Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

The only issue that I have, is that so many people (in my industry/nation/orbit) mistake kindness for weakness.

I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive.

I'm also in the tech industry, which seems to have a very aggressive and competitive culture.

It doesn't stop me from being kind and courteous, but it gets grating.

My experience is that, when someone mistakes courtesy for weakness, they start trying to "game" me. I put up with it for a bit, until they push too far.

Then the till gets slammed on their fingers.

They get very, very upset. Far more upset than if I had just disabused them early on.

I'm learning to enforce my boundaries earlier. It doesn't make me as popular, but it also prevents those "psycho freakouts."

View on HN

Kindness takes courage.

There seem to be a lot of people who live at a level of abstraction where they perceive every interaction as being about dominance and submission. In my humble opinion it is a very limited mindset.

I consider myself to be generous person, and also slow to anger. As a result, there are people who think they hit the jackpot and found a submissive pushover who is like a flimsy tree that will bend over at the slightest breath of wind.

Of course it's much more like being water; moving around obstacles, yet always forward and unstoppable.

What matters is showing people that there can be real kindness and strength in the world. Sometimes it plants a seed for others to also have the courage to be kind. I believe that's how to make the world a better place. It sure makes life worth living.

I think a lot of discussion here is conflating kindness with vulnerability. Kindness can sometimes mean vulnerability, but saying “no” is not inherently unkind. Kindness is also not necessarily self-sacrificing. You can have firm boundaries but be incredibly kind. Working out the differences to me has opened up a new level of relationships.

The key is practically selfless. For eg. You are buying food from restaurant - you see a homeless person standing there with a board asking for food. But you have money only to buy one sandwich. What do you do?

1. Say "no", because you too are hungry

2. Share half of the sandwich?

3. Giving whole sandwich & walk away as a saint?

(3) is super kindness, but that needs different level of thinking & practice. Kindness we are talking here is (2).

Your "no" point comes for the remaining half in (2).

Encountering people who live on that level can be a trip. I went to lunch with some classmates after lecture. I had been fixated on the content. But the salient facts to one of my classmates were instead: who had spoken, with how much confidence, how often, for how long, how the professor seemed to feel about it.

It was eye opening. There was this whole other dimension to the room, which I could barely see, but to her it was front and center.

I don’t aspire to be like that primarily or exclusively, but sometimes it’s helpful to notice and pay attention to.

The funny thing is focusing on that will severely hamper your ability to perform in the actual conversation. Outside of gauging the reaction of the specific person you're talking to, if you want to score highly on the "talked for a long time with high confidence and everybody enjoyed it" axis you need to keep your eye on the ball so to speak.

And yet everyone silently hates those people, people who waste everyone’s time just to prove how smart they are, usually failing in the process. There were always those people in my lectures.

> everyone silently hates those people

What? No.

I don’t have a good sense for this. Having friends and colleagues and a partner with the focus and attention span for it is invaluable. Like it or not, power dynamics are real. And teams with someone tuned into their social dynamics can work better than one purely technical and aloof.

Just because one doesn’t have a sense for a thing doesn’t make that thing despicable.

I think he's talking about people who respond to the professor's questions in lecture.

Or worse, ask pointless questions just to prove they understand the content.

As the other child of this comment said, I’m not talking about being socially aware. I’m talking about people who are so obnoxious they turn everything into a competition so they can validate their own ego, quite the opposite of being socially aware. Lectures aren’t a competition of who said what.

While I appreciate the usefulness of such observational skills and I can do it to a decent degree, I tend not to most of the time. I just switch it off.I don't want to live my life where every interaction is some spy game or thriller,where everyone in the room scans each other for clues. Having said that, I must admit that observational skills pulled me out of very very difficult situations a few times.

> I don't want to live my life where every interaction is some spy game or thriller,where everyone in the room scans each other for clues.

