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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People
ForOldHack wrote 15 hours 10 min ago:
I am a fan.
VP2262 wrote 17 hours 36 min ago:
You can do a lot with a little enthusiasm, way to go Swiss Miss :)
jdthedisciple wrote 23 hours 16 min ago:
Reminds me of the Pygmalion effect [0].
[0]
URI [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect
pbsladek wrote 1 day ago:
Shared with my team. Lovely read.
Havoc wrote 1 day ago:
Also, people that don't have an adversarial bone in their body. They
just want everyone to be happy and succeed.
A lot of people reckon that applies to them, but the real deal is
pretty scarce in my experience.
Always find people like that inspiring.
neuroelectron wrote 8 hours 42 min ago:
I'm sure it's a lot easier if you're a rich woman living in NYC.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 11 hours 11 min ago:
I am not competitive. Thatâs a deliberate stance, and comes as a
result of my life experiences (long story, get your hanky).
In order to âwin,â someone else needs to âlose.â
Thatâs not something that I am personally comfortable with, but I
totally understand that itâs not reasonable to expect others, to
have the same attitude.
Iâm also quite capable of preventing others from treating my
attitude as âweakness,â and trying to make me the âloser.â
Kindness is not weakness.
sethammons wrote 9 hours 14 min ago:
> In order to âwin,â someone else needs to âlose.â
Only in zero sum. I don't think many things are really zero sum.
The reason why both parties say thank you in a financial
transaction is because the first party values the thing more than
the money and the other party values the money more than the thing.
Win-win.
I prefer winning as a team. I also like significantly contributing
to that, but never at someone else's expense. I am the first to say
"we did this" vs "i did this."
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 9 hours 0 min ago:
I worked for a Japanese company, and they explicitly discouraged
individual recognition. It was always the team; even if one
person was the keystone.
I had a boss that authored a book on how to use some of our
software. It was a good book, and he busted his ass, writing it
(alone).
His bosses made him completely remove any mention of his name.
I feel that was going a bit too far, but I understand why.
They used to say "The nail that sticks up, gets hammered down."
The Japanese have the strongest teams I've ever seen, but it is
difficult to get individual recognition.
aerhardt wrote 1 day ago:
I like people like that too, but surely the world and more narrowly
the human experience also benefit from having people that are
competitive or even disagreeable?
hackable_sand wrote 23 hours 49 min ago:
You can be competitive and supportive of your enemies.
dfxm12 wrote 1 day ago:
Mostly, yes, but I think at its core, the world benefits from
honesty more than out right agreeable- or disagreeableness. We
should speak up when we feel the need to agree or disagree, but we
shouldn't play devil's advocate for the sake of it.
sethammons wrote 9 hours 11 min ago:
We absolutely should play devil's advocate. It is the attempt to
think about a situation from a different angle and usually is
understood to be such. Not an attack; a shake up to see if the
structure stands to opposition.
badmonster wrote 1 day ago:
What a beautiful tribute to the power of enthusiasm and belief in
others
ForOldHack wrote 14 hours 56 min ago:
And the literal fountain of acknowledgment.
gavin_gee wrote 1 day ago:
so wholesome. what a great day to have found this blog.
bookofjoe wrote 1 day ago:
Linked article above broken for me; this one works:
URI [1]: https://creativemornings.com/blog/a-love-letter-to-the-people-...
bicepjai wrote 1 day ago:
I love the take on fandom, this is how I would want it. While this
article portrays fandom as a pure, innocent and positive force, my
experience shows it can have a darker side. In places like South India,
fandom often evolves: fandom becomes factions, factions become gangs,
gangs become political groups, and political groups become dynasties or
kingdoms. This cycle limits leadership diversity and negatively impact
governance and society. IMHO fandom isnât always innocent; it can
wield significant social and political influence, for better or worse.
Note: written with gpt4o
kretaceous wrote 19 hours 11 min ago:
These are two very different things here, I think. You're talking
about celebrity and franchise fandom which is parasocial and exists
because they are actively influencing you to become their fan.
They're already famous or have made it.
What the article talks about is much more grounded â being excited
about other people you know and believing in them. This "fandom"
doesn't necessarily originate from admiration of achievements but
from sincere belief. You're becoming a fan while they're just being
themselves.
neilv wrote 23 hours 44 min ago:
> Note: written with gpt4o
Good points, but I hope you had your own thoughts, and wrote your own
words. And that this tacked on at the end was a joke.
PaulHoule wrote 1 day ago:
I think the best thing I get out of social media such as Mastodon and
Bluesky is finding people who get enthusiastic about me -- when
somebody discovers my profile and then I see they read everything I've
posted in the last month and they favorite 20% of it, I know I have a
fan.
I know those folks exist on HN but HNers are more reserved and I only
find out about them when they stand up for me against the haters.
bookofjoe wrote 1 day ago:
I stand with Houle
ForOldHack wrote 15 hours 3 min ago:
I am a fan of both of you, and now a have to find his writing.
The simple act of voicing the true recognition of brilliance.
I am going to ...
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago:
I've always been a fan of enthusiasm. I find many people react badly to
it, though; especially in tech. We have a lot of curmudgeons.
