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Comment by warent | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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 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).

> 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.

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.

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