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Comment by doctorfoo | Hacker News Reader

Hacker News: Where IQ and intelligence trumps being pleasant. So many tech types are assholes.

Pleasant ≠ profanity free. I identify fully with Linus' stance of profanity bursts followed by no-grudges held. A common professional profanity free, revenge backstabbing, work environment is much much more unpleasant.

I agree with your first statement totally, the difference is I would rate Linus' attitude, separate from his language, as unpleasant and unnecessarily aggressive. I don't like aggression in the workplace (or anywhere.) And I think that links into a comment above regarding women; in general women are less aggressive and so feel less at home in this industry. In general, in my opinion, etc, etc.

I don't buy into the view that women are less aggressive. IMO, they display a different kind of aggressiveness, somewhat less frontal but just as damaging.

This may be a guy thing, and a clash in behaviour of the sexes. Guys are more prone to bursts of aggressiveness, gals more adept of moderate long term aggressive stances. Which one is more difficult to handle is largely a matter of opinion. Quick bursts are automatically solved immediately, leaving bruised egos, long term allows more time to manage the underlying reason. Just because Linus' stance is flashy does not make it wrong.

Unless you posit that aggression is never warranted. Then, we'll have to disagree. Aggression is a normal behaviour, artificial suppression leads to non healthy alternatives; it's better to lay problems out in the open and fix them than to sweep them under the politically correct rug.

I would posit that aggression is generally unwarranted. I would consider aggression to be the non healthy alternative to, say, being matter of fact, blunt, terse, and other such ways of giving negative feedback without directly attacking the person.

I'm sure there's no perfect dividing line between non-aggressive/aggressive. But it's generally clear when something is nearer the extremes.

"Alice, that's completely wrong because X, this code needs to be rewritten from scratch following principle Y." "Bob, what is this retarded shit? You stupid fool, go RTFM and do it again."

Tomato tomahto. We're saying the same thing. Blunt, terse can easily be aggressive. Further, when immediate reaction is needed, an open critic to either behaviour or results(code) may be needed. This may be aggressive, but it gets the job done. If there is no Ill intention towards the other, if the aggression is objectively to get the job done, there's no harm. It leaves a sour taste, but no long lasting effects. Again, full circle, frontal aggressiveness with no grudges. No grudges is really important.

You'd not take intelligence over ‘being pleasant’? I tend to enjoy the company of an intelligent asshole more than that of a ‘pleasant’ idiot any day.

I can spend good, fulfilling and interesting times with a 'pleasant' idiot friend. Intelligent assholes, on the other hand, besides some intellectual discussion in their field of expertise, I would pass on their company. But, since this is about people within the workspace, I guess the intelligent asshole would, sometimes, be preferable to some polite but less intelligent person. The other one would still be an asshole, though. Plus, I don't think Linus would get away with this crap outside of electronic mailing lists and kernel stuff.

Whether if "profanity" is involved in the speech or not, if someone is prone to blowing up in a rage of anger, I do not enjoy being around such a person. Depending on the details, it might be worth understanding what makes them upset and trying to avoid it, but it seems to me that a lot of the time some people are just overly angry.

I recently witnessed some programmer going to town, blasting out a supply cabinet. Hurling rage and profane insults at a supply cabinet just seems... uncalled for, to me. My personal evaluation is that the guy needs to learn to not let little things bother him so much. Though I doubt the supply cabinet was offended.

I tend to prefer pleasant and intelligent personally.

I much prefer to hang out with my very kind-hearted and pleasant (yet slightly less intelligent[1]) fraternity brothers over some of my extremely bright computer science classmates who don't have as much social tact. That's because most conversations with the latter group turn into pissing matches over intellectualism, programming skill, and the like. That's not to say that I don't get along with these kids; they're great to study with, and I learn a lot from them. However, it just gets grating when we're in algorithms class discussing selection sort versus merge sort and some smart aleck asks why we can't just use radix sort because it's asymptotically linear and blah blah blah we get that you're smart, stop gloating in lecture.[2]

[1] Of course, that's not to say that my brothers are unintelligent (they're very bright). However, one of the most important life skills I learned in public school was learning how to get along with those "pleasant idiots," as you put it.

[2] And I'm not disagreeing that kernel dev requires a more authoritative leadership style than most pursuits, but it seemed that this conversation had dropped into speaking in generalities about life.

No-one is irreplacable. Assholes should be fired.

[edited the obvious typo]

There is a happy medium :) But in general, I'd always choose (true, sincerely meant) pleasantness and kindness over intelligence. Though, if a kernel developer is required, then maybe intelligence is the more useful, giving rise to this current situation...

and that happy medium varies from person to person you dense jackass, that was the entire fucking point of the rant

The hurt caused by such aggression varies too. Should this not be taken into account, or should we never consider the affects our behaviour has on others? Some people are more sensitive. Some people think calling someone a "dense jackass" as a reproach is OK.

Fortunately for me, I'm in a position to choose exactly who I work with. (Unlike perhaps this Sarah is.)

If you meet me in real-life I'm pretty relaxed. I've even been called a pleasant person, too!

I'm just getting a bit jittery whenever someone tries to regulate free speech.

If you think I'm an asshole you are hereby invited to meet me at the OHM in a few weeks and yell at me. :)

I'd prefer an intelligent asshole over an unintelligent...anything else just about. One thing I've learned about myself in my 30-some years on this earth is that I just can't stomach the company of people less intelligent than me (that's not to say I'm a genius, or even above average necessarily) for a very long time.

However, don't conflate "tech type" with "high IQ/intelligence." The tech industry has the same percentage of idiots as any other, and our idiots aren't any smarter than those others' idiots just because they can scratch out a chunk of python or haskell or whatever.

From what I have seen of Linus in interviews and presentations he seems like a very fun and pleasant person. He is harsh and swears when he gets angry which does not mean he cannot also be pleasant.

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