ForOldHack wrote 14 hours 58 min ago:
Apparently,many people are. I once was in an interview with an
aquired company. ( We were aquired... I thanked the founders and only
said a few words about the opportunity we had... )
Months later, I was taking to one of he founders, and he said that
someone on the board of directors was sitting behind me. He said
"keep THAT guy. He has more enthusiasm than the entire rest of your
company."
Thanks Richard K and Jim V.
ryandrake wrote 1 day ago:
Huh, I was going to post the opposite. We have enough enthusiasm and
True Believers in tech work, especially in the USA where even PR
pieces read "We are so excited to announce..."
We may or may not have enough critics/curmudgeons, but whether they
are there or not, they certainly don't seem to rise into leadership
roles where they can use their discernment and wisdom to steer better
and to stop terrible projects. I know in my company, the top ranks
are all filed with beaming excitement and positivity about
everything, and everything we are doing is great, and we are so
confident in this, and excited about that...
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago:
I donât consider that ârealâ enthusiasm, though.
Itâs âcargo-cult enthusiasm,â where they believe that keeping
an almost manic level of energy will magically transcend the
bourgeoisie prison of reality, and poop out rainbow unicorn turds.
Karrot_Kream wrote 1 day ago:
I think it's the curse of being online. Most IRL based social groups
in every culture I've been in subconsciously filter out cynics. These
folks often feel disenfranchised IRL and congregate online instead.
Their presence crowds out non-cynics, who then leave. These online
communities then reorganize around cynical baselines.
Apparently Threads had made a decision earlier on to deprioritize
negative and charged political topics because of Meta's belief in
this negative flywheel.
(I'd rather not go into a discussion about Meta itself in replies
here because I find those discussions on HN to be highly
unproductive, and I won't respond to comments regarding them.)
EDIT: r/Coronavirus on Reddit was a great place to observe evidence
of this flywheel. My partner started using it when she felt really
depressed during lockdown restrictions. All the content on the sub
was about how the world was irreparably broken and how society as we
know it was about to come to an end. Commenters were clamoring for
humanity to be cleansed. Then news of the vaccines came out. At first
nobody on the sub believed it would work. But when efficacy numbers
were released, the tone of the sub changed quickly and the sub
started having a lot fewer people posting to it.
spyrefused wrote 1 day ago:
They often seem to me to be two sides of the same coin: fanaticism
becomes curmudgeonly with what does not coincide with your
fanaticism.
layer8 wrote 1 day ago:
Sometimes that comes with most of the things you were enthusiastic
for ending up far from fulfilling their promise.
fullshark wrote 1 day ago:
We've become jaded by phony enthusiasm or people hijacking it for
their own purposes. I agree it's bad, but this industry does seem to
run on the enthusiasm of naive 20-40 year olds, the end result of
that is many jaded 40+ year old curmudgeons.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago:
What I have encountered, is a bit different.
Thereâs a fetching shade of gray, to my well-coiffed pompadour,
and I find many younger folks are almost immediately hostile,
before Iâve even had a chance to give them a reason to be.
Speaking only for myself, I am very enthusiastic about all kinds of
things, and devote a great deal of effort towards helping folks
out. Thereâs reasons for that, which is a story for another time.
Suffice it to say that Iâve seen darker times, and that can add a
lot of shine, to what others take for granted.
That said, Iâve also seen quite a bit of life, and have learned
where a lot of the claymores are planted, so some of that
âhelping folks out,â is mentioning things like âAre you sure
you want to pet that rattling snake?â.
flanked-evergl wrote 1 day ago:
What we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has
moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of
conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be
doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been
exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is
exactly the part he ought not to assertâhimself. The part he doubts
is exactly the part he ought not to doubtâthe Divine Reason. Huxley
preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic
is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be
wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our
time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time;
but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than
the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur
that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that
prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful
about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new
humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop
working altogether.
(quoted)
dkarl wrote 1 day ago:
> But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which
will make him stop working altogether
Chesterton is just giving clever voice to the eternal prediction that
the decline of traditional morals will produce a fundamental
degeneration of humanity. T.H. Huxley, who had been dead for over ten
years when Chesterton wrote this, was a wildly successful person, an
eminent scientist, prolific author, and public figure. But these
predictions are eternally about a coming collapse. It didn't matter
that Chesterton's exemplar of the "new humility" had been one of the
most shining examples of ambition and fruitful labor of the 19th
century. He could still predict that Huxley's ideas would reduce the
next generation to helpless ineffectualness. And even after three of
Huxley's grandchildren became eminent public figures in the 20th
century, there will be people who read this and find it a compelling
prediction about the 21st century.
flanked-evergl wrote 23 hours 27 min ago:
> Chesterton is just giving clever voice to the eternal prediction
that the decline of traditional morals will produce a fundamental
degeneration of humanity.
No.
