposite of "intentional phrasing" and its most common use is prelude and lubrication.

I'm not saying you're wrong in interpreting "take a step back" more literally. (Literal interpretation is the premise of what your comment dissecting it is based on). Most of the time, you can ignore it based on the way most people insert "take a step back" into their business-speak.

Also, I doubt that surveying 10 random business people what "take a step back" means would result in 6+ out of 10 defining it as "higher-level concerns". It seems like "take a step back" acts more like a discourse marker.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_metaphor

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_marker

That's entirely plausible, and it depends on the environment. My point wasn't to focus on that particular phrase (the choice of which may vary by environment), but to more generally suggest that phrases that might seem semantically empty may in fact have a purpose beyond making something come across as less blunt.

The higher-level point: you're trying to produce a certain reaction in the reader/listener, and every word and phrase you use will contribute to that reaction. Even if you don't care about how they feel for its own sake, there's value in producing the reaction you want and avoiding the reaction you don't.

So, in my case, I've had direct experience with specific choices of phrasing producing undesirable results (and in a way being insufficiently direct), so I've adopted other phrasings that produce the results I do want. The specific things that work for you may vary.

> Also, I doubt that surveying 10 random business people what "take a step back" means would result in 6+ out of 10 defining it as "higher-level concerns". It seems like "take a step back" acts more like a discourse marker.[2]

In the specific context of the whole phrase ("Can you take a step back and explain your goal here?"), I'd consider it semantically meaningful. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets used in semantically null ways, as well.

But even if it were simply a "discourse marker", that shouldn't be automatically discounted and deleted either. To make an analogy to another form of behavior: I've seen a lot of hackers follow a certain counterproductive chain of reasoning regarding fashion. "This makes no sense and shouldn't be a thing that matters. I'm going to treat it as a thing that doesn't matter." (It's a form of the is-ought fallacy.) As opposed to the rather more effective reasoning: "This is a real social signal that turns out to matter, even though I don't think it should. It costs me little to play the game and obtain the results I want."

I'll freely admit to using empathy both because I care about other people and because I've in practice found it incredibly effective.

Ah, but pretending fashion doesn't matter to us sends the signal that we're good enough that we don't have to care :-)

True, and studies of how fashion works do show that exact trend, of people who are prominent enough that they can do that and be perceived in the way they desire. But it's better to do that knowingly, and be confident of which end of the spectrum you're on. If you're trying to climb upwards, it sure can't hurt to make your path smoother. If you feel like you're already on the top, and you can take some risks, then feel free to choose different strategies to cope with your success. :)

Know your audience, and make sure you're sending the signal you think you're sending. If you don't already have all the reputation you need, fashion matters a lot more in establishing a baseline.

> But even if it were simply a "discourse marker"

What is a discourse marker? Not that I have a problem with the phrase "take a step back", I agree it depends on the environment, the context, on the person who is saying it, how they're saying it, and who they're saying it to. But if and when it's just filler, what stops it from turning into "can you go right ahead and take a step back and explain your ultimate goal target here?" If it's a "real social signal" (as opposed to a mere social signal?), what does it signal? Do I want to be signaling that?

A discourse marker is a high-level language feature that helps form a coherent (or maybe not-so-coherent) discourse. Things like "then", "so", "um", "...", "Once upon a time" are kind of classic examples. The word "like" has raised the ire of a lot of folk as it has gained a new function as a discourse marker.

There's nothing inherently bad about discourse markers (or dead metaphors) for that matter. They are quite critical to a great deal of communication. I think what the parent was trying to suggest that this meant its use was somehow implicitly deceptive or something, but I don't know why.

Once upon a time is said once, at the beginning of a story. Okay, so it says "the following is a little or longer story". But what does e.g. "um" several times per sentence say? "I should slow down but I don't wanna"? Even there being nothing inherently bad about them, they're by the same token also not inherently good, though I agree that the example in question is a bad one for a bad one.

Not every question unequivocally indicates confusion though. There are at least two kinds of questions. The policeman isn't confused when he asks you where you were at 9pm on June 12th. That's an interrogation, an inquisition, and contains an implicit accusation. The most common response is resistance, obfuscation and/or defending one's position at all costs (no matter how foolish that position might be).

So starting off with "Can you explain your goal here?" is concise and isn't horrible. But without any other signal or adornment, it risks being read as the above kind of question. Leading off with "I'm confused" is for indicating that the subsequent questions are the other kind - "please help me with my problem" type deal. It's not strictly necessary to the meaning, but likely has a positive effect in how the questions are interpreted and answered. It's like declaring a variable before you use it. The compiler doesn't need to figure out what type it is (and possibly get it wrong).