I had a coworker with this mindset and it seemed incredibly tiring on her mindset. She would routinely total up the cost of the exec's outfits and jewelry/shoes/purse and also always be measuring herself against everyone else in the meeting room. Who hadn't brushed their hair, who had recently gotten teeth whitening treatments, she even noticed when one of the directors got a facelift over work from home. She was able to point out his facelift scars via a screenshot she took.

She ended up getting let go for creating a "mean girl" culture when she iced out some new hires.

It just seemed like a very dystopian way to view our coworkers. I prefer to see everyone as a potential friend and not look for flaws.

The trick is see such things, gain that information, and then choose to use the data in a way that is nice for the person. That is one element of kindness.

For the facelift example, you notice it, and then remark about how youthful the director looks in that new shirt. For the shoes example, you notice it and then remark about their good fashion sense. For the hair example, you go to them and see how the home life is going (colicky kids, a new medical diagnosis, a death in the family, or pure unawareness, etc)

It may seem like 'pandering', but only if you do it to people who can give you a raise. You have to do it for the janitors, bus-drivers, and bar-tenders too. Because you want everyone's life to be a bit better that day.

It's kinda like being a culty-mad-scientist. You have to have all the knowledge, the years of experiments, the cash flow, the ancient texts, the elaboratory. It takes a lot to awake the elder god from it's slumber. But the most crucial step, and the last one at that, is the smarts to know to not to wake up the eldrich world ending demon at all.

i think it's rude to point out someone's plastic surgery, no?

> how youthful the director looks in that shirt

indeed, that why you don't comment upon that directly

This is a good way of putting it. For example, my neighbor reminds me a lot of my father, in a good way. I make sure I don’t just tell friends about this, but I share it with him (he’s about 30 years older than me). I don’t need to do this, but I express it because I know it conveys how much I appreciate the person being around. Other examples are simpler, such as noticing someone’s flat tire and bringing it up to them, complimenting a new hairstyle etc.

Another time a deli worker at the grocery recommended a good turkey flavor, when I saw him next (it was weeks later) I made sure I told him how much I enjoyed it. I then told someone next to me (unsure of what to get) how the man put me on to a delicious flavor (boars head sausalito FYI). I still say “how are you doing sir” when I see this man working and I’m shopping. He remembers me even masked.

All of this really just involves taking things you notice and instead of keeping it to yourself, sharing it! It’s worth doing! I don’t do it for any selfish reasons (except maybe to keep my observation skills sharp). I genuinely feel an appreciation for sharing things I notice about others as they live their lives. My only hope is it makes them feel good about themselves.

Observing other people’s behavior and feelings can be a positive activity for prosocial behavior and when used in constructive ways feels good to do.

Not unlike say, mindfulness. Of oneself, of others.

Says the person commenting on HN at midnight ;)

And anecdotally, these keen observation skills I think are more concentrated in women. A lot of times, I find that women in my life are more interested in how I or others are feeling/acting, than the exact details of what actually is happening.

I like to think of this as report talk vs rapport talk. Men may just report facts to each other with very little emotion attached, whereas women will try and bond and strengthen relationships by telling stories about people and their feelings. This is why men struggle to understand why women in their life are angry that they never talk or don't share how things are with their day. It's because a lot of times, the two people think that the information they are sharing is what is important, and the other person thinks that it is too much/too little detail.

I think those observational skills make women much more suitable for negotiating and understanding nuances, where sometimes men may struggle to have seen the smaller details.

But of course making sweeping gendered statements is usually not accurate or helpful, just some observations in my opinion, and of course MANY people do not fit into this generalisation.

Women developed these skills because they are hardwired to care for offsprings. Women are better at noticing small details, they have better hearing and have a sharper sense of smell.

Go back to cavemen times, the men had to follow the blurry beast for dinner. The women had to be alert and vigilant to protect their young. We might think we have come far, but evolution is slow. We are basically living with cavemen genes in an urban jungle.

Sometimes generalizations are true. Evolution takes millions of years.

I love this.

Any tips for doing this during a pandemic? Beyond just the usual of treating people well?

