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Comment by yanowitz | Hacker News Reader

There's a set of human interaction anti-patterns like this.

(The article mentions another one -- excessive confidence and its inverse, ability to acknowledge ignorance and learn from others. I'd also add a variant to that--having and expressing varying degrees of confidence in your opinions. The more experience/evidence-based your opinion is, the more strongly you are likely to be attached. But every opinion in software should have error bars around it, especially given the rapidity of change.)

The inverse of feigned surprise was neatly displayed to me by a coworker recently, "oh cool, today is the day you get to learn about X."

I assume someone has written something brilliant about these sets of interactions.

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Perhaps your coworker was referencing this XKCD strip? I've seen it quoted fairly often: http://xkcd.com/1053/

Pay close attention to guilty words like: just, always, never, everything, nothing, all, none, very, actually. They are an alarm that indicates you are going to an extreme to justify a position.

If what you say is evidently true, you wouldn't feel the need to try hard to qualify it.

Interesting that you pick up on those words, as I have noticed that whenever my team leader asks me for "just a small change", it usually means he hasn't bothered to think it through properly, and it will involve a lot more thinking or work or maintenance in the long run than he imagines.

Isn't this kinda related to "Black and White Thinking" / "All or Nothing Thinking"?

One anti-pattern I particularly hate is sarcasm. For some reason, people in many online communities seem to think that they can't do without it — even that it somehow defines their personalities. But whenever somebody posts something even remotely against the grain, and the top-voted reply is in the vein of "Yeah, because that's a real problem", there's just nothing more I can do in that thread. It's a conversational dead-end.

I don't think what you're describing is a problem with sarcasm, it's a problem with people being dismissive. Sarcasm is just how they choose to express it. It wouldn't be any less toxic if that person said "Yeah, that's not a real problem" instead.

This is something I am trying to change in myself. Especially because the amount of time I spend being sarcastic online has started making this behavior spill over into real life. It is a toxic, toxic behavior that is justified only by people who conflate it with peacocking as a smart person. I don't need to do that. I would rather avoid destroying relationships over that.

I will defend sarcasm. Because sometimes, the only way to see the stupidity in your argument is to hear it said back to you. And yeah, it stings a bit. All the better.

The problem with sarcasm is that, when I use it, I'm not putting my own opinion out there to be critiqued, I'm only attacking the other guy's. I can change my argument at will and claim "I was only being ironic" with prior claims.

> "I can change my argument at will and claim "I was only being ironic" with prior claims."

This is solved by explicitly stating when you are being sarcastic, or following up the sarcastic paragraph with a paragraph that non-sarcastically explains your position.

> "The problem with sarcasm is that, when I use it, I'm not putting my own opinion out there to be critiqued, I'm only attacking the other guy's."

I don't think that is actually problematic. There are certain issues that I do not have strong feelings on one way or the other, so I consider my opinion on those issues to be of relatively little consequence. Nevertheless, I am still capable of analyzing and critiquing the merit of arguments made by others.

For instance, if the topic is tidal power stations being placed offshore of expensive private beach property (a topic that I do not care about one way or the other) and somebody objects that the view from those beaches will be destroyed, I might sarcastically quip that all transmission lines near golf courses and country clubs should be razed, because rich people should never be forced to gaze upon infrastructure. I would give this sarcastic quip because, although I don't really give a shit about tidal power, I can still recognize a ridiculous argument when I see one.

You don't need to mock someone to convey this. Just assume it was a brainfart (which it probably was): "Are you sure that's what you meant to say?". If they were actually wrong, they'll feel embarrassed enough about it without you mocking them as well.

I'm not talking about criticizing who misspoke. I'm talking about pointing out the stupidity of someone's poorly formed opinion, that may not be obvious to them.

Example:

A lawyer was cross-examining the doctor about whether or not he had checked the pulse of the deceased before he signed the death certificate. "No," the doctor said. "I did not check his pulse." "And did you listen for a heartbeat?" asked the lawyer. "No I did not," the doctor said. "So," said the lawyer, "when you signed the death certificate, you had not taken steps to make sure he was dead." The doctor said, "Well, let me put it this way. The man's brain was in a jar on my desk but, for all I know, he could be out practicing law somewhere."

That's mockery, but not the common use of sarcasm. Sarcasm is making a statement that is the opposite of what you mean, and using vocal tone to convey the "NOT". It's plain rude in spoken communication, but fundamentally impossible in text. People don't understand that when they hear their writing inside their head, where they apply the intonation.

