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Comment by rendall | Hacker News Reader

> "Feels like a bit silly not to have made this compatible with SSE ..."

The feedback is great, and valid. I wish it could have been expressed less dismissively though.

Depending on the culture you are living in, this can be perceived as either dismissive or respectful.

I was curious enough to browse through the comments of @lexicality to conclude that he is European, so there is a chance that you were considered capable of receiving a direct feedback.

That is, by giving direct feedback, @lexicality showed you respect.

The feedback isn't to me.

Also, I live in northern Europe. Generally feedback is direct, but respectful. Calling something silly is usually (but not always) out of bounds. European-style feedback might be: "I'm surprised you did not use X because it perfectly matches your use case."

Or "Great feedback but I wish it could have been expressed less dismissively"

You know, this might not apply here but lemme contribute this:

Recently at my place of work we were required to take some diversity training. In this training we learned about high context and low context regional and familial cultures. High context individuals convey and respond to indirect details and nuance, while low context cultures are more direct with what they receive and convey.

Learning this helped me a lot and I notice these differences often, as I too come from a different cultural background than my team mates.

This is interesting, thanks for mentioning. I wonder what the learning from that is though? Like, if you notice the difference, do you adapt to the other style? I feel like I can do that, but it also feels weird and "not me".

It's more about addressing ways out of social conflicts due to misunderstanding context. Both sides can mean well but a mismatch in speech patterns can cause undue conflict. Understanding these differences gives you an "out" from those negative feelings.

Just wanted to add that as a rule of thumb, Western cultures tend to be low-context, while Eastern cultures tend to be high-context.

This also ties in indirectly to punctuality of cultures I think. Lower context cultures tend to be punctual.

And I've felt the Eastern cultures are becoming lower context due to doing business with the West. This may or may not be a good thing.

PS: I'm from a high context culture, but I've lived in America for a while before returning back to my home country. Ever since, I've felt like something was off.

I've seen these skills described as CQ (Cultural Intelligence), distinct from EQ or IQ. IMHO, it's the 3rd leg of the stool for effective intelligence in any non-solo endeavor.

A couple things:

A) People have vastly different (even abusive) forms of communications. What works for one group does not work for another. "Sensitivity training" does not account for this, in fact it causes issues.

B) EQ and CQ are made up terms, but more importantly they aren't realistic. IQ, also is somewhat made up, its used as a sort of "general intelligence" marker and it is that in the context of broad studies, not so much on the individual level. IQ has been long used to browbeat certain ethnic groups, these new "made up" terms are similar, in that people are using them to browbeat various groups, in attempt to put themselves on a higher "moral ground". Its disgusting, and insensitive nonsense. They don't exist, and we don't have the bandwidth to all just "conform". And no, thanks I don't take kindly to being brainwashed.

I hadn't heard those terms before, thanks. I'll check those out.

I don't understand. Does the diversity training teach you to treat people differently based on where you think they came from?

It teaches you that if you are a high context individual receiving low context feedback to try and negate your frustration by understanding the possible factors influencing the response you received before letting it be a blocker in your interactions, also the inverse.

Less this and more that one should be cognizant of their own inherent communication biases.

I think it's more similar to learning to speak somebody else's language and not get lost in translation.

Part of learning to be an adult - growing thicker skin, a backbone, and ALSO understanding that everyone is different, learning to navigate that rather than just get frustrated or upset like you are two-year-old.

I believe the HN guidelines actually say something about this, but either way: I think there is tremendous value in interpreting other people's statements as charitably as possible.

Why take offense when none may have been intended?

At least where I come from (Ireland, but I'd say it's the same in the UK where Lexicality is from), "silly" and "stupid" are distinct. You can describe something like this as "silly" perfectly respectfully, but describing it as "stupid" would be out of bounds.

"silly" is used a little more casually stateside, it's actually more of a light touch descriptor

I don't agree that this instance is among the kind that can "be perceived as respectful" - I think we can make space to acknowledge that that is a thing, and that nevertheless this is not an instance of respectfully direct communication. So that's a red herring.

Moreover I don't see that "being European" has anything to do with anything, and classifying someone as either being "capable of" or not "capable of" receiving direct feedback, far from respectful, is an instance of insulting with plausible deniability, which is perhaps the most practiced art form of internet comment sections.

Calling something silly is not direct, nor respectful.

Perhaps your view of communication with Europeans is influenced by other factors that's led you to this conclusion? (or to put it respectfully, silly)

For me atleast as an Australian this would not be considered even remotely disrespectful.

First, it's addressing the idea rather than the person.

Secondly silly isn't used to convey an idea being bad, stupid or otherwise without merit.

The way I read this is that "I think this should address why it's not built on SSE or perhaps should be redefined to be built on SSE", silly just does that with much less words.

I am reading all the replies and thinking the word silly seems to convey a different thing to different people. At least in the British context it is extremely mild.

But somehow others read it as like you said "being bad, stupid or otherwise without merit."

Yeah I'm honestly surprised too, but I'm Australian so effectively British for all intents and purposes when it comes to what language we find offensive (i.e very little lol).

"Silly" also conveys the feeling that it's probably too late to redefine this as SSE.

Do you find it easy to find great, honest, and valid feedback on the internet?

How much of the supply of great, honest, and valid feedback would you sacrifice in order to make the supply that remains use "less dismissive"[0] language like "a bit silly"?

[0] Less dismissive in quotes because I do not find that language dismissive in the slightest

Let's chalk it up to cultural difference! Some commenters think "silly" is fine (Ireland, UK, US - although I'm from the US and I disagree, but let's grant it). Some think it's not.

Let's assume that "silly" was meant kindly and not dismissively!

This reminds me of CometD - https://github.com/cometd/cometd. Is it same in concept?

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