(quoted)
We have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is
that things naturally tend to grow better. But the only real reason
for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow
worse. The corruption in things is not only the best argument for
being progressive; it is also the only argument against being
conservative. The conservative theory would really be quite
sweeping and unanswerable if it were not for this one fact. But all
conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone
you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing
alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white
post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want
it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you
must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old
white post you must have a new white post. But this which is true
even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense
true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really
required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which
human institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance
and journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But,
as a fact, men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies;
under tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years
before. Thus England went mad with joy over the patriotic monarchy
of Elizabeth; and then (almost immediately afterwards) went mad
with rage in the trap of the tyranny of Charles the First. So,
again, in France the monarchy became intolerable, not just after it
had been tolerated, but just after it had been adored. The son of
Louis the well-beloved was Louis the guillotined. So in the same
way in England in the nineteenth century the Radical manufacturer
was entirely trusted as a mere tribune of the people, until
suddenly we heard the cry of the Socialist that he was a tyrant
eating the people like bread. So again, we have almost up to the
last instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion.
Just recently some of us have seen (not slowly, but with a start)
that they are obviously nothing of the kind. They are, by the
nature of the case, the hobbies of a few rich men. We have not any
need to rebel against antiquity; we have to rebel against novelty.
It is the new rulers, the capitalist or the editor, who really hold
up the modern world. There is no fear that a modern king will
attempt to override the constitution; it is more likely that he
will ignore the constitution and work behind its back; he will take
no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely that he will
take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact that he is
free from criticism and publicity. For the king is the most private
person of our time. It will not be necessary for any one to fight
again against the proposal of a censorship of the press. We do not
need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.
---
The pagans had always adored purity: Athena, Artemis, Vesta. It was
when the virgin martyrs began defiantly to practice purity that
they rent them with wild beasts, and rolled them on red-hot coals.
The world had always loved the notion of the poor man uppermost; it
can be proved by every legend from Cinderella to Whittington, by
every poem from the Magnificat to the Marseillaise. The kings went
mad against France not because she idealized this ideal, but
because she realized it. Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia
quite agreed that the people should rule; what horrified them was
that the people did. The French Revolution, therefore, is the type
of all true revolutions, because its ideal is as old as the Old
Adam, but its fulfilment almost as fresh, as miraculous, and as new
as the New Jerusalem.
nathan_compton wrote 1 day ago:
This seems like Chesterton to me. Good writer, but I take exception
to his world view. We should simply doubt that which is warranted to
doubt and be confident in that which warrants confidence. If modern
people doubt truths more than people used to, perhaps its because
those so-called truths aren't so obvious as some people would have
you believe.
"But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will
make him stop working altogether."
This just fundamentally misunderstands what aims are. They can
neither be doubted or correct. I can doubt empirically, or
epistemologically, but I can't doubt that I want to eat a doughnut or
that I want to be healthy or that I want a world with less cruelty in
it. It's a waste of time and energy to doubt these things, although I
can try to line up all my desires and figure out how they stack up
with one another when I try to make plans, the efficacy of which is
in the realm of the believable. I can look at other people's actions,
try to determine their desires, and decide whether to assist them or
interfere with them or fight them, but when I do this its not a
cosmic battle about truths. Its just two people acting out on their
desires in a shared world.
flanked-evergl wrote 23 hours 39 min ago:
The thing that makes you different from the beasts is that you
believe that there is a way things ought to be, regardless of how
they are. You can view your desire to eat a doughnut separate from
your prescriptive belief of whether you ought to eat the donut. You
can beliefe that you ought not to eat the donut even though you
want to, you can beleive that you ought to eat the donut even if
you don't want to. You can even believe that you ought not hold any
beliefs regarding what you ought to eat based on your desires to
eat it.
Accepting that prescriptive beliefs exists, the claim by Chesterton
is quite simply factual. It would be much truer to say that a man
will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete
self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a
weakness.
The question as to what prescriptive beliefs we ought to hold is
another matter, and one Chesterton has dealt with masterfully.
(quoted)
When I had written this down, I felt once again the presence of
something else in the discussion: as a man hears a church bell
above the sound of the street. Something seemed to be saying, "My
ideal at least is fixed; for it was fixed before the foundations of
the world. My vision of perfection assuredly cannot be altered; for
it is called Eden. You may alter the place to which you are going;
but you cannot alter the place from which you have come. To the
orthodox there must always be a case for revolution; for in the
hearts of men God has been put under the feet of Satan. In the
upper world hell once rebelled against heaven. But in this world
heaven is rebelling against hell. For the orthodox there can always
be a revolution; for a revolution is a restoration. At any instant
you may strike a blow for the perfection which no man has seen
since Adam. No unchanging custom, no changing evolution can make
the original good any thing but good. Man may have had concubines
as long as cows have had horns: still they are not a part of him if
they are sinful. Men may have been under oppression ever since fish
were under water; still they ought not to be, if oppression is
sinful. The chain may seem as natural to the slave, or the paint to
the harlot, as does the plume to the bird or the burrow to the fox;
still they are not, if they are sinful. I lift my prehistoric
legend to defy all your history. Your vision is not merely a
fixture: it is a fact." I paused to note the new coincidence of
Christianity: but I passed on.
nathan_compton wrote 3 hours 47 min ago:
I just don't think prescriptive beliefs exist.
dayvigo wrote 1 day ago:
> I can't doubt that I want to eat a doughnut or that I want to be
healthy or that I want a world with less cruelty in it.
