Hacker News Reader

Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

No, you can be a good communicator without being a manipulative asshole with an egoistic hidden agenda.

This is more about how communication works. Communicating ideas and intentions is always about shaping the words that leave your mouth in such a way the other side understands the thing you intended them to understand.

Inexperienced communicators will say what makes sense to them and be surprised when someone else in a completely different frame of mind doesn't pull the same meaning from those words. Wanting people to understand you and shaping what you say in such a way they get it is not a bad thing. You would also talk differently to your kid, than say to your co-worker. This requires to a certain degree that you can see things from their perspective. Now surely you could use this for manipulative reasons if you are a soul-less bastard, but that doesn't say anything about about the practise.

View on HN

I'm with you on this one.

consider this conversation actually happened, this video is just a recreation of it.

Clarke and Dawe - The Front Fell Off https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

Not all of them are so extreme but the idea is the same.

That video is not a recreation of any actual conversation.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-front-fell-off/

You may be right but that link is debunking the claim that the video (interview) itself is real, which is not what I said.

They very clearly state and demonstrate it was a scripted satire, and literally say it is a "fictitious interview" in the first sentence. That is as direct of a debunking you can get. Please just take the lesson and verify claims before spreading them.

It's satire of an actual statement from a Minister who said that there was 'no environmental damage' because it happened too far offshore.

https://www.afr.com/politics/disaster-from-oil-spill-averted...

thank you, my memory is hazy but I do recall it was grounded in some manner by something that was actually stated.

turns out I was right, so I suppose the lesson I've learned here is to trust my memory over the random nerd-snipe.

You were not right, the sibling comment similarly clearly demonstrates that the skit is satire, not an actual conversation (being inspired by a single comment from a real politician does not make something a "conversation [that] actually happened, this video is just a recreation of it"). Again, please stop trying to save face and just learn from your mistake.

The poster pointed it out to correct you, stop it.

The details may have not been exactly correct, but the point still stands and your nerd sniping is not useful here, especially with the haughtiness mixed in.

Go alpha somewhere else.

Communication is a two-way street, and is ineffective unless you are ready to answer questions and clarify yourself

Yeah sure, but communication is also something with a growing runtime cost, which is why starting into it with a realistic picture of the other person is important. Most people might ask one or two clarifying questions and stop asking after because they don't want to look like they are stupid.

And the way I like to look at it is that we should try to have a good grip on ourselves first, because this is what we can affect ourselves — how you start into a communication will greatly affect the reaction of the others anyways.

Especially in IT it is not rare that the answer to clarifying questions muddies the water even more, because explaining a thing often requires knowledge of other technical concepts.

I work in an educational context nowadays and the people entering my door might be anything between totally clueless and domain experts, and just by looking you won't necessarily notice who is which, so indeed you need to figure this out in a small exchange. Bad communicators would skip that step and talk the same to both beginners and domain experts until they maybe get the clue, but if you're unlucky by that point the communication has already ended.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com