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Comment by darkerside | Hacker News Reader

This might be super basic, but... assume positive intent.

Your parent is not your enemy. Your teacher is not your enemy. Your boss is not your enemy. The other team at work is not your enemy. The corporation is not your enemy. The other political party is not your enemy. Or, more accurately, YOU are not THEIR enemy. At best, you're an NPC in their game. Many of them probably even want to help you, because you are another person in the world, and that feels good.

I take back what I said about this being basic. The first steps (learning your parent, teacher, boss are on your side) is pretty basic. But applying this concept to more complex systems, like corporations and communities, can be pretty advanced. But at the end of the day, what it means is that, most of the time there isn't a conspiracy against you, there are simply incentives that you don't understand.

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Assume good intent until proven otherwise. Because there are plenty of people who'll repeatedly treat you like shit, and then continue to demand you assume good intent.

To which I say, pardon my french, fuck that noise. People are entitled to the benefit of doubt only as long as there can be doubt. Once that is gone, act accordingly.

This is so true.

Ditch the toxic people in your life.

Absolutely! But corporations can also treat you like shit. When they do, try to ditch them. Well, that is a challenge.

Yes, definitely a problem, specially in markets where there are only a small hand full of players. At my place, internet providers come to mind. They all suck immensely, but you know the competition is approximately equally shitty.

where was the french in this ?

Just an idiom :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_my_French

It is an English expression to say "pardon my French", before using expletives or crude language.

My life experiences don't match your mental model, sadly. Maybe it has to do with where and how one grows up? For example, I know with certainty that my parents, teachers, and first bosses were enemies.

A lot of people on HN seem to have grown up in safe, nurturing, loving environments. But, remember that most of the world's people didn't. I don't mean to call you out - just saying that I would love to have had your experiences.

Sad reality, adequately explained by game theory: https://ncase.me/trust/

Whoa. Excellent website. Thank you so much.

Excellent find!!

This mirrors my experience in many ways. People with legitimate ill intention were a lot more common in my youth and when I was in a lower socio-economic position.

Now I live in a world very similar to the one described by the GP. It took me quite a while to adjust, and I still have my moments.

Most people grew up with parents who love them. They might not know how to show it, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but love for offspring is about as close as it gets to universal human experience.

Parents may not express that love all the time, and may even harm their children in spite of it. And they will probably hate themselves after the fact for it.

I was oversimplifying, of course. You can certainly end up with enemies. But your boss didn't start out hiring you because he wanted an enemy. He hired you to do a job.

I know for a fact my mom loved me and only wanted my best when beating the crap out of me.

Intentions don't even matter in such cases. The end result does

I normally do not comment here, but I feel like I have to say this. My mom also was beating the crap out of me for most of my childhood and when my sister killed herself, I blamed my mom for it. But after living with all this hate and anger in my life for years, I started to realize that I can only truly be in peace if I learn to let go of these feelings. It definitely wasn't easy and I still find it very hard to trust her from time to time, but recently I hugged her for the first time in many years and to my surprise that actually felt good.

I helped me a lot to imagine how she grew up and how she must have felt to be pushed to such extreme measures. I don't say it's easy and I don't say you have to forgive your mother or anything like that. I just wanted to share that trying to forgive my mother actually made me feel better in the long run.

I hope you will be able to sort this out some day. I wish you all the best.

I tried for decades to let go of the (completely justified) hatred I have for my parents and tried so hard to have a semi-normal relationship with them,or at least one of them.

Nope, didn't work, they are just horrible people nobody sane gets anything positive from being around. My husband pointed out that they were a huge negative in my life with no positives and why was I doing that to myself?

I let go and stopped contact with them and it's been one of the best things I've ever done for my overall well-being.

Thanks for the kind words! I am in a much better place now and apart from some long term effects such as general trust issues with people, I am mostly fine now.

Thank you!

You and I are clearly living in two completely different worlds.