Specifically for the pandemic, I think there are many things. Post on a neighborhood community board (e.g. on reddit, nextdoor, etc) offering food (sanitized). Get toys for underprivileged children. Or, write letters to strangers in elderly care homes and/or prisons, who may not get to see family or have anyone who thinks about them.

> Kindness takes courage.

Not for a kind person. For a kind person it takes courage to be rude. It takes courage to say no, because it's so easy to say yes, because it feels good and it feels right (and I guess is also better for your health?).

I would stop trying to change people or even thinking you can. Someone will pretend they changed all thanks to you, only to be themselves again later when they're done robbing you.

There's a pervasive pattern of the narcissist type surrounded by submissive people and leaving a trail of submissive victims. These people are immediately repelled if they sense you're a waste of their efforts. When you're submissive, they'll take from you and betray you later. When you're not, they don't even ask. They reveal themselves immediately. But they make their money and build their empires by collecting those who yield to them and remain loyal despite occasional revelations of their true character or lack thereof. Trump could easily be seen as such a phenomenon. But most people who are OK with their job will yield to keep it (backed by the psychopathic behavior of corporations and their lack of character, because they aren't people). And many will submit just to make money (even to evil). So there are no shortage of such people to take advantage of. And the more people thrive by doing so, the more we create. Some may even become president.

If you believe you're water, seek water. That is the best approach. Strengthen your water coalition. Stay healthy, strong, and happy. Once you're good, then fulfill your purpose.

> There seem to be a lot of people who live at a level of abstraction where they perceive every interaction as being about dominance and submission. In my humble opinion it is a very limited mindset.

That is sociopathic so it isn’t always easy to identify but it’s easy to disregard.

Kindness is generally a default. At a minimum it’s called mutual respect and at an absence it’s called being an asshole. It hardly takes any courage to be better than that. I cannot imagine the amount of medication people require if that is their definition of courage, as there isn’t any challenge there. Perhaps it’s a cultural difference.

You can be kind and not be a doormat.

This takes practice and experience but the gist of it here is that you have establish and understand boundaries.

Kindness is giving someone a helping hand when they need it, but not going overboard and letting them take advantage of you over and over again.

In my experience, the less you let vampires suck out your energy, the more you'll be able to give to people and the way to that is by saying No and hearing No.

I personally start by being kind and then await kindness back. If they reciprocate, great. If not, I politely decline their next request and change my response if they change theirs.

Great relationships are formed when there is a mutual exchange of happiness and ideas else it's basically one party taking advantage which is unhealthy.

This resonates. Executed correctly, kindness is not mutually exclusive from assertiveness.

E.g. It is possible to make a complaint at a restaurant in a factual way and with a smile.

E.g.2. Giving hard feedback with a smile, and constructively.

It comes down to empathy, and the basic rule of treating others as we wish to be treated.

I’d go a step further. Not only are they not exclusive they are not really on the same axis at all. They’re just different concepts.

The primary thing they have in common is they are considered opposites by people that have neither.

I have lived in NY, and my partner was born and grew up in NY, and I find New Yorkers pretty friendly, especially when compared to other cities around the world I've lived in (all of which have had their share of friendly folk). I think you have to be friendly to live cheek by jowl with so many. However New Yorkers are brisk.

The tech industry has definitely become more aggressive over the last 20 years. I credit it to the people who decided they should join it because there is a lot of money to be made, when before it was mostly people who liked technology.

And for that latter point: I consider an aggressive attitude a sign of fear (perhaps a consequence of a kind of imposter syndrome?). Generally I pity the mean people.

My experience in New York and Los Angeles is that the natives are perfectly pleasant, so long as you’re aware of the local mores.

The worst people are the people who move to cities and try and fit in by adopting some caricature of these customs, which is often accompanied by engaging in hideous games of one-upsmanship with their fellow new arrivals.

I mean, in NYC, don't walk slowly in the middle of a sidewalk, hold doors for people, don't blast TV and music at home, and don't walk on the floor like an elephant with heels first. That's all I got.

NYC is the only ever place I have visited in the US. Perhaps everyone could see I was a tourist. I was impressed with how polite the people where. Was really impressed.

