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Comment by pseudalopex | Hacker News Reader

Please continue preaching empathy and self awareness. But please practice them also.

Your interpretation of sanderjd's comment was uncharitable and incorrect.[1] Saying you had a chuckle at their expense was condescending and added nothing.

zmgsabst's reply to you was rude. But it was a challenge to reflect. No one suggested you thought you were perfect. No one suggested your stumble disproved the utility of empathy. You wrote paragraphs against straw men.

Please receive criticism from others as you want others to receive criticism from you.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40190376

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OP’s remark just reminded me of something more general not necessarily in that remark that really has been bothering me. It wasn't very clear that I was going off on a tangent, and I tried to keep it lighthearted in a hamfisted way that ended up being more condescending than I intended, and then I got more defensive about it than I should when it wasn’t received well. Sorry about that - thanks for keeping me honest.

For what it's worth, when I (the author of that first comment) first read your comment, my thought was "wait, how is this responsive to what I wrote?". But now I've read this whole thread, and while I do think it was a bit of a tangent not super directly related to what I wrote, I have found it interesting and reflective in a positive way. And I agree with your broad point about empathy and such.

> Your interpretation of sanderjd's comment was uncharitable and incorrect.

Which parts were incorrect, and how?

> Saying you had a chuckle at their expense was condescending and added nothing.

Are you referring to your model of reality or all models of reality?

I've mentioned in a few comments now that the point I wanted to make (which I clearly did a poor job of), is that it's obviously easier to deal with only "internal interruptions", rather than both those and "external interruptions" additionally. You don't get to choose between the two, because the "internal interruptions" will exist regardless of how well you've managed to control "external interruptions".

Well I think you catalyzed a fantastic meta conversation!

I wonder if it's really as simple as your theory though...I don't disagree as a generalization, but perhaps certain classes of internal issues can be bypassed/moderated by external stimulus?

It's certainly not an uninteresting question! But personally I think the answer is "no". I think getting interrupted externally makes it strictly harder for me to manage my own internal distractions. Which doesn't mean it is universally bad though, to be clear! There are other important things, even far more important things, than individual productivity. But from the perspective of "is it easier or harder for me to get my individual contributions done if I'm left entirely alone or if I'm pinged about things frequently", I really think the answer is that it's always worse to be fielding communications.

I think there are some education maybe... take for example a gong ringing periodically in the background , this is an example of an external interruption that can be beneficial for addressing internal out of control thinking.

This is getting well outside the initial discussion (in some ways, but not all), but it's interesting.

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