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Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

>>"Damn it! I'm a human, not a boolean condition!" I'd declare, clearly emotionally compromised.

This will probably be an unpopular comment on HN, but I think there are a lot of vulcans[1] in the tech scene that would be more socially amiable & better understand others if they stopped trying to exclusively use cold-logic on people and understood that emotions are just as important as logic when dealing with humans.

"All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness." - Tennessee Williams

"Honesty without Compassion is Cruelty" https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140121033617-3...

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(Star_Trek)

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I've always held that it was deeply illogical of Spock not to factor his emotions and his brain's built-in reward mechanisms into the equation.

You could argue that Spock was "logical" in that his reasoning was self-consistent. He was, however, irrational.

that's a pretty weak meaning of "logical" though. you can always get internal self-consistency by ignoring parts of a system until what's left is a coherent subset, but that seems like a pretty meaningless operation.

.... and yet, most people are not self-consistent, so apparently this is not a meaningless operation.

The Vulcan discipline of general emotional suppression and logic is, in setting, very much about maximizing utility in the long-term by understanding and mastering impulses that lead to trading long-term maximization for short-term reward; the quasi-religious devotion to logic that is typical of Vulcans is set up deliberately as being an overreaction in that direction, however, and achieving a synthesis which embraces emotion while mastering it is a big part of the long arc of the Spock story.

If your goal is to manipulate people into doing what you want, then yes, you should consider their emotional state above rational argument.

If your goal is to pursue the truth and make correct decisions, you must not pay any heed whatsoever to the emotions of the person(s) you're trying to reach a decision with. That is, you can try to be delicate, but you mustn't allow their emotions to prevent the argument from being rational.

If your goal is to reach the best outcome, current and future emotions are an important input into your hopefully rational process.

If your goal is to pursue the truth and make correct decisions, you must not pay any heed whatsoever to the emotions

This presupposes that the emotions cannot be a source of true information.

> That is, you can try to be delicate, but you mustn't allow their emotions to prevent the argument from being rational.

Trying to be delicate is paying heed to their emotions, and this kind of "manipulation" is an important part of communication. You are manipulating them to follow the same thought process as you, so that they can understand your (supposedly) rational conclusion, and if they respect you they will be happily allow themselves to be manipulated in this way.

Completely ignoring their emotions is an excellent way to convince an otherwise rational person to ignore your argument. People are not rational, and being right is not sufficient to be persuasive.

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