> I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive.

This part made me think of this video on the NY subway that exemplifies exactly what you're talking about: https://youtu.be/yVzAC7mLxJw

This guy is doing something extremely kind for this lady that it brings her to tears and yet the way he does it almost seems aggressive and demanding but it's such a nice act!

Maybe that's because you are giving your kindness to the wrong people?

And for the kindness to be appreciated and not considered as weakness you need to select who to give it to properly. And for that you need to be judgemental.

And bbc and current mainstream median culture will not tell you to be judgemental.

Why? Because they they want to be the teller what is right and what is wrong - not you.

> They get very, very upset. Far more upset than if I had just disabused them early on.

I have experienced this a few times in relationships. Was brought up to always be courteous and kind. In our society those are the most admired qualities of a person. In the big world where people didn't grow up the same way I did I felt this is often misinterpreted for weakness. Trouble always starts when I "suddenly" do not budge from a position I believe in. An example is I do not believe in splashing my life on social media.

We were also brought up to be kind to visitors. Go out of your way to make them feel at home. We joke now as adults how the only time we had Coca-cola in the house was when we had visitors. The idea is a visitor shouldn't stay too long so it is best to be kind to them. The problem starts when visitors overstay and continue to expect the same treatment. Or they visit to often.

> I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness"

A defining trait of American culture is hyperactivity. Commenting on trivial stuff, moving around restlessly while holding a drink, despise for idle time. The "kindness" thing is a form of hyper-expressivity which is rarely seen in calm cultures.

This is one of those generalizations that just doesn't work for a country with hundreds of millions of people. You think those in the South and Midwest are hyperactive? Hardly. Those in sleepy beach towns? Nah.

If you think that there are defining traits of that many people in a country that varies so greatly in terms of geography, lifestyle, religion and culture, then you just don't know what you're talking about.

I definitely think Europeans and others from homogeneous or smaller countries struggle to understand the variety and diversity of culture of the United States.

In europe, the surrounding countries are your equivalent to the different states in the us

That isn’t really accurate. There is much more diversity in individual states depending on where you are than in most European countries.

That statement is kind of what I mean. I don’t think most people outside, and to some extent inside the US, appreciate how much diversity of culture exists in the US.

I think morlockabove meant that thanks to the size of the US, the density of different cultures in many orders of magnitude higher in Europe than the US. Th cultural difference between Texans, Washingtonians and a New Hampshireite is minuscule compared to France and Germany, let alone France and somewhere like Estonia.

I believe it misses the fact that there are very different cultures within Washington or Texas. For example, Austin is very different from Houston and even north Houston is very different from south Houston.

Eastern Washington is completely different culturally than western Washington(Seattle etc).

No where else in the world has the massive amount of diversity that the US does at the scale of the US. It’s not even close anywhere else so it is difficult for both US residents and people of other countries to fully comprehend.

That seems incredibly unlikely. So unlikely that I'm going to say it's not true. There are certainly cultural differences across the US but you'll have a very hard time convincing people that these differences are greater than those that exist between Finland and Italy, say. Or between Cameroon and Kenya.

Sounds like a fully general counterargument

The European Union has the scale of the US and arguably more diversity given there are a few more languages spoken and each one is associated with a different culture. And that's only a part of one continent, and there are more continents.

I completely believe there are differences, but are they really that different compared to areas of similar size in Europe, where you might go through a dozen different languages, different religions, massively varying political party support? And if you look at India or Indonesia, the cultural diversity becomes even more again.

Yes. Significantly different. Do you realize that metropolitan areas in US are not even 50% white or Christian or likely any of the other stereotypes people have of the US outside of the US.

Many cities in the US provide documentation in often 4 or more languages. Schools employ large teams of specialists for teaching English as there are significant amounts of schools where less than half of the student population is a native English speaker.

Cable TV in most areas offers packages of programming in many different languages. In the US, network television is broadcast with a simultaneous Spanish language audio.