The common case of the smoker (or someone around them) doubting
whether they "really" want to quit cigarettes or not, after
claiming they do want to quit and will quit, and then failing to do
so, shows this is coherent though. It's just not applicable to the
two examples you gave, because that's not what is meant.
roarkeful wrote 1 day ago:
Having quit nicotine, I can say that it's simply a matter of
wanting to quit. I do love smoking still, and have a pipe or a
cigar roughly every two weeks, but my half-a-tin of 12mg nicotine
pouches a day habit is gone.
I miss it, and I didn't want to quit, but it was financially a
little silly and that much nicotine causes health effects. You
can desire to stop something but also not want to. It seems fair
to allow both to be true.
nathan_compton wrote 27 min ago:
I think its better to say that people can have multiple,
competing, desires, especially at different time scales.
Nothing about the human condition as I can understand it makes
this unreasonable, since I don't subscribe really to the idea
that people really are a singular, coherent, entity.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 11 hours 6 min ago:
âJust say âno.ââ
Where have I heard that, before?
In my experience, compulsive people can often be totally unable
to quit; no matter how hard they want to.
Thatâs one reason that I donât dis fat people (I could
stand to lose some weight, myself, and Iâm working on it).
Drugs like Ozempic, have been making big differences, here, as
they attack that reptile-brain compulsion that makes quitting
so difficult.
patcon wrote 1 day ago:
This woman founded Creative Mornings, which has been one of my most
well-respected and beloved quasi-centralised organizations (I tend to
have a bias for loving humane decentralized/horizontal orgs/movements,
and Creative Mornings struck a delightful balance between order and
chaos)
briankelly wrote 22 hours 21 min ago:
Very glad to see an active chapter near me - sounds awesome and I
plan on checking it out.
svelle wrote 1 day ago:
I had a manager and mentor who was a fan of me. It felt amazing having
someone who is actually rooting for you. Him cheering me on and giving
me constructive feedback and building me up in a way no one did before
that has fundamentally changed my professional and private personality,
hopefully in a good way.
heresie-dabord wrote 12 hours 20 min ago:
Always be a mentor as if your own life and community depend on it.
Because they do.
VP2262 wrote 17 hours 53 min ago:
This sort of situation doesn't occur often, at least in my
experience, but is so good when it does.
pmkary wrote 1 day ago:
I had too, and it was the only reason I was with that company.
felixarba wrote 1 day ago:
This was wonderful. The choice to be a fan is within us all.
HanClinto wrote 1 day ago:
This is so needed. This was a very encouraging article.
"Being a fan is all about bringing the enthusiasm. Itâs being a
champion of possibility. Itâs believing in someone. And itâs
contagious. When youâre around someone who is super excited about
something, it washes over you. It feels good. You canât help but want
to bring the enthusiasm, too."
Stands in contrast to the Hemingway quote: "Critics are men who watch a
battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors."
It feels socially safe, easy, and destructive to be a critic.
I'd rather be a fan.
auggierose wrote 12 hours 35 min ago:
Lots of Trump fans out there.
atoav wrote 12 hours 58 min ago:
As a practicing musician of 2 decades I of course have opinions on
what good music is and what isn't on multiple layers. So I will
critique music (the thing) but not musicians (the people). Receiving
good criticism by other musicians is really good way to get better,
as they will notice things you wont â provided they are open for
the type of music you're making.
However I noticed a peculiar thing. In every field you will find
people who are really enthusiastic for the field without doing it
themselves. Maybe we could call them "enthusiastic consumers". These
are very often the people giving the harshest, most unfair, least
constructive critiques for some reason and the closer your thing is
to the thing they love the harsher they can become. To them consuming
that thing is their identity, so which thing they consume is
existentially important to then. To me music is much more about the
making, and while listening about countless things. Musicians tend to
be more open about what constitutes good mhsic than these
enthusiasts.
As a former art student one important leason I have learned in
countless group reviews is that criticism based purely on taste are
utterly worthless. If a classical music nerd dislikes your noiserock
piece purely because of taste that just tells you something about
them. This is what the criticism of most entusiastic consumers looks
like. Another thing I have learned is that people are usually correct
something feels wrong to them if they are really going into the thing
with open eyes and an open heart. But people totally suck at telling
you how to fix it.
So my advice on how to deal with criticsm is:
1. Figure out the nature of the criticism and judge accordingly. Is
it purely a matter of taste? Is the root cause of observation valid?
2. Most criticism can help you getting better or worse, which one
depends a lot on how you deal with it. You can reframe criticism to
not be about you, but about the thing you do (and try to do well!).
In that case every valid point someone makes will now no longer be an
attack on your person, but a chance to make your work even better
3. Do things for their own sake and you're somewhat immune to
criticism. If you enjoy playing guitar, it should not matter to you
that you suck while doing it. Everybody good sucked for a long time
before they were good and many of the most innovative new
developements were made by people who did not care they were "doing
it wrong"
4. There is no single correct way to do a thing and thus there are
always people who will hate your stuff for a various number of
reasons. This means nothing unless they got a valid point be it in
terms of craft or emotion.