I estimate at least 20% of parents don't love their children, based on my personal experience and observations.

Even if terrible parents who do terrible things actually love their children, it is not like it actually matters. If someone, for example, molests you because they love you, molests you because they hate you, or molests you because they don't have any particular emotion towards you. You still are molested.

Most? Based on what?

I guess maybe it’s worth remembering that even if someone is an enemy it is in conflict with you, nobody thinks they are “the bad guy”.

If you want to understand why someone does what they do, you can’t chalk it up just to “they’re evil” or “they’re crazy”. There’s some reason why they’re doing what they do and to them, they feel like they’re on the right side.

Indeed. I don’t know the origin, but I’ve heard it phrased as “no one is the villain in the movie that is their life”, or “no person is the villain in that person’s autobiography”

It's easier to believe that when the person saying that grew up in a system where there was no effective penury, where serious economists/experts used to say (and still do) "relax, not everything is a zero-sum game" (which it's how I imagine most of the Western economies/societies view themselves, i.e. as non-zero sum games).

But I for example grew up in a society (Eastern Europe before 1989) where my dad had to wake up early at 4.45 or 5AM in order to go the State-owned grocery store, hoping to catch one bottle of milk for child-me out of a limited supply of 100 or 200 bottles (or something like that). That was a hell of a "zero-sum game" (you wake up early and you're lucky, you get a bottle of milk for your kid out of a limited supply, you don't, your kid is out of milk). As such, it's very difficult for me (and close to impossible) not to view the other people as potential adversaries.

In other words, viewpoints like the one you suggest ("everyone else is not an adversary") most probably come from a position of privilege, i.e. of having grown up in a society which afforded itself the luxury of not having everything as a zero-sum game.

Interesting point. So what should I do now : treat anyone not from western democracies as an adversary ?

You're right. Those environments exist. Most of us who can sign onto HN and post comments are not in those environments. If you still act like you are, you'll be left behind by your peers who cooperate with each other, treat their superiors as partners, and give generously to those who need help.

It's simple game theory. The prisoners dilemma has multiple equilibria, but you don't find the optimal one unless you take the less rational choice once in a while.

> It's simple game theory. The prisoners dilemma has multiple equilibria, but you don't find the optimal one unless you take the less rational choice once in a while.

I also agree it's simple game theory, but ignoring the HN audience for a moment you're probably assuming that the non-zero sum situation will still continue to hold at a society-wide scale for large parts of the world (at least for the "former" Western world).

The present covid crisis has proven that to be false, what with countries/states members of the same political union (the EU, different US States) fighting for limited medical resources in the early stages of the pandemic. We'll probably end up in similar scenarios if and when the climate crisis will worsen, reducing the availability for resources for many of us.

I don't think you should assume that someone is intending to be positive towards you.

But you should assume that someone, in their own mind, thinks they're doing the "right thing".

If you assume people are evil and are motivated by wanting to pursue evil ends, then you're going to have a bad model for predicting them.

Everybody at that store wants to get the milk because in that situation, that's what feels like the right thing to do, all things considered. They're not getting up at 5am to ensure you DON'T have milk. If there weren't milk shortages, they wouldn't be buying it up just to spite you.

Everyone is picking the best option on the internal menu that they see in their mind.

Positive intent is a somewhat subjective term. I prefer the term good faith.

Assuming good faith does have two downsides. Firstly, handling in good faith isn't the same as handling in your best interests. Secondly not all people are handling in good faith, and some collectives are subject to selection bias.

> assume positive intent.

I feel like this is somewhat related to Hanlon's Razor:

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Maybe the guy driving like an asshole and making a sudden lane change is actually unfamiliar with the area and noticed a bit late that their lane ends or is becoming an exit/turn-only lane.

I like this one, and I read a good follow up for that one on HN recently:

Never attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by opportunity costs.

