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Comment by blitzar | Hacker News Reader

> bit strange when you only hear from people once every few years, just as they need an intro or career advice or whatever

This might out me as a psycopath, however, cut to the f'ing chase. If it is a transactional conversation don't insult my intelligence by pretending that it isn't. Obvioulsy this can create a problem as I tend towards "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

If something is within my means and the person hasn't made it onto my shit list I love to help out, it's what makes getting up in the morning worth while. Unfortunately we are all far more powerless than anyone can imagine and actually being able to do more than point people in the right direction, offer advice or just talk to someone is incredibly rare.

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I get it, as engineers we value efficiency and truth above almost everything else. But most people are not like us.

They want to be appreciated, acknowledged, and seen above almost everything else. If you call up an old acquaintance and start the conversation by asking if they know of any job openings, you will be seen as someone who only values what they can DO for you, instead of who are they ARE to you. Nobody likes being a tool, they like being a friend, and like feeling that they are doing something good for someone that likes them for who they are.

Now, we ALL know that the call out of the blue to catch up often has an ulterior motive but it's polite (and necessary) to at least PRETEND that the ask is not the main reason you called.

Exactly. Humans are so much more irrational and illogical than the machines we know. And this is a feature, not a bug.

Nit: If it's irrational and it works, it's not irrational

It's a feature if you're neurotypical

You don't even have to pretend that the ask is not the main reason you called. Of course you call me because you need something, I do this too.

But if you called, and you are not even slightly interested in catching up, that just makes you a rude ass.

One of the benefits of playing the game is signaling that you're willing to follow norms even if they don't directly benefit you or make sense to you. Someone refusing to play along with anything that doesn't immediately make sense to them or reasonate with them is a yellow flag, since it shows that they don't value the social contract and aren't willing to humble themselves or make other people the priority.

We're social animals, and when people overtly signal that they're disinterested in the existing paradigm, they're communicating that they're going to be exhausting to interact with, since you're going to have to explain and justify every individual thing you want out of them that they don't already understand, and they'll never just go along with things for the sake of others.

I know a few people like this and can confirm: they're extremely difficult to be around and take pride in it, feeling great about being "free thinkers" and breaking from the "herd mentality".

This I feel is unfortunately counter to the design of humankind, where we are—as you said—social animals and the only way to change for the better—at a species level—is to change together.

Isn't that basis for criticism a little broad? It sounds like you're saying that vegetarianism, every religion, and a higher than average scrupulousness towards not littering are in the same category as picking your nose during a one on one.

I don't think so: those are strong convictions that people have according to their value system and moral code and it's their right to have them. I'm not talking about that at all. To me, those are "closed handed" issues: we respect them without negotiation.

I'm talking about "open handed" issues where people tend to debate and negotiate: preferences, not convictions—if 3/4 friends want to go get a sandwich, but 1/4 insists on either salad or "go without me", this can be taxing on the relationship—especially if they also are usually open to sandwiches and have no strong conviction against it.

People with strong value systems that differ from those around them are the freethinkers your friend with the tempestuous relationship with sandwiches is comparing themselves to.

It's not that people who clean up after camping have to drag all of humanity with them before they can claim to have done some good - it's that the sandwich shop example doesn't have anything to do with actual human values.

Do you find that vegetarians, the religious, and people that are mindful about littering frequently take vocal pride in being "free thinkers"?

The ones that I know don't, but I'm sure some do. Either way, these aren't the people I'm talking about.

It's what they are, relative to a society that eats meat, doesn't really follow their self identified religion and that must put that garbage by the side of the trail somehow. :-)

Psychopath? No. But it's also not insulting their intelligence by having that little catch up. You're asking someone for something that they don't have to do for you. Showing up in their inbox saying "Give me something" might seem to you like you're being concise and to the point, but to the person reading it, there's not much motivation for why they should give you that thing you need.

The catchup, as mundane and obvious as it is, at least signals to the person that you see some value in them and value your relationship, even if it's transactional in nature. Does it need to go on for paragraphs or multiple emails back and forth? Absolutely not, but having some lead in makes it less like you're only concerned about what you can get from the person.

Would you rather a waiter just come up to your table and say "Order!?" or have a little bit of pleasantries before asking what you'd like to eat. There's no more transactional relationship than a diner and a waiter, but most people would prefer the latter.