"Take a step back" is also used productively here, indicating "whoa whoa there sparky, before we talk about what you're doing, we need to answer why you're even doing it." In other words "I want to talk about something further upstream" or in yet other words, "Let's stop and look at the big picture." Actually it's pretty concise when you consider all the meaning that's crammed into it.

It seems as though you just don't like Allen's writing style. You haven't really pointed out anything unnecessarily polite, and his comment would've been just as polite with all of the edits you're suggesting.

I don't think redundancy or prelude are necessarily the mark of politeness. It's usually just a mark of writing style. For example, you said:

> To your particular example, I personally don't like the

But "personally" is redundant - of course it's your personal opinion. You just used it to emphasize that you don't like Allen's writing style, correct?

>I don't think redundancy or prelude is necessarily the mark of politeness. It's usually just a mark of writing style.

But to _your perception_, it's politeness. (You previously wrote: "It's direct ("I'm confused"), but polite.")

On the other hand, I categorized it as prelude.

To attempt a meta observation, it seems people require "social lubrication" in the communication. Otherwise, it sounds harsh. The lubrication is a mark of kindness.

I don't require lubrication and harsh language like Linus' writing style doesn't bother me. The difference is that I would probably use "kinder" language in more situations than he would depending on the recipient.

>But "personally" is redundant - of course it's your personal opinion.

Right... to be meta, it's a restatement of my last sentence. "I personally don't like" is _softer_ than "I don't like" which sounds more like I'm a dictator. If you and I were founder & cofounder where we have "spirited" debate, I'd leave out the redundant "personally". If you were my employee that needs softer language, I put in the redundancies.

> But to _your perception_, it's politeness

That's not at all why Allen's comment is polite, and this is very much what I mean by "kindness requires no effort."

It's polite because it isn't actively negative towards the other person. That's all it takes. Redundancy is irrelevant.

Allen could've easily written:

> What you wrote makes no fucking sense and it's dumb as hell.

Which is both redundant and impolite.

> If you were my employee that needs softer language, I put in the redundancies.

Just to be redundant myself, redundancy is only loosely correlated with politeness. There are plenty of examples of terse, polite speech (and the inverse as well). You don't need to do this, and I would argue it's a hallmark of your particular writing style more than anything else.

>It's polite because it isn't actively negative towards the other person. That's all it takes. Redundancy is irrelevant.

If you believe redundancy is irrelevant, we have different opinions on how people perceive communication.

You: not writing an insult is all it takes to be "polite".

Me: People will perceive the omission of prelude and mea culpa "I'm confused" as "active negativity towards the other person". It doesn't require the literal words "you're an idiot".

So I disagree that simply not insulting is "all it takes". It often takes more than that to not make people act defensive. Lubrication, social grooming, etc.

> If you believe redundancy is irrelevant, we have different opinions on how people perceive communication.

I'm starting to gather as such, and so continuing down this road is probably unproductive.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.

> To attempt a meta observation, it seems people require "social lubrication" in the communication. Otherwise, it sounds harsh. The lubrication is a mark of kindness.

Yes, it is to some degree a "social lubricant". We're running a massive intricate machine at full-tilt with a million moving parts that sometimes just barely mesh. And while some parts of it are capable of continuing to work without that social lubricant, it certainly makes things run hotter, and decreases the MTBF. All the more reason to leave some safety margin, and help everything run more smoothly.

I disagree with the view that "softer language" is something you use with weaker people or people who you see as "below" you. I'd also disagree with the characterization as "softer". Empathy isn't "soft", it's incredibly powerful.

I would say more often than not, it is used towards those viewed as weaker or those who are not capable of rational thought when presented with non-soft language.

This seems very susceptible to confirmation bias and itself a potential self-fulfilling prophecy...

>It's not about "difficulty" ... as in one takes 5 calories to type out "that's stupid" but the polite sentence takes the same effort or less.

The difficulty is in suppressing knee-jerk reactions and hardwired negative emotions, not on the energy level required.

>, not on the energy level required.

It was about energy in this case because I was responding to BenchRouter's specific context for "difficulty" when he wrote: "expend the extra effort to type out "this is stupid"". (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14782723)

I think Linus and Gordon Ramsey are probably cut from similar cloth. The average person remembers them both for the times when they're shouting and trying to quickly end something while maintaining social dominance in a particular situation.

The kindness and softer approaches are forgotten; all of those times when things aren't in need of a strong shove back to positive territory.