Comment by fifticon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fifticon | Hacker News Reader

I read it as a rule of thumb or explanation device. You can replace it with a broader and probably better principle about all two-party interactions: "Which one of us is more challenged right now?" If you are the less challenged party, you should probably be mindful of airing your grievances.

And therein lies a complication: You might be dying of cancer but be a socially skilled person. And your visiting brother might be healthy as a spring baby, but as socially rude/unskilled as ever. Who is now the more challenged part - you might be dying of cancer, but you are still better equipped socially to wrangle your brother and the situation, than he is. I'm not saying we should tolerate that brother, but precisely his 'social cancer'/lack of ability to handle his (social) interactions leaves him with 'chronic social cancer' as well.

This goes too for whenever you are helping someone with solving their problem - are you helping them in a sensible way, relatively to how they are challenged - often we end up fighting the 'victim' as we smother them with 'advice'. ("Well you only have this problem because you refuse to do what I told you to do earlier" yada yada).

Playing privilege or disability bingo is ... among the more distasteful practices I see people falling into. It doesn't just happen at a personal level but plays out often in politics, both within and between nations. You can all but certainly think of several examples right now.

The broader scope of Ring Theory advice is that one should not act in a way that's hurtful to others, physically, psychologically, or otherwise, without damned good reason. That's not to say never, it is to say that you should be strategic.

And if you find yourself in the presence of someone who treats you in that manner, do all that you practically can to extract yourself or reduce their capacity to act in that way. Physical space, allies running interference, authorities, whatever. Again, I'm aware this isn't always possible, but where it is possible it's a tremendous win.

I don't think that's irreconcilable with the author's point. Indeed, I find myself the "adult in the room" amount many of my friends and, frankly, most of my family. If something happens to me, it's usually my job to manage emotions. Likewise, if two people start a heated argument, or if one person wants to do the same with me, it's usually my job to de-escalate.

These aren't what I _want_, or what I _need_, for sure - especially if I am the more challenged of the two parties. That's the author's point. (You're sick? Why did you get sick?! You knew you needed to take precautions...!) But frankly the outcome is better for both of us if I choose to manage the situation on both our behalf - both of us "suffer" less.

I disagree — Cancer is something happens to you. Being socially inept is, barring medical conductions which complicate social interaction, entirely something within your control. "Chronic social cancer" does not exist.

This kind of nitpicking is what the Kvetching Order avoids.

For having worked 30 years to get out of the socially inept zone, and given plenty of people consume known carcinogens willingly, I think this statement is a bit simplistic at best.

Smokers know they should stop smoking but it's hard to do so. Yet the path is clear.

If you are socially blind by nature, the path is really not clear and you are going to suffer from your ignorance while painfully battling to get out of a hole you can't see but feels very much is trapping you.

> Being socially inept is entirely something within your control

Ableism. What about neurodiversity? autism?

"Barring medical conductions which complicate social interaction" was the part you edited out? It's right there in the original comment...

Saying being socially inept is entirely within your control is like saying being bad at math is entirely within your control.

You have to understand that for a huge chunk of the population, abstract inter-personal models like ring theory and the "Kvetching Order" are just genuinely above them and if you were to try and stop the conversation so you could educate them on how better to converse, you'd end up being the boorish one.

Most people out there don't need Western psychology models to describe the emergent patterns in own their behavior. Most people just have friends and don't need to take a mental tally of whether they're the present adult in the room. I think that if you find someone's presence annoying or off-putting, it's probably not due to a lack of ring theory education, they might just have a personality.

Being bad at math _is_ entirely within your control....

The societal prior that most people are innately bad at math does throw a bit of a wrench in things. Alice doesn't get accolades for telling Bob that his failings are his fault and fixable, even in the best of scenarios. With a strong prior that spending thousands of hours studying won't help, Bob is further disinclined from even "wasting time" entertaining conversations attempting to explain the opposite position.

Nevertheless, nearly anyone who gets over that particular mental trap and finds a halfway decent mentor (or even just a particularly adept late-undergraduate tutor) is able to learn those concepts.

Disagree...but you make an important point. There are a lot of people whose social behavior shortcomings are of the "because I can get away with it" variety. If they need your approval, and have no power over you - out comes charming Dr. Jekyll. Otherwise, Mr. Hyde.

It's a lot like teenage boys being able to pick up their rooms.

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