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Comment by VoodooJuJu | Hacker News Reader

>Sorry if this is off-topic but I often see in HN (either in articles posted here, or in the comments) lack of empathy.

You are absolutely correct. This place is populated with quite a few nerds. Nerds typically have subpar social skills, which is is both fueled by and results in a lack of empathy.

>"I ♥ people; look for ways to make them happy, and empower them."

The propaganda arm of the Soviets is called "Pravda", which means "truth". It's like people who say "I'm such a nice guy", "I'm very humble", or this author saying "I love people and my friend" but then they talk shit about their friend in this very article.

Listen not to what someone says, observe what they do. "Actions speak louder than words" and all that.

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You're getting downvoted, but you're right.

>I wanted to talk about its garbage collector (1, 2), its cooperative scheduler that many people think is a preemptive scheduler, its very loose approach to correctness… and he didn't want to talk about any of that.

This is not the way an emotionally intelligent person approaches a conversation. The idea that a conversation should be a demonstration of ones own knowledge is a pretty common notion I see with socially-stunted geek types. Growing up with a narrow or minimal social group will do that, it's no one's fault, but it's a pretty clear indicator this person's advice on interpersonal relationships shouldn't be taken too seriously.

In the same way you can tell immediately from a blogpost that someone is an inexperienced engineer, the takeaway from this one for me is that the author is an inexperienced friend.

> This is not the way an emotionally intelligent person approaches a conversation.

Good thing you and the other apparently high EQ commenters in this thread are here to set the records straight and bully some guy over his personality traits as determined by you after reading a single blog post.

> The idea that a conversation should be a demonstration of ones own knowledge

Thanks for a succinct description of something I’ve been noticing a lot lately. This is going to stick with me.

I get what you're saying, but I think the "nerds typically have subpar social skills" meme is often used as an excuse for behaviour that shouldn't be acceptable anywhere. I'm not even sure it's that true. Most of the more capable people I've worked with have been very emotionally intelligent, and I don't think I've ever found nerdy behaviour to be a useful judge of genuine skill or interest in a subject.

But in a reply to your comment there's already someone talking about nerds not getting on with "MBA types", like this is some American high school film and not real life...

Acting "properly" socially is exhausting for me. I mostly avoid social gatherings because of it. For stuff for the kids I just focus on them and let my wife handle the adults.

For things my wife wants me to go to (without the kids), I will go, but I tend to just sit there and not talk. I'm fine observing. People find that socially awkward, but her friends are used to it by now.

My friends are used to me sometimes saying weird/crazy shit.

Think about it like this: yes, I can act properly. But it's like work. I would rather leave work at work.

Yep, that's what my teacher said. I don't listen to your words, I look at your actions. Your actions betray you.

It’s why nerds hate MBA-types. They see little value in understanding and engaging with the qualitative side of being human.

One reason, but to be fair MBA types can have the same lack of empathy. Their interactions can turn into (actually kind one of the things the author complains about) treating people purely as capital and relationships as means to financial end.

You’re absolutely right. There’s understanding how people tick, then there’s feeling it too.

Everyone I've talked to about their experience in MBA programs say that it feels designed to teach you to think of people as if they are somewhere between cattle and plants, mere generators of productivity metrics for spreadsheets and dashboards. The only perspective is quantitative, and it's largely based on arbitrary, misleading metrics.

Partner went to a top10 MBA program. This was not the takeaway or remotely close to the summary. Very popular meme though.

It's true they've begun to "reform" the curriculum to be more human-centered across different (but far from all) departments, but it's akin to the clumsily-tacked-on ethics classes in scientific/technical tracks: if you take them seriously, they're valuable, but even among the cohort of students there is little respect for them and are usually considered mere drudgery if not an afterthought.

Interestingly enough I read the above comment and assumed it was speaking about the MBA types having the lack of empathy, not the other way around. The purely transactional relationship (often one sided) is one of my biggest issues with them.

Are you kidding me? "MBA-types" have the same problem. How many frausdsters in prison have an MBA? It's a lot.

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