5. In German there is the notion of "Wer macht hat recht", which very
loosely translates to "those who do are in the right". Action beats
opinion. Talking is cheap.
trinsic2 wrote 11 hours 13 min ago:
Thanks for posting this. I learn some about the topic as I am not
very good receiving criticism.
Ygg2 wrote 13 hours 20 min ago:
> It feels socially safe, easy, and destructive to be a critic.
It also feels very socially safe to be group of rabid fans.
fenomas wrote 17 hours 44 min ago:
Chiming in to add Bierce:
CRITIC: n. A man who boasts himself hard to please because nobody
tries to please him.
whoknowsidont wrote 1 day ago:
Not only is "it" not needed, "being a fan" is pervasive to a
detrimental extent. "posio-paths" are everywhere and are basically
the default. In order to say something correct, make a correction, or
present a counter-factual you have to layer your tone with a thousand
feel-goodism's and niceties.
Otherwise you just get labeled as a hater, a contrarian, or worse - a
critic. It's exhausting. People confuse being direct, dry, or taking
a level-tone with dispassion, disinterest, or again being a "hater."
I would even say I've seen so many people being "super excited" about
something that it's the opposite of contagious for me, it causes me
to doubt how knowledgeable or sincere they are about the subject
(whether it's a general topic or even a person).
We have too much fake-niceness, and we are over-enthused quite often
on things that turn out to be nothing, at least in the U.S. We don't
need more of it, at least IMO.
tpmoney wrote 7 hours 14 min ago:
> We have too much fake-niceness, and we are over-enthused quite
often on things that turn out to be nothing, at least in the U.S.
We don't need more of it, at least IMO.
I don't think the original article is advocating for "fake
niceness". It's advocating for enthusiastic uplift. That spirit
that tends to pervade small hobbyist communities, where everyone is
iterating and building on everyone else. If you've been in the 3d
printing space over the last decade or so, there's plenty of honest
criticism and knowledgable discussion. But it's also infectiously
enthusiastic and there's a sense of exploration and desire to see
everyone* succeed that's very genuine. Things don't always succeed
or work out, but it's pretty rare to encounter hard "that's stupid,
you're stupid and you should feel bad" sort of commentary.
Compare this to the broader tech community as it appears in places
like HN. Open any thread on someone's new project or experiment
here and count the number of comments that are genuinely positive
and encouraging vs the number that are nit-picking for the sake of
nit-picking, dismissive and just generally unhappy or are outright
actively tearing down the item in question. Even the ones that are
"Oh this is nice, but hey you could do XYZ to improve it" very
rarely have any follow up that submits the suggested improvements,
even when the original item is an open source project that they
clearly could submit improvements to. People love to talk about the
shortcomings, but unlike "fans" rarely tend to put out the time and
effort to make it better.
It's bad enough that my general approach to HN these days is to
only read the articles and make an effort to avoid the comment
threads or at a minimum make sure I've read the original link in
its entirety and thought about my own opinions of it before heading
into the comments. And when I find something in a project that I
think could be improved, I make an effort to ensure that I'm
putting proper effort into trying to improve it, either with a
patch/fix or if I'm incapable of patching/fixing, as much detail
and testing as I can document in order to have contributed more
than just a drive by criticism.
Also, I'm not sure a "too much niceness", fake or otherwise, is the
problem in the US right now.
whoknowsidont wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
>If you've been in the 3d printing space over the last decade or
so, there's plenty of honest criticism and knowledgable
discussion. But it's also infectiously enthusiastic and there's a
sense of exploration and desire to see everyone* succeed that's
very genuine. Things don't always succeed or work out, but it's
pretty rare to encounter hard "that's stupid, you're stupid and
you should feel bad" sort of commentary.
> And when I find something in a project that I think could be
improved, I make an effort to ensure that I'm putting proper
effort into trying to improve it, either with a patch/fix or if
I'm incapable of patching/fixing, as much detail and testing as I
can document in order to have contributed more than just a drive
by criticism.
This is an amazing way of putting it / viewing it. In hindsight I
feel like my comment was probably a bit misplaced.
Thanks for the response!
paulpauper wrote 1 day ago:
It's so hard to to believe in people or have a positive opinion of
them when much of my interactions are negative. Or when people who
embody the opposite of goodness are promoted and have status. It's
like we live in a society in which mediocrity, borderline sociopathy,
and meanness are rewarded. Unless you're Elon Musk or Mark
Zuckerberg, but there is a huge middle where people who are
competent, smart, and do the right things do not get the promotion or
recognition they deserve or are entitled to. It's like you have to
super-brilliant to have any hope , or just lucky. No room for the
hard-working middle.
tpmoney wrote 6 hours 35 min ago:
> It's so hard to to believe in people or have a positive opinion
of them when much of my interactions are negative. Or when people
who embody the opposite of goodness are promoted and have status.
It's like we live in a society in which mediocrity, borderline
sociopathy, and meanness are rewarded.