This also varies a lot across cultures: in Germany, people actually expect waiters to show up and say "Order?" and sometimes get irritated when they're overly bubbly. In the USA, the opposite is expected.

Right, it's about showing that you respect the social and cultural expectation, not about the specific expectation.

Some people have a very hard time adapting or accepting different cultural expectations, and their world is necessarily narrowed. It always makes sense logically, "Why should I have to play these games to show that I mean well, people should judge me by my more meaningful actions" but another way of looking at it is it's not worth it to them to make the microscopic effort to communicate willingness. If they're not willing to make even that little effort to make communication easier, what else are they unwilling to do?

Yeah, strong agree.

Those pleasantries also keep the door open for more interactions. If you ask someone for help, being sociable will make them feel at ease and more open to asking your insights too, and that's a win-win for everyone. And really, that's how personal and professional networks are formed: through small gestures you do consistently over time, you build up comfortable interactions with the people around you.

> Obvioulsy this can create a problem as I tend towards "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

The fact that most people enjoy exactly the opposite of what I do was revolutionary to me, really explained a lot, and allowed me to navigate social interactions better.

Having said this, I don't see the ROI on pleasing people I don't like. I try to gauge whether someone has the same vibe as I do, and if that's not the case, then I'll be polite but that's it.

What are some primary reasons you don't like some people? Is it just a vibe mismatch like the chemical reactions the article suggests?

First, most common mismatch: different goals. The things I'm trying to achieve are not the things someone else is trying to achieve, which makes cooperation difficult. Or we might be trying to achieve the same thing, effectively competing for the same resources.

Second, less common but still common mismatch: different emotional responses. If an event happens and I react in way A while the other person reacts in way B, either of us needs to suppress the emotional reaction, which is exhausting. I'm not willing to do that, unless genuineness is not expected by definition (at work, at family reunion).

I love how self-aware you are about this. Honestly if I encounter the first mismatch I tend to operate just like you: will honor the person but also move away and towards my goal. Thanks for sharing!

You're not a psychopath: I feel the same. However I still value showing them honor so I often deal with them with more kindness externally than I feel internally, recognizing my internal feeling is my own issue not theirs.

I nearly lol'd at the people immediately jumping to "you're not a psychopath", as if that's a bad thing. Psychopathy can be essentially the selective inhibition of empathy (not to be confused with a total lack of empathy as in ASPD). If you choose not to feel empathy for people who are trying to small-talk you then that could technically be called psychopathy. And also a relatively common symptom of autism! (I, also, hate small talk in many transactional conversations, and am autistic.)

This isn't entirely accurate. Psychopathy involves impaired affective (emotional) empathy as a core trait, while cognitive empathy remains intact or can even be enhanced. This is slightly different from autism, which typically shows impaired cognitive empathy but intact affective empathy.

Psychopathy is not about choosing not to feel empathy - it's a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in emotional responsiveness and empathic concern for others (meaning they can't). -"opathy" is usually a disorder outside of one's control.

I think you might have run into the exact thing I put in my comment: "not to be confused with ASPD", which is also sometimes called sociopathy. I use psychopathy and sociopathy differently (such that psychopathy is chosen while sociopathy is inherent) and choices like these can be an autistic trait. I'm not talking about empathic struggles, but rather a choice not to care too much about someone's emotions in a particular context. I don't know how to square these with the commonly accepted definitions because the commonly accepted definitions are kind of ridiculous (the terms psychopathy, sociopathy, and ASPD are collectively sort of ambiguous because they all each mean everything somehow; nearly everyone is confused about them in some way).

This is why I said psychopathy "can be" the selective inhibition of empathy, because by some definitions that's what it is. Other definitions like yours essentially define it as what I call sociopathy (simply being without empathy in the first place). I don't claim my definition to be the only definition because psychopathy can sort of mean either thing depending on who you ask, but I use my definition just for the sake of argument.

Heard! Sorry if I came across as combative! I spent way too much time around clinicians and tend to stick to formal definitions a little too much.

The thing about psychopathy sort of being defined either way depending on who you ask is that we don't necessarily know for sure which definition is right anymore. They're essentially both "correct in a way". The term also has a somewhat muddied history that makes it difficult to figure out what it was truly originally supposed to mean, so we don't even know which definition today is supposed to be the right one.

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