Taking things less personally

People meaning the best isn't good enough in a world where people are dying from polluted water in Flint... It doesn't mean much when racial hate groups are growing in membership as much as inflation... People meaning the best also doesn't mean much when government grants PPP loans to companies that abuse it.

We're living in a scam economy... My best policy is to not really extend trust as much as extending "tiered courtesy" and carefully observing the results to determine how much more to give... I primarily work hardest on my own trustworthiness, because I know very well how easily any of us can become corrupted by bad times.

Even some of the strongest marriages and families are being torn apart right now because of broken trust.. In my experience, trust is never a permanent state, although I wish it could be. One thing's for certain, there's not a single corporation I trust right now at all, they've been pretty merciless towards everyone except for their Investors and vested leadership.

> Also, ignoring impact meant that you could actively damage people you did not cared about while pretending ignorance again and again.

I definitely agree with that. I don't think either should be ignored, but weighed against each other. That's pretty close to how our legal system works for a lot of crimes.

I'd also argue a person pretending innocence does -not- have good intentions, regardless of what they say.

> If someone affects you negatively you'd be smart to care about your own skin before you care about their intentions,

THAT IS TRUTH... You cannot save a drowning person if you first can't swim.... You're both likely to drown... Try to maybe throw them a life vest or rope if you're on the boat, but only sacrifice yourself if you can't live without them. Trustworthiness is of infinite value, but most never learn where that gold is buried.

> judging people by the consequences their actions have in the world is fine.

It depends very much on the consequences and their evaluation.

If, exaggerating a bit for illustrative purposes, I say "Hello" to a colleague and that colleague is angry, disappointed, upset that I did not use a more formal "Good morning," which in their mind is reserved for more distinguished colleagues, it becomes a "monkey in the circus" problem.

That is, I have to change my behavior because I am being manipulated as the more astute and cynical colleague wants: my intentions might be good, but the result is that they are angry and ready to talk to HR.

One might read this and think, "This is an absurd case," it will never happen, of course HR, colleagues and all the people in the world will see clearly what is happening.

But it does happen, and something similar has happened to me, when we believe that whatever way people react in their minds should be "honored."

It's interesting what you say about supervillains being in short supply.

I generally don't think of people as evil, as others have pointed out, it seems more of a societal/group miasma that envelops us. Lots of people are misinformed, and this misinformation hurts. Lots of people are trying to protect their own interests because they have their own believes on how the world should be and they generate and spread misinformation. Is that evil? I would say it's rather irresponsible.

We can't ignore that actually there are people out there purposefully creating and spreading misinformation, none of them are supervillains. But together? This sort of bad-faith acting compounds quickly and harms society a great deal.

And then as you go up the chain of power, what starts happening when powerful people put their interests and world view above everything? Would you say when Bill Gates actively campaigned against laws in Africa to lower AIDS medicines prices (through the abolition of intellectual property for these) that he was being "evil". What kind of world view will put the lives of thousands below intellectual property rights protections? This behaviour was repeated with the COVID vaccine. What about politicians that spread misinformation through social media or tv-shows such as Fox News? Would we consider these people to be "supervillains"? Maybe not... but again... together?

I think the world is full of bad-faith and it's eating itself. But to me the real evil comes from individuals acting in their own self-interest without respecting others. Everyone is contributing a little bit, some contribute a lot more. But this situation is much more dangerous, in my opinion, than having a super-villain because evil seems to be hiding in everyone's best intentions.

It seems crazy to say but I think it may all boil down to a massive influx of inexperienced readers. That plus the fact that most content on on the internet is not to be taken quite at face value.

Counterintuitively I believe there are more people reading and communicating textually than ever before. Way more! That would be good except they are doing it all via the Internet which is an absolute free for all of weaponized content, created for commercial or political purposes.

Critical reading and thinking skills are needed to navigate the internet.

-----

This book is kind of funny: [The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind](https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicame...) ... but it is good for hypothesizing about how consciousness has evolved. The relevant part to this discussion is when he writes about people literally being driven insane by the birth of writing. They were just unable to integrate the new influx of information quickly enough. Imagine your dog for example, learning to read. It would be quite the experience for poor Fido.

The printing press, in time, caused the reformation, the enlightenment, etc. But it was a bumpy road along the way.

My point is that, everyone having the internet in their pocket will have a larger impact than anyone anticipates today.

I think it’s a function of information overload. It’s all just too much for people, so they look for the quickest “conclusion” in the truest sense of the word, i.e. the interpretation that allows them to end the discussion and no longer be bothered about it.