(Hope I'm not butchering the quote)

Sometimes I have the feeling that, at the very extreme ends of each spectrum, stupidity and malice converge and become indistinguishable.

Sometimes, I would spent time trying to understand if someone was "asshole" or "idiot", the distinction being whether or not they understood the negative effects of their actions. I've recently decided that it didn't matter because I deploy the same polite mitigation strategy for both.

Meh. I think you can assume the average person is casually well-meaning. You can't assume the average person is trying to help you with all/most of their actions.

I don't think you can assume the average person is honest/transparent. You can't assume the person you're negotiating your salary with is going to tell you if your offer is much too low. You can't assume HR isn't going to lie about the reason the fired somebody. You can't assume the company will give you any heads up if they're thinking about firing you.

A lot of people offering "feedback," especially public, especially if it's negative, are just angry venters. And this goes both directions E.g. Glassdoor.

Not saying it's good to have a chip on your shoulder about any of this, but it definitely shouldn't be swept under the rug.

You're totally right. I believe step 1 to understanding these things is understanding that other people aren't out to get you. They're out to help themselves. Once you've got that down, the rest comes naturally over time.

On the internet, everyone assumes bad faith. Like the kid staring at the native american guy, not everything is intended to be malicious (and so he successfully sued CNN for defamation). I think there's a theme of "Person supports X" and every commentator who is predisposed to disliking that person, twists X into the worst possible form.

The kid (wearing a MAGA hat who happened to be in Washington, D.C. from Kentucky to attend an anti-abortion rally, with his school.)

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18192831/c...

Also, the suit with CNN was settled out of court without any disclosure of terms on either side. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/cnn-settles-l...

I like what you said. One thing I'd add is: if you're not assuming positive intent, at least assume ignorance. Classic Hanlon's razor https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

This has advantages even in situations where you are sure the counter-party has malign intent. You can suspect someone, yet still speak and act in good faith. The worst case is your suspicions were correct and now they think they have you at a disadvantage, but the best cases include them lowering their guard and being more forthright, or even your suspicions proving unfounded.

This is generally true when you're not a minority, unfortunately, that trait is (almost always) decided when you're born.

> At best, you're an NPC in their game. Many of them probably even want to help you, because you are another person in the world, and that feels good.

Oh man, I learned the opposite lesson that changed my life: Sociopaths and psychopaths will not help you because you are not a person in their world but an object that either helps them achieve their goals and can be discarded when your usefulness is expired, or you are an obstacle that needs to be destroyed. Helping you doesn't make them feel good, and they can sleep just fine at night after destroying your world because they have no semblance of empathy.

Yes, there are people like that. Identify and avoid them. They won't help you win, and in most cases, over long time frames, will not win themselves.

Most of us (non-sociopaths) don't get to choose our enemies though. They choose us.

Honestly, I think the majority of us don't have any enemies at all. We might imagine we do, though.

Everyone has enemies but might not know it yet because their enemies don't have the power to act on their malevolent desires.

This seems like paranoia

Paranoia is thinking that lizard people are spying on you.

Find common instances where people regularly abuse power: child abuse, terrible bosses, emotional abuse of a spouse. The most common denominator is that people hurt others because they can, and those who couldn't will claim that they choose not to.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia

What you're describing happens, but it's not rampant. Paranoia isn't lizard people, it's simply ascribing blame out of fear where it may not exist.

I think that's bad advice. Enemy is too strong of a word, but there are conflicts of interest between you and your teacher, your boss, your team members and even your parents.

What's best for you is not necessarily what is best for them. They may help you to achieve what's best for both of you, but not what's best for you alone. Those are often not the same things. Assume people are acting in their best interest, not yours.

> Assume people are acting in their best interest, not yours.

This. And even people that actually cares about you, could be wrong due to biases, beliefs, etc.

I guess it depends a lot on the type of environment you were raised.

I agree with this, it's much better to collaborate or collude when possible. The one exception is that corporations are absolutely my enemy.

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