Which I think is why the original article has an important idea. We
need to be fans more and encourage that as a way of thinking. If
mediocrity and borderline sociopathy are rewarded by society at
large, it must mean that mediocrity and borderline sociopathy are
rewarded by society in the small. And sure enough, take a look
around (and look at pop culture over the last couple decades) and
you'll see that's true:
* American "Kitchen Nightmares" took what was an often genuinely
heartfelt show about struggling restaurants in its UK incarnation
and turned it into a circus side show complete with jeering at the
freaks.
* Reality competition shows thrive on marketing terrible
performances and smug take downs by Simon Cowell and his various
low rent knockoffs.
* The Daily Show / John Oliver thrives on the sort of smug "I'm
better than these obvious idiots, and wink wink you are too because
you watch me and we know we're very smart" behavior that ironically
also powers the Glenn Beck / Rush Limbaugh contingent on the other
side of the spectrum.
* Trump himself made his own reality TV show where the entire
premise was just firing people for not being sufficiently
subservient.
* And remember things like "The Weakest Link"?
We've built a culture over the years, that has turned large swaths
of the internet from small communities of fans and enthusiasts to
large communities of "take down" artists and drive by clap backs a
la twitter. We promote criticism and boarderline sociopathy on a
daily basis and hold it up as an ideal to strive for, and turn to
"You just can't handle the truth" whenever someone calls it out. Is
it any wonder then that the people that are rising to the top in a
world that promotes crab bucket mentality are the biggest and
meanest crabs?
But if we don't work to be different in the small. If we don't try
in our day to day efforts even when it's extremely difficult to do
so, to be kind, positive, and enthusiastic, where do we expect that
behavior to come from in our leaders and the people we promote? If
"harsh truth" people who "say what they want" and "don't care about
your feels" are the sort of people we lift up at the bottom, why do
we expect it to be any different the higher up we go?
trinsic2 wrote 11 hours 6 min ago:
I feel this is a culture problem that can be localized on a per
organization basis. If people are getting promoted for be douche
bags you're working at the wrong organization. We feed sociopathy
by our choices.
igorkraw wrote 1 day ago:
I really believe in the importance of praising people and
acknowledging their efforts, when they are kind and good human beings
and (to much lesser degree) their successes.
But, and I mean their without snark: What value is your praise for
what is good if I cannot trust that you will be critical of what is
bad? Note that critique can be unpleasant but kind, and I don't care
for "brutal honesty" (which is much more about the brutality than the
honesty in most cases).
But whether it's the joint Slavic-german culture or something else, I
much prefer for things to be _appropriate_, _kind_ and _earnest_
instead of just supportive or positive. Real love is despite a flaw,
in full cognizance if it, not ignoring them.
LtWorf wrote 21 hours 3 min ago:
Yeah, I live in sweden and a compliment by a swede about how I play
music is completely meaningless to me. On the other hand a
compliment from my bosnian or croatian friends is a big deal.
worik wrote 21 hours 48 min ago:
> I really believe in the importance of praising people and
acknowledging their efforts, when they are...
alive!
At a funeral of a controversial activist, where all the living
activist sang their praise, I watch their child stand up and say
"...where were you all when my dad was alive"
I now go out of my way to tell people I admire them, if I do, while
they are still here.
keybored wrote 1 day ago:
A top-of-thread subthread complaining about critics on the topic of
believing in people.
We didnât last long.
throwup238 wrote 1 day ago:
That's an amazing quote. I recently just started going to some LA
Kings hockey games with my family for the first time, so this hits
close to home.
I played high school sports (with a three day hospital stay for a
serious concussion to show for it - thanks, football), but I've never
been a fan of watching sportsball on TV unless it's a social
gathering like Superbowl parties. I've generally had a low opinion of
people who cared about their city's teams and all the useless
competitiveness that goes along with it.
But being there, in the stadium around all the other fans? Fucking
electrifying. I celebrated, I jeered, I cried, I booed Edmonton, I
cursed the refs, I complained about the stadium food and the line for
the men's bathroom, and I was probably the loudest person in the 318
section of the Staples center. I almost fell over the glass boards
onto the ESPN newscasters during Wednesday's game on the fourth goal.
Too much overpriced beer plus standing up to wave the "Built for
This" towels too fast.
I still don't give a flying fuck about the Kings or Lakers or
Clippers or whatever, but I am definitely going to enjoy going to
their games and feeling the energy. The exact words my mom used were
"I've never seen this side of you."
WE WANT SKINNER!!!
weakfish wrote 21 hours 37 min ago:
I advocate for going to a Hurricanes game :) loudest barn in the
NHL, baby!
throwup238 wrote 16 hours 3 min ago:
I feel like every fanbase thinks they have the loudest barn.
I'm saving myself for the Cleveland dawg pound. They are
notorious (there's even a wikipedia page: [1] ).