This homogeneous white, English speaking, Christian view of the US may have been true in the 1960s, but outside of the rural US, this is no longer valid.

Coming from India, the dominant flavour of Europe is some sort of white, Christian group, possibly with a dash of Islamic influence, but mostly monotheistic branches of the same family. There is some variety in languages, and food depending on the climate.

The US doesn't have all that much diversity comparitively. There is more diversity in skin colour, but the major cultural groups are far closer to each other than European ones.

You don't see how homogenous the culture is because you are so close to it.

I grew up in Africa. It's interesting that so many US citizens of African descent expect to go back to "The Old Country," and "just fit in." Lot like the Italians and Irish.

As far as Africans go, there's not a whole ton of difference between white Americans and black Americans. I think that, like in Europe, there's entrepreneurs, setting up "Return to Your Roots" tours for diasporans.

Europe probably has more experience with Africans than the US. When I have met black folk in Europe, they have frequently been first- or second-generation Africans, as opposed to the US, where most black folks I know come from families that have lived here for many generations. I think the UK has a similar culture.

I lived in Uganda, when Idi Amin threw out all the Ugandans of Indian descent. These were true Ugandans, who had lived there for generations. It was devastating; both to the people that were thrown out, and the nation, itself. The infrastructure of the nation collapsed, almost overnight.

It's pretty much impossible to "un-mix" a mixed society. That's not for want of trying, though. History is full of "ethnic cleansing" boneyards. It never seems to end well, but we seem to be a bit thick, in learning the lesson.

>Coming from India, the dominant flavour of Europe is some sort of white, Christian group, possibly with a dash of Islamic influence, but mostly monotheistic branches of the same family. There is some variety in languages, and food depending on the climate.

I'd say that this is the same reductive view that Europeans have of India, for comparison.

And from that distance, they are closer to being right.

Wikipedia (not the greatest source, but reasonable for a HN discussion) says in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Europe that linguistic minorities in Europe are about 14% of the population, while only about 3% are diasporas of non European origin.

Christianity (51% of the population) in Europe is written into the law, so even if you grow up atheist in Europe, you are still culturally Christian.

India is ethnically a bit less homogenous, with three major linguistic groups (Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Iranian). Religiously, monotheistic groups are about 20% of the population, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_India , and a majority of laws aren't based on a single dominant religious philosophy (the Modi government is working on changing that). There is variation in food based on region, climate, and religious subgroup. The dominant flavour would be some sort of brown, polytheistic groups, strongly influenced by other polytheistic groups and with very strong monotheistic influences from Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.

This is the 10000m view, rather than the 3000m view which would show more detail.

>No where else in the world has the massive amount of diversity that the US does at the scale of the US. It’s not even close anywhere else so it is difficult for both US residents and people of other countries to fully comprehend.

I honestly feel as though this is a lack of awareness of other regions and the differences inside of them. I don't know how you can make sweeping statements like that. A cursory look at a linguistic diversity map should immediately hint at a different reality, and that's just one metric. There are places in Africa where you have genetic lines that are distant by tends of thousands of years from surrounding villages as measured by their Y chromosomes.

> That isn’t really accurate. There is much more diversity in individual states depending on where you are than in most European countries.

You ever been in Spain, Italy, Germany or France?

This is simply not true, in Spain they have so many different languages, in the others they have incredibly dialects that seem like entirely different languages and can be only as short as 25km away from one another--something like Badish vs schwabish vs Alemansich vs Hoch Deutsch.

You have to live in places like Hawaii (which I did) before you get anything close to the stark differences I'm talking about, where they have an entirely different set of culture and language (Hawaiian pidgin) to see what is so pervasive all throughout Southern and Central Europe.

The majority live in urban areas where constant input of human activity is probably making them anxious and insane.

I have tinnitus in the city.

I go to the mountains and it’s gone.

Keeping ratings and quarterly growth up is, to my mind, emergent of people who live densely.

Intuiting incorrectly that lots of people moving around organically means life is to be lived on the go.