The doctor almost certainly didn't mean it when he said that it was possible the patient was practicing law somewhere, so I think it was sarcasm.

I thought about that, but decided that "for all I know" was a carefully worded expression of "it is contrary to the logic of the known Universe and all who claim to be guided by reason, but I invite you to try to claim that a miracle occurred."

I guess it could be read either way. I am not expert in the finest points of a argumentative linguistics. :-)

Contrast to something like. "I had his brain in a jar. But in retrospect, I agree it was improper for me to rush to judgment".

That's not really a fair example. It's a court so appearances (regrettably) actually matter, and the doctor will most likely never have to work alongside the lawyer ever again. (Not to mention a lawyer in court will be completely mentally prepared for insults.)

If the doctor behaved the same way to a nurse asking about a particular patient, that would be toxic behaviour. All they had to say was "The checks weren't necessary, his brain was severed." Going out of your way to ridicule someone for a misunderstanding is completely unnecessary.

Appearances matter in way more than court. There's also the "court of public opinion." Sarcasm is a powerful tool to criticize whats wrong with society, and it would be a shame if we banned it completely because a few bullies abused it.

And I never said sarcasm was always appropriate. Obviously, a doctor should never talk to a nurse that way.

There are a few problems with this. First, sarcasm is often used in an "amirite, guys?" kind of way, as a means of reinforcing the status quo in a community and shutting down dissent. For example, you'll see this in pretty much any thread on r/games that discusses sexism or violence in the videogame industry. Secondly, I've found that when an argument seems stupid to me, there's a good chance that I'm missing something. Whether we realize it or not, we all live in very insular bubbles, and often we lack the context and/or empathy to fully understand an issue from the other side. Third, you don't change hearts and minds by being an asshole. It's, like, chapter two of "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Sarcasm is kind of, well, masturbatory in that sense.

Yeah, because that's what destroys your conversations.

To my ear "oh cool, today is the day you get to learn about X." is even more patronizing than the feigned surprise. Feigned surprise may have a tone of superiority, but at least it means they respect my knowledge enough to be surprised that I don't know.

YMMV, but I find this has more to do with the attitudes of the participants. Knowledge is not a zero-sum game, I hope to learn new things every day, and want the people I work with to help level me up. If someone wants to take the time to share their knowledge with me, I win.

If it was being said passively aggressively, I would agree with you (and perhaps you've mainly experienced this interaction that way).

even better:

"oh, you're not familiar with X? it's actually pretty cool. it has benefits Y in situations like Z, which might be useful to you here because [...] I'll send you some links to the resources I used to learn about it. ”

> oh cool, today is the day you get to learn about X

Sounds like https://xkcd.com/1053/

Learning to interact with other human beings is a skill many developers seem to think is beneath them, or they are still stuck playing petty primate status games, or that they are so brilliant the other guy needs to adapt to their rough edges.

"having and expressing varying degrees of confidence in your opinions" is something I think people should really look at in themselves. Both in the way the communicate and the way they think. Realistically everything we know to be true is really probably true and probability is of various degree.

It's something we all can make progress on. It makes you smarter.

>oh cool, today is the day you get to learn about X.

I still don't like this. There is no need to comment on my knowledge. If I say I don't know something, there is no need to repeat it back to me in any form. Offer resources, assistance, or guidance. If I found something I need to learn, assume that I will now be scrambling to learn it.

The intent of that sentence is not to repeat to you that you don't know something. That's already established.

It's to signal that the other person is not judging you negatively for that fact.

I fully understand the intent, but it doesn't come across that way. Assume that I will learn it, and I will assume you aren't judging me.

If I'm not busy, it is cool. Very cool. But if I have to spend hours reading and experimenting just to get to the next phase of some task, not so much. When I'm working, I like to accomplish things and learning can be a speed bump. I love learning new things during learning times. This also helps the learning process as I'm not facing stressful deadlines.

Stated as is, it also sounds like you are offering me the privilege to get to learn something you already know. I get to join your club. I've even heard people claim responsibility for another's knowledge because they were the first person to mention the topic. Same for TV shows, music, and movies.

what about feigning naivete. i see that happening sometimes. i've seen a guy get bullied and bullied in the workplace and do the work of several other coworkers for a long time. And then one day they needed something really important done, and they had no clue how to do it, though they have been taking credit for his work for like a year, they cozied up to the guy and asked him for help again. he said no that time.

That can still sound patronising - what if you actually know about X already?

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