The internet, it seems to me, is the primary cause of this information overload. And it also makes it so much easier to just “swipe left” on people. In the real world, in a local community, you would not have been able to just walk away from conflict. But in the internet, you almost have to do it to stay sane.

> Anything outside of mainstream rhetoric is immediately labeled conspiratorial. Which is strange to me. Most people on both sides seem to recognize the media is rigged by big money, but they don't seem equipped or encouraged to form their own opinions that incorporate this knowledge.

I propose that if you think of a human mind as a neural network that is trained by the information it ingests, much of the mysteries of human behavior makes almost complete sense.

"people on both sides seem to recognize the media is rigged by big money" is a bit of a hanging chad, but I suspect that is explained by something like this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-dependent_memory

almost feels like there's no room for nuance, but I know that there is, just not in public. i have a conjecture that every public platform where people are even slightly concerned about their opinions being attached to their identity turns into an echo chamber dominated by the vocal group. its crucial that people understand that identity is not just about the opinions you hold and you can agree on some things but not on others. its very simple if you think about it, but that's precisely what's missing when you constantly consume content mindlessly. try consuming content you don't agree with at all. for a week. a month. a few months. then you'll find yourself surprisingly slipping into agreeing with the content. it happens. its happened to me when I purposely did this as an experiment. the only way out is to THINK and listen to all sides

You have a good point. It doesn't necessarily need to be consciously programmed into people. Maybe it's just the hive mind forming memes. All those minds reading, thinking, looking, creating ... causes strange ideas (myths?) to percolate throughout society. Similar to the birth of religions perhaps?

The media is the only source of anyone's information about anything beyond our immediate personal relationships and direct worldly interactions. For the vast majority of people, the scope of direct worldly interactions is extremely limited.

Take a moment to think about what we believe to be the fundamental facts about the biggest topics in the world at the moment. How many of those facts have originated outside of our own minds?

This set of basic facts are almost all sourced from the media. It's interesting to think about whether this same set of facts also set limits to the scope of opinions that could be formed to explain them.

But the way the parties deal with each other is not equal. The right wing is conservative and holds by its definition “conserved” ideas, aka not up to date.

A majority (which runs in the millions) already knows what it wants and voted accordingly, and a minority conservative SCOTUS voted against it. So now the states can vote on it, but the information I am getting that some states find all abortions being illegal is just as a fundamentalist a position as any. Aka for one party in particular there is no grey. This has largely to do with the power/voting dynamics of the right.

One side is not equal in its approach to issues by its nature (conservation)

It would be a lot more interesting if conservatism would mean “skeptic” in practice, but we all know it has gone far beyond it.

Not to say I welcome curious conversations with anyone, but to say the two sides are equal in their approach and methodology is not true (in my experience)

Political and economic opinions do not have to be purely self-serving or beneficial to their holder. Do you think whites in the US who agitated for civil rights were uneffected by segregation? How about Germans who helped Jews hide or escape during the Nazi period? Society is more than just each individual, it is a whole which cannot be reasonably considered in the small.

Don't those issues affect all of us? I'm not poor, but having a lot of people without opportunities around me leads to rising crime, homeless camp and it's genuinely disheartening. I'm vehemently in favor of UBI even though I'd be likely a net payer. I don't want misery around me.

This strikes me as an ironic microcosm of your original comment.

Where are you from? How is it safer? It's probably not work here... I speak with strangers indoors everyday and I'm fine.

Where? Besides news.

This seems like an example of judging somebody based on a trope.

>Yeah, it's suspect when people complain about getting judged for their views, then fail to state what the views are.

Not at all. Definitely not in the era of "cancel culture".

>It often turns out that the views in question are something that people have good reason to disapprove of - racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.

It rarely turns out that the views in question are something that people have good reason to disapprove of - racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.

A few examples from past and current companies I've worked at:

1. Titling an apolitical presentation "Make Front-ends Great Again" caused several leftist activist employees to explode on Slack about fascist White supremacy culture.

2. "Believing" (this is an objective fact) that trans-women are biological male humans is hate speech and a firable offence.

3. Expressing the opinion that the company openly donating to shady BLM foundations[0], or any political group for that matter is not a good idea was shouted down as supporting the fascist, racist, White supremacist status quo.

The list goes on. These basic examples are more than enough to get a target on your back, and possibly fired.

[0] https://news.yahoo.com/black-lives-matter-suspends-online-18...

Oh, I absolutely agree to the need to talk about life-and-death issues when we disagree. I don't want to shut down these conversations, but I want the conversation to be in good faith, and for people to really listen to each other's points. In particular, if someone does get angry or otherwise emotional in tone, that shouldn't forfeit their opportunity to present their opinion and supporting facts (as long as they aren't aggressive or belligerent about it).