As a European, I have had numerous work relationships and occasional acquaintances with Americans from California, Arizona, Idaho and NY. Yes, everyone has a different personality and the region matters, but compared to my own Eastern European culture, the difference in mood, confidence and talkativity is rather consistent. Maybe my sample of American people is not completely representative, but these are just my observations as an outsider.

It’s actually interesting those are the samples as I would probably characterize the West & (North) East they’re all from as the most “hyperactive” parts of the country vs the South & Mexican Border at the other end of the spectrum, with the Mid West & rest of the East somewhere in between (but probably closer to the coasts than the south & border).

Look out for any exciting opportunities to visit El Paso, Texas or Birmingham, Alabama for a proper comparison sometime if you can.

Bonus points for Brownsville, Texas where you can get a well steeped mix of the South & border along with a rocket launch!

also, if you converse in English the Americans have it easier to talk which enhances this phenomenon.

I'm from Miami. Years ago, I was visiting my wife (girlfriend at the time) in the keys. We went out to dinner. I was apparently still in Miami mode. The server said to me (and this took about a minute for him to say): "Relax ... man ... you're ... in ... the ... keys ... now."

So, yeah.

Furthermore, there is this idea of egoism. To think merely of profit - which you see in major cities with millions of people in the United States, it seems - is to be egoistic. The root of kindness is egotistical poverty. After all: egoism overlooks, kindness sees. You may substitute the words 'humility' or 'attention' for 'kindness' for the former and latter claim, and it will still hold true. And therefore, egoism is really inattention for it pays attention to what does not matter.

I would call it outwardly-expressive utilitarianism. The idea that the individual should channel their views, emotions and experiences through self-expression and self-identification, for the purpose of achieving tangible worldly goals. It’s an interesting amalgam of the traditions of Anglo-Saxon liberalism and of Protestantism with its practices for preaching and confession, transitioned on a new geographic and institutional reality.

The mention of utilitarianism reminds me of this idea of insensibility. A calmer culture, I assume, is grounded in sensibility.

> It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers.

I've always suspected the perceived "rudeness" comes not from the residents of New York, but rather the people from neighboring locations that commute into New York for work. New Jersey, I'm lookin' at you.

Ah, yes, the classic “no true New Yorker” fallacy.

I tend to agree with this (lived in NYC 13 years) - a lot of the rudest people are the folks to treat NYC as a transient place. That said - these people bring out the aggressiveness in the die hard New Yorkers, which creates a feedback loop... When you live in a densely packed place, it’s hard to find your peace. What happens, is that you experience one stress, unleash it somewhere else, which transfers it to more people, etc. The daily subway commute is a toss-up whether you will have a wonderful morning- get a seat, headphones, read a book, smiles from a stranger... or, barely making the train, getting smashed into a train full of angry, rained-on people, 2 strangers screaming at each other, your blood boiling inside. It’s hard to not accidentally “transmit” that stressed, anxious, distrusting feeling to the next people you interact with, further contributing to the perception that “new yorkers are rude”

> they start trying to "game" me.

Can you elaborate on it? I don't have much experience interacting with people.

It can take many forms.

Folks each have their own "schtick," but it's what they are after that matters.

1) Money

2) Property

They want me to give them money or goods.

3) Prestige

They want me to feed a need for prestige. This can be as simple as agreeing with them in public, an endorsement or referral, or a requirement for some kind of submissive fawning.

I started to write up a detailed description of how this can happen, but realized that this is probably not the best venue for that. Suffice it to say that I have spent my entire adult life amongst some very aggressive and manipulative people, and keeping a good relationship with them, while gently enforcing personal boundaries, has always been a challenge.

For me, I have a personal ethical code that revolves around rigorous personal and "cash register" Honesty, as well as Integrity.

> I have spent my entire adult life amongst some very aggressive and manipulative people, and keeping a good relationship with them, while gently enforcing personal boundaries, has always been a challenge.

Okay, I’ll bite, why would you keep people like this around you? It sounds unpleasant.

You don't always get a choice.

