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Comment by fhood | Hacker News Reader

You are wrong because the vast majority of people take criticism personally. It turns out that when you tell people they are wrong and present them with reasons they are wrong, a surprising number of people double down. I'm sure you have heard this before, but you have to make them think it was their idea.

Edit Source: I make this mistake all the god damn time, and never realize it until the person breaks and finally snaps at me. The whole time I thought we were just having a reasoned argument. I think that I am constructively invalidating the other persons arguments, meanwhile they are feeling belittled and defensive.

Edit edit: This is even worse if, like me, you think arguments are pretty much the greatest most entertaining game it is possible to play.

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I have made this mistake all the time in life as well. Even with some things that seem to have no political, religious, etc. angle to them, and are just very easy to Google and verify in a heartbeat.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I thought I'd open up for example. In university I adamently refuted the moon landing conspiracy of a group partner. I didn't realize this would offend, but it did. She did a lot of extremely vindictive things after that, and even tried to (with some success, I might add) incite anger towards me from other group members.

Some people become extremely defensive and then aggressive, perhaps it is especially so if you are the nerdy-humble-well-intentioned-Alice-low-gravitas type...

Knowing when to correct someone and when to keep quiet is something I have become a lot better at with age. It took a lot of learning the hard way though.

I would hope others are understanding that not everyone who is perceived as a jerk, actually intends it.

Agree totally.

In an idealized "intellectual-only" world, humans would be Spock-like and be pure rational actors.

But we aren't, not even close. (And I would argue that that's a good thing, but that discussion is waaaaay out of scope).

As soon as you accept that humans, including yourself, primarily make _emotional_ decisions and not rational ones, it becomes easier to steer decisions in a healthy manner.

> In an idealized "intellectual-only" world, humans would be Spock-like and be pure rational actors.

I used to think more along these lines. I heard someone recently talk about Spock and Captain Kirk and their approaches to different situations, and he said that most people think Spock must always be right due to his logical side. He then said that many times Kirk’s more human emotional approach actually worked out better in the end. Obviously you need a balance. Things should be logically thought out but sometimes you need to act out of empathy and sympathy towards others even when it might not make that much sense.

Right. In my opinion it's even worse. The thing that piss me off about Spock is that ignoring the emotional component is a very illogic thing to do. :)

Don't generalize from fictional evidence. On average rational decisions are usually better than irrational ones.

Also being rational =/= being cold and unemotional.

> but you have to make them think it was their idea.

The best way I've found to do this is to them you don't understand something and have them explain the solution to you.

Plus it's humility practice -- you might even turn out to be wrong!

This is good advice. Whenever I'm sure I'm right, I try to get people to walk me through whatever they are proposing because I know they will eventually step through the problems that I see, but they don't yet.

But, you know, sometimes it turns out that I was actually the one not seeing some things clearly and by not coming out of the gate as a jerk about things we can both walk away having come to a collaborative solution and everyone feels good.

It also really depends on your delivery. You can shoot down ideas and make counter-arguments in friendly & supportive ways, or smug & arrogant ways.

I can see why you'd think that, I made the same mistake earlier, but see there's this problem here...

No, that's obviously wrong, why would you even think that? Let me show you the right way...

You can only take that tone for co-workers. Doesn't work for your superiors as op describes.

I see your point and I agree with you, but it is so hard to put ideas in peoples head! and it is taking so much effort! you can't do that in a meeting when 10 other people are sitting! I guess there is no way to get around it and I should just give up !

Yeah, this works better in one on ones, but usually I don't think it is that hard, particularly if the other person respects your opinion. The trick is rather than shooting down ideas, present alternatives, and guide the other person through finding the flaws on their own.(Note: Doing this without sounding patronizing can be difficult)

One of the tricks that helps people who have difficulty with this is by using the Socratic method. Posing your objection as a question (and not a rhetorical question) imparts a respect for the intellect of the person you're trying to convince.

Instead of saying "bubble sort is too slow for us to use" (oppositional, "you are wrong for thinking otherwise"), try "wouldn't bubble sort be too slow for us to use?" (collaborative, "maybe you have something to add").

You're cynically describing being right as wrong.

It's ok to be cynical and defeatist, but those two qualities don't make for useful answers to questions

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