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Comment by nstart | Hacker News Reader

From my father:

No matter how correct you are, you won't get anywhere by making the other person feel stupid.

He gave me this after we went together to a conference on communication and I found the presenter to be making some rather doubtful statements. I asked questions and tried to break the presenter in the QnA session and when I didn't get what I wanted, I left. I was 15 at the time. So, I forgive myself but still cringe hard whenever I remember it.

This advice had and continues to have a really long lasting impact on me (especially in getting me out of my incredibly arrogant stage in life) and my relationships with people. I can still be critical of things while maintaining respect for the other person's context and intelligence. I've found that also helps a lot in disconnecting ego amidst a debate.

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On similar lines, the anecdote at the beginning of this speech - https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/05/30/2010-baccalaureate... -changed my life too. Since then I’ve been trying to follow - it’s harder to be kind than clever.

So many cringe-inducing interactions where I was a total jerk just to come off as the smarter guy. Feels awful and I strive to not behave like that anymore. This quote serves as an anchor.

I didn't expect that story to be from Jeff Bezos. It is so at odds with the way we hear low-level Amazon employees are treated.

It's been a few years since I read it but one of the early topics in How To Win Friends And Influence People is on a similar track to this:

You can't make people do something. They have to want to do it (unless you're the big boss ruling through fear).

I've found it's much more productive to present information or an argument so that the other party is not made to feel stupid and is willing to accept it.

Even then it helps not to expect people to change their mind right there. Especially in the case of relatives with weird ideas, it can be helpful to not go into a discussion with the explicit aim of them seeing the problems right now but to just plant a few seeds.

I've seen it quite a few times that after a few days we talked about it again and they had shifted their opinion to be more in line with the presented evidence without ever really acknowledging it.

"A man convinced against his will, Is of the same opinion still"

― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

You can't force people to agree with you by making them feel stupid, they'll resent you.

I just finished this book and it has a profound impact on me. I have taken detailed notes so I have an easy access to it. https://themihirchronicles.com/bookshelf/how-to-win-friends-...

Nick Carraway, is that you?

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, " just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

Along the same lines: Just because someone doesn't know something, doesn't mean they know nothing.

We all come across information in different orders at different times. If you jump to the conclusion that someone is not worth your time because they didn't know something you know, then you might not engage with an otherwise good person.

> No matter how correct you are, you won't get anywhere by making the other person feel stupid.

I came to the same realization some time after an incident at Uni...

In a Uni class I tried to correct the lecturer about some Unix/Solaris? feature using my Linux knowledge and when he wouldn't agree, I basically ignored everything he taught for the rest of the class.

I think it was maybe something about file systems and IIRC I looked it up after (realizing what a dick I was) and I found that I was indeed correct, but I still feel bad about the way I acted to this day.

Although, in my defense, earlier in the class I had to show a whole bunch of students how to exit Vi/Vim so as you can imagine, I was already starting to feel like some kinda Unix god at that point.

I think both of you failed to learn from each other there. He had an opportunity to learn from you but refused it. For me, every person presents an opportunity to learn, but I maintain a filter for each person because there are varying levels of bullshit and presence of a little knowledge about certain things. I consider it one of my talents that I can quickly and effortlessly gauge these levels for people and discover what it is I can learn from them and what I definitely can't learn from them.

> So, I forgive myself but still cringe hard whenever I remember it.

This has actually resonated with me as advice in its own right. I have wasted a lot of time worrying about past mistakes that I have made, wishing I could change the past etc. I'm not so bad for it now, but still struggle sometimes and worry myself with what people think of me now remembering what drunk (and sober) me did at university 10 years ago (and at other times in my life). This line has helped reframe it a bit in my mind: it's ok to still cringe at how I behaved and forgive myself for it - the former does not rule out the latter.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

— Maya Angelou

I struggle with this a lot, and am super aware that I do this. It's NEVER my intention to make someone feel stupid, but I think the way I say things comes across that way.

I have a hard time correcting it, or even knowing what / how to say things differently upon reflection.

My current iteration of figuring this out is maybe things I think are important to criticize (or give my 2 cents on) aren't as important as I think they are.

It's tough.

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