(Womp womp, the Kings just lost 7-4 with two goals on an open
net)
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawg_Pound
DiscourseFan wrote 1 day ago:
Feeling good about shit all the time isnât practical and it
indicates a lack of individual, refined taste. Its ok to like things
that you like and dislike things others like and one should be able
to hold their own opinions without influence from the crowd.
tpmoney wrote 6 hours 50 min ago:
Feeling good about things has nothing to do with liking or
disliking something though. I dislike things about the Rust
language and the larger ecosystem around it (things like
async/await as the dominant concurrency model, or the separate and
very different macro syntaxes), but I'm still a fan of seeing rust
projects and things people do in and with Rust. If someone builds a
database driver built on Tokio, no one (not eve me) benefits from
me doing drive by "async/await is complex and annoying, you should
have done this differently" criticism. I may think that, and I may
not like a Tokio based driver. But I don't have to "feel bad" about
it, and neither do the creators. Feeling bad about it won't make a
non Tokio driver appear. Nor will just criticizing Tokio and
Async/Await. For something different and better to appear, I have
build enthusiasm for an alternative and I have to engage with the
parts I do like. Spending a hour building the starts of a a non
Tokio driver and giving it to other enthusiastic people would be a
far more effective use of my time than spending an hour writing a
take down of async/await and giving it to other like minded
critics. The phrase "preaching to the choir" comes to mind, and too
often these days I feel like criticism online is largely geared
towards exactly that. Polemics for people who already agree with
the author, about some thing that the author dislikes.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago:
I always liked Brendan Behan's quote:
âCritics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done,
they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it
themselves.â
bigbadfeline wrote 1 day ago:
Behan's criticism of critics then makes him an eunuch who's
criticizing eunuchs... according to his own "logic".
watwut wrote 1 day ago:
Harems did not had much of heterosexual sex going on in them.
Whole point was gender segregation. Eunuch in harem have seen
women, but did not seen them having sex with men.
nthingtohide wrote 1 day ago:
Critics could be experts of past era who have seen it all and are
now seeing the same mistakes being repeated.
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since
no one was listening, everything must be said again.
-- André Gide
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago:
Love that quote!
Thanks!
vunderba wrote 1 day ago:
> It feels socially safe, easy, and destructive to be a critic. I'd
rather be a fan.
Trotting out absolute statements does no one any good. I could just
as easily spin this on its head and say that it feels socially safe
to always show blind enthusiasm for the latest trend lest you be
labelled a "hater".
It feels like we're just redefining critic to be synonymous with
cynic. There's no reason that you can't simultaneously be both fan
and a critic of X.
atoav wrote 12 hours 54 min ago:
The truth is that for many people criticism and contrarianism
serves an extremely simple function: It allows them to sound smart
and distinguish themselves from others.
And that explains 90% of all the criticism that has ever been
given.
jasondigitized wrote 1 day ago:
Oh the irony - Sometimes people need to stfu and root for something
without pointing out how it could be better. "Awesome! Did you
think about..... STFU!"
worik wrote 21 hours 53 min ago:
"You should...."
Jensson wrote 22 hours 55 min ago:
> Oh the irony - Sometimes people need to stfu and root for
something without pointing out how it could be better. "Awesome!
Did you think about..... STFU!"
There are many such people already, there are also many haters,
and many people in the middle. This diversity is how humanity
managed to get this far, we need all of them.
gyomu wrote 23 hours 43 min ago:
Feels like engaging with the logic and content of an argument is
more in the spirit of this website than replying âstfuâ.
lanyard-textile wrote 1 day ago:
The absolute irony of this comment :)
nonameiguess wrote 5 hours 51 min ago:
The original comment already contained its own irony, directing
unfair criticism at critics. Hemingway wasn't exactly some
impartial observer of human behavior here. He was butthurt that a
published commentator once said something bad about his writing.
The reality of military operations, which Hemingway himself
probably knew having served himself (though maybe the situation
has changed as I can't claim familiarity with the specifics of
how it worked over a century ago), is that the biggest critic of
any unit involved in a battle post-battle is the unit itself.
Every action is always followed by an after-action review, in
which you go over what went well, what went wrong, what you
should continue, and what you should change. It's neither
unrelentingly positive nor negative. It's honest.
But for whatever reason, much of the creative class seems to
think anyone who isn't able to do something themselves is
universally unqualified to comment on the work of others. Plenty
of rather obvious examples show this to be ridiculous. The top
coaches and trainers throughout history were rarely great
athletes themselves.
roenxi wrote 21 hours 11 min ago:
The medium is hard to separate from the message; it is built in
to threaded commenting by the voting system. People upvote the
comments that best express ideas that they support and as a
consequence it is usually hard to add to the most highly upvoted
comment. But that is the most obvious comment to attach opposing
views to. That leads to a predictable tick/tock thread structure
where every 2nd post is thematically similar but every other post
is contrary.
The irony here is present but better interpreted as the forum
structure being biased towards criticism.
lanyard-textile wrote 9 hours 25 min ago:
You have a very insightful comment here â one small caveat
however: itâs the crowd that is biased towards criticism, not
the forum structure.
And this just made me realize why I donât like HN very much.
We live in a bizarre state of mind here with a common interest
of creation and furtherance, but simultaneously inside the
belly of the beast, it is a forum of unconditional criticism.
