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Comment by o_____________o | Hacker News Reader

I picked up Tao Te Ching as an American teenager and was moved by how it cuts against the American faith in visible dominance and self-assertion, proposing a form of strength that is low, quiet, and unseen. It's much more than that of course, but that aspect had immediate impact on my thinking.

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Reading the Tao te Ching makes it clear why the best engineers are the soft-spoken individuals who refrain from talking until the end of the meeting.

That’s because good engineering is mostly listening to the system.

If you talk too early, you end up arguing abstractions. If you listen long enough, the constraints introduce themselves.

By the end of the meeting, the quiet person isn’t trying to win the room — they’re just reporting what reality already said.

>"If you listen long enough, the constraints introduce themselves."

This could be a line from [the non-existant] Tao #82.

Are they delaying to listen and have more information or out of politeness to keep others ego unharmed even though he knew the answer beforehand ?

It’s a cultural thing. If a Chinese person steeped in that culture of “low, quiet, unseen” strength came to America as an immigrant, that person would likely not do very well. If the person immigrated as a child, schooling in America will quickly change that.

I don’t doubt that the aspect had immediate impact on your thinking, but I would be very surprised if it also had lasting impact on your behavior.

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