In my life, this was an aggressive employee we hired who was not performing but also passive-aggressive to everyone, and at the beginning we were obligated to give them the benefit of the doubt (due to their explanations that they're struggling with the pandemic, civil unrest, family emergency, elections).

Then even after gathering evidence of their poor performing, they will just keep arguing their case, and would protest to everyone who will listen, and pit people against each other. They will claim they never knew those things were their responsibilities, that they were working hard on it, and that they were just about to address the performance issues, etc.

I’ve spent most of my life as a member of an extracurricular organization that has “helping others” as a Principal plank in its platform.

Most folks that need help aren’t “pinkie-extended Earl Grey drinkers.” Can be a rough lot.

But I have an amazing bevy of really deep friendships and relationships with folks that I would never had met, otherwise.

Totally worth it.

I have a book I'd like to recommend, that has helped me, in growing up around aggressive and manipulative people, learn to both identify these behaviors in others as well as learn tools for calmly and clearly enforcing personal boundaries, even in the face of the other side throwing temper tantrums or bullying. Can send it to your contact info, if it's something that'd interest you.

I'd like to read it. Is there any way for you to post the book information anonymously?

I am interested too, why is the title of a book so secretive?

It's really just I didn't want to pull things into a discussion about someone's personal life.

I couldn't think of one so instead I'll just go with obfuscation. (it's ISBN 1432763962)

> when someone mistakes courtesy for weakness

Can you give a concrete example you specifically encountered? I lived in New York for half of my adult life before moving west. I can’t remember ever having to be too worried about that. Is it possible you just have trouble expressing yourself outwardly?

> Is it possible you just have trouble expressing yourself outwardly?

Well, there's always passive-aggressive insults. That's considered a low-risk approach.

Looks like we've pretty much exhausted this thread. I'll just exit, stage left.

Happy Holidays!

Your last paragraph is key - once you establish boundaries for yourself, you're free to be generous and kind because you are clear with yourself on what's Ok and what's abusive.

Once you have that, the other factors (industry, city) don't matter - you are able to act the way you want independently of how people are, because you're confident that you won't let their transgressions cross over into "you."

It's been a long process learning this for myself as well.

I don't know. Leave New York. I chose to move to Chicago rather than New York after college because 1. cost of living 2. people.

The midwest is nice. New York city folks are not. I've worked at two companies where I managed or worked heavily with our New York office and hated it both times.

I realize not every New Yorker is an asshole and not everyone can leave the city on a whim but if its good for your health its worth considering.

> New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness."

We also volunteer in droves [1].

[1] https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e3163e2ee79e21b79cf36982c/file...

This argument sounds true, but I like to think of myself as being occasionally kind, or helpful, or benevolent.. whatever. And yet I just can't come up with a single example of something like that.

In fact I don't believe I even think of myself in categories such as "weak" or "strong". I know I'm extremely averse to conflict, which, I guess, would be considered "weak". I'll let you have your way (within reason), but then that's the last time you'll see me, which is probably not the outcome someone trying to exploit you is hoping for.

As a native New Yorker I resemble that remark :-)

I will say the opposite can also be frustrating. People conflate niceness with kindness or even worse, morality. Being gruff isn’t intrinsically immoral. Being super “nice” isn’t intrinsically moral.

This might sound like some sort of rationalization for bad behavior, but I don’t think so. When you optimize you have to have at minimum a hierarchy of optimization goals. At some point, one goal WILL conflict with another. This means that conflating niceness with morality will inevitably lead to misguided and immoral/unethical behavior.

To be more specific they evaluated your courtesy as a sign of lower status from their perspective (whether consciously or not) and got angry because you did not in fact react as someone of lower status

As a native NYer I find this comment odd. In the US we have places around the country with Stand Your Ground laws — and locals wanting to exercise that right for the slightest slight, with devastating consequence. And we’re worried about someone being rude/aggressive on a NY street? We have to put all this in perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law

Being kind you have to be firm. Giving someone $20 for a particular purpose is kind, but the person is going to come back over and over so the next kind thing to do is decline to give more without their putting in effort to change their situation.

