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Comment by spaniard89277 | Hacker News Reader

Are there more Europeans here in HN? Because this hard push for empathy and stuff it just feels... weird to me. Empathy as the ability to see through your own biases and understand others POV is good in every setting. Empathy as a way to not communicate directly is just a waste of time.

Most malicious people I've encountered in my career are the types that comes with smiles, corporate language and all that stuff.

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You can communicate directly without also being insulting. You don't need to literally feel what other people are feeling (empathy) to not go out of your way to make people feel bad about themselves. I don't think there's a concern with 'Linus didn't wish everyone a good morning/didn't compliment so-and-so's code while suggesting changes' but with 'Linus insulted people to their face'. The former is cuddly, the latter is politeness.

'Empathy' in most of these cases mean: don't act like a vitriolic douche.

Don't insult or belittle the person. Learn to critique without being an asshole about it.

On the other hand: take criticism of your work without taking it personally. That's arguably a lot harder than the former, but it's gotta be done. It helps a lot when the person isn't being an asshole about the criticism though :)

It is indeed a two way street.

I can agree with you.

>Empathy as a way to not communicate directly is just a waste of time.

False dichotomy.

>Most malicious people I've encountered in my career are the types that comes with smiles, corporate language and all that stuff.

Also a false dichotomy.

Most effective people I've encountered in my career are direct and empathetic.

I'll merely link to the comment I wrote the last time this was discussed:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18002940

> Empathy as a way to not communicate directly is just a waste of time

It is this attitude that drives people, and especially women and minorities, away from tech.

I work with women, I don't think they are that stupid they cannot handle it. It must be something else. Definitely none of them cried or left because we get to the point in the meetings, or I don't compliment them before criticizing their work.

I think not working like this may be even weird for some of my foreign coworkers.

Way to miss the point entirely.

I can't tell if people defending Linus's behavior are unaware of how overly abusive it was (not "to the point"), or are intentionally misportraying it in this thread.

The things Linus has said on LKML would be fireable offenses at most companies and I'm having a mini anxiety thing at the number of people here who desperately want an excuse to be unrepentant assholes.

We know that Linus is way stupid sometimes. But he is good, so we tolerate it. The cost of opportunity of not having him is greather than some people offended.

Even if he wasn't, I'd accept that from time to time people do make mistakes and behaves stupid, and life goes on.

As a minority, let me assure you that I'd much rather be treated equally than to be subject to your soft bigotry and low expectations. Don't handle me; it's insulting.

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