It's entirely possible that I miss-interpreted what the GP meant by "fighting words". My interpretation was "passionate argument" not "verbal abuse."

That's a helpful perspective. Whenever I feel social anxiety or the spotlight effect creep up, I also try to remember how little I'm actually thinking about what others are doing around me. Maybe it's obvious, but simply flipping the point of view in that moment can help you not judge yourself so much.

> people mostly don't judge you but a stereotype they project onto you.

This point deserves expansion.

Goffman's approach is how I first learned it. In order to explain the complexities of the world including the social world, people learn to typify behaviors. Typifications can become frames when they are used to interpret people's actions[1], "She did this because she's a woman" or "He did this because he's tired" where woman and tired are framing devices. Even "I did this because I was upset."

It takes a lot of work to resist framing people's actions. Perhaps it's even impossible to truly apprehend unframed behavior since even language itself is a framing device. But, seeing people closer to who they are is always valuable, and overly applying frames or rushing to frame peoples' actions does them an injustice to seeing them for who they are.

1. These are specifically frames which explain behavior. There are an infinite variety of frames. Browsers are frames, this comment being on HN is a frame.

I used to think that way, too. I used to tell myself, "This is who I am," "I am authentic," "Who cares what they think."

If your boss thinks you are an incompetent professional, or a rude and inadequate human being, or a weakling who gives in under pressure, it doesn't even matter if they are right or wrong, it's a big deal. The same goes for friends, family and all other people with whom we interact. We may or may not care, or care about some and not others, we may prefer "authenticity" to "appearance," but it is relevant. One thing I have learned over time: people think about you, not always and not all people. And you think about others, not all and not all the time.

The "no one cares what you do" is often an overreaction to insecurity.

It’s not easy to just stop caring about what people think of you or a lot of people would do it. We’re built to respond to social pressure whether we like it or not. The few that can not care (ie sociopaths) do incredibly well in our current society.

Thanks! Did a quick search for this but used wrong terms.

Most of us treat our friends better than strangers. The closer we are, the more we want to spend time with them and give to them. When your close friend invites someone else to something like this -- long event, lots of time together, probably expensive -- it's understandable to ask whether they consider that person a better friend than you. You are probably wrong to jump to that as a conclusion, according to the article and my experience.

This person's reaction has nothing to do with the third person getting invited, and everything to do with them _not_ getting invited and what it says about their relationship with the gift giver.

Your statements seem orthogonal to what the author is actually thinking and concerned about.

Hah! That's what happens when I miss my daily coffee... My bad! :P

A leap of faith and blind faith are not the same thing at all.

A leap of faith is evidence of self-belief, and is hopefully founded on some reasonable basis. A leap of faith takes something you know, and makes a bet based on it.

Blind faith is based on nothing other than a wish, and persists even when presented with hard evidence that disagrees.

> you'd be having such a blast that you won't care where the chips fall at all

Why is this a good thing? This sounds like delusion, not having a blast.

Humility is required to self-correct when you're off track. Humility and blind faith are incompatible. Humility and self confidence can co-exist, however.

My religious parents will tell you how happy their faith makes them, but they also managed to traumatize their kids in the process. Blind faith leads to blind spots, predictably. Blind faith leads to dogmatism, which is at the root of today's tribalism. Blind faith should not be celebrated. Blind faith begets religion, of the god-variety and otherwise.

But blind faith isn't required to be confident in oneself.

It sounds counterintuitive, but If you want true peace, accepting and embracing your limitations is a freeing endeavor. The stoics figured this out, and have quite a few wise things to say about it.

Maybe you and I have different interpretations of what you mean by blind faith, but the version I've been exposed to is a road that leads to more problems than it solves.

If you don't want to read 10,000 words, why do you want to comment on the words? It makes little sense to read a four-word title and just assume that you know what the rest of it says.

I'm still confused.

I read the article as some general advice for people who tend to "personalize" everything, I don't see how that relates to one specific type of relationship between individuals and society at large. I mean, even if "work is not personal anymore", there are still basically all other aspects of one's life which can lead to situations where you'd take things personally when you shouldn't.

Anyway, the whole article kind of falls flat for me. Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe it's a cultural thing, maybe I'm just lucky to have been built this way; but the idea of being anxious about what others think of you or "personalization" (i.e, not being able to read a social interaction and assume that the problem is with yourself) is almost alien... do people really need to be told about "distinguishing your feelings from your thoughts", and "accepting a reasonable amount of uncertainty"?