I tend to be very direct day to day. I think kindness doesn’t have to be in personal interactions, especially in a business context. I’m perfectly polite, but also very honest. I still use empathy to understand where people are coming from. You have to learn to give unconditionally without becoming a doormat. It’s tricky. I think you have to be purposeful with how you give to others. I also help people out and do my best to be kind in my private life (charity, supporting local food banks, etc). I think you can generalize this kindness is healthy thing way to far. For me the reward is helping people and making their lives better. In a business context I think your examples are very different from the more intrinsically rewarding giving and kindness.

>I think kindness doesn’t have to be in personal interactions, especially in a business context. I’m perfectly polite, but also very honest.

To be frank, I find the ratio of people who actually do that to people who think they do that but are really using it as an excuse for not exercising their interpersonal skills is 1:1000. I've known many people that called themselves brutally honest, but with the exception of one particular manager I can recall, it always ended up being an excuse to feel powerful by shocking people with a brazen lack of tact while the truth of the statement, even if occasionally beneficial, was incidental.

Who knows... maybe you're the 1 out of the 1000. The tone of what you wrote sounds more reasonable than what many others have expressed in that vein, so I'm inclined to think so, but it'a hard to tell without having universally accepted bounds to words like kindness, politeness, and honesty. That said, doing good deeds and not directly insulting people we deal with doesn't absolve us from a the basic social necessity to treat other people with compassion and humanity. For that reason, whenever I encounter anyone that touts their honesty at the expense of kindness, I generally consider it a tacit admission that they have some serious work to do on their interpersonal skills and don't realize it.

I have been managing people for many years now. It’s a hard balance, but I always start from a place of empathy. I find it easy to be empathetic first and then lay out then business/situational needs. We don’t do brutal honesty, just gentle honesty. When people are brutally honest they just use it as cover for being an asshole. I am probably not being clear about what I think about kindness, it’s a subtle point. Even kindness overdone can be patronizing.

Great! Keep at it, then!

Thanks. I wish text could convey the attachment of emotions experienced when writing it. I deeply care about the humans I work with. At the same time, I have experienced what happens when you try to sugar coat things too much in the guise of kindness. You literally cheat people of their opportunity to improve. At the same time, getting the best out of people as a manager means balancing truth and emotion. It’s a very, very human thing. I just try to remember we are all humans blasting through time as only humans can. It’s worked well so far. As long as you can truly meet another person, its hard to be crass and ignore their perspective

> so many people (in my industry/nation/orbit) mistake kindness for weakness.

A complementary but closely related problem is that many people mistake unkindness for aggression.

Isn't it though? At least if it's intentional.

>> Isn't it though? At least if it's intentional.

I suspect what the grandparent refers to is people who are offended at hearing "no." Example - someone asks to get in front of you at a line. If you're feeling kind, you say yes. Saying "no" is just neutral, but many people perceive it as a "fuck you."

> Isn't it though? At least if it's intentional.

No, it isn't. You can be unkind and peaceful. Civilization is based on the possibility that people who hate each other can still work together for the common good. Intentional kindness is often disgustingly hypocritical, at least in my (non-U.S.) culture.

That is often not a mistake. It is typically deliberate. On one extreme there are sociopaths that look for any opening to abuse. This is sinister, but tends to be more rare. The other extreme comprises stupid people who view any criticism as a personal assault, the Dunning-Kruger people. The Dunning-Kruger people tend to assume they are super awesome because people aren't willing to invest the energy to mention otherwise.

For those wonderful angels I am willing to lie to their face, because the nonsense that comes back is a stressful nonproductive time suck. Those are the people nobody wants to work with because they are a net negative and continue to exist merely as padding for future layoffs. The common uniting theme is underdeveloped self-awareness/empathy.

For everybody else kindness is a dose of honesty coupled with empathy and mutual reassurance regardless of excellent or poor performance. When it's sincere it is an investment in relationship building.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com