Itâs in good faith obviously. People see an idea and critique
it to the edge of existence with the desire help or further an
idea; but it becomes a tick/tock that pulls the original idea
apart beyond recognition.
Iâm not sure Iâve ever seen anything productive come out of
the comments on HN, ever. Itâs just a slew of people who say
you can always do better after taking a long look at your idea,
assuming your intended goal is perfection.
The irony is present because of the poster. It is explained by
the contents of the post, not by the thread order in which it
resides.
:) This is nice closure for engaging less though, sincerely. I
see Iâve fallen victim to this mindset with this very
comment, in its own irony.
dostick wrote 6 hours 12 min ago:
I am curious, if HN discussion too critical then what is
better out there? HN is less cynical and critical than other
mediums, X, Substack, Medium. On HN at least itâs more of
an intellectual people who see criticising out of spite as
waste.
Criticism is constructive comparing to other platforms where
it is mostly to make critic feel smart or belonging to some
side or group. On HN every commenter stand on their own
intellectual merit, so to speak.
lanyard-textile wrote 1 hour 23 min ago:
It is miles better here for sure. If I were wanting to
garner criticism from anywhere, this would be an
intellectual and respectful crowd for it.
I like the tightly curated communities of discord, but that
comes with its own obvious problems. I donât have a great
answer unfortunately.
Which is perhaps a hint that I ask for the impossible, lol.
deadbabe wrote 1 day ago:
Irony is often the language of truth.
atoav wrote 12 hours 53 min ago:
Often is the sometimes of never.
_DeadFred_ wrote 1 day ago:
If you're a real critic, absolutely. But most of what passes for
criticism today is just hindsight dressed up as insight. It ignores
the fact that choices are made in a fog, assumes outcomes were
inevitable, and retroactively assigns blame. It feels like
scorekeeping not being a rational/fair critic.
MrJohz wrote 1 day ago:
In fact, the best critics of something are often its biggest fans.
Roger Ebert, for example, wrote some pretty critical pieces, but
nobody can deny that he was driven primarily by a love of cinema.
Or take politics: I've seen people complain that left-wing
commentators were too critical of Biden when they should have been
criticising Trump, but often it's easier â and more useful â to
criticise the things you like in the hope that they will improve,
rather than spending all your time criticising something you don't
like that will never listen to you.
That said, it's still important to take the time to sing the
praises of something you like. If Ebert had spent all his time
talking down bad films, reading his columns would have been painful
drudgery (see also: CinemaSins, Nostalgia Critic, and similar
attempts at film-criticism-by-cynicism). A good critic wants their
target to succeed, and celebrates when that happens.
atoav wrote 12 hours 42 min ago:
Good observation: The biggest critics are indeed often the
biggest fans â but funnily enough often just in a consumerist
way.
If you listen to interviees with great writers, musicians,
painters or actors you will often find it surprising when they
tell you which other arrists they like. That is because the
people making the stuff often have a much more open mind about
what constitutes interesting and/or good writing, music,
paintings or acting.
To me as an practitioner it feels at time that these
"enthusiastic consumer critics" are incredibly bitter about not
being able to live from the art they love like the ones they
critique, so they carve out their niche and give themselves
self-worth by playing a strong role in the field they love.
With good critics this love is the predominant message, with bad
critics it is the bitterness.
memhole wrote 1 day ago:
Very accurate description. I think this gets missed sometimes.
Sometimes youâre criticizing because you know a subject well
and want to see it improved.
atq2119 wrote 1 day ago:
See also: code review
tpmoney wrote 1 day ago:
Two things I try to do in every code review:
If Iâm doing the review, I try to find at least one or two
items to call out as great ideas/moves. Even if itâs as
simple as refactoring a minor pain point.
If Iâm being reviewed I always make sure to
thank/compliment comments that either suggest something I
genuinely didnât consider or catch a dumb move that isnât
wrong but would be a minor pain point in the future.
As you note, code reviews can be largely ânegative
feedbackâ systems, and I find encouraging even a small
amount of positivity in the process keeps it from becoming
soul sucking
hackpelican wrote 18 hours 19 min ago:
In some companies, (ahem⦠Amazon), engineers are judged
by their code review/comment ratio. Especially L4 engineers
trying to make it to L5.
So actually putting positive comments in the code review
isnât really much appreciated.
I gained this habit and now for me, a comment is a
suggestion of improvement, I deliver praise out-of-band.
tpmoney wrote 7 hours 40 min ago:
The more I learn about how the bigger companies do
business, the happier I am my dreams of working for them
never materialized. I encounter enough stupid things
caused by businesses trying to measure difficult things.
I would hate to work in a place where the proper mode of
conduct â praise in public, criticize in private â is
flipped on its head for the purposes of someone's
spreadsheet.
wavemode wrote 16 hours 2 min ago:
> engineers are judged by their code review/comment ratio
It's a horrible practice with adverse incentives, and one
of the reasons I'm glad I no longer work there
(and easily gameable, anyways - people would just DM each
other patches they were unsure of, before submitting an
actual CR)
RyanOD wrote 1 day ago:
It is a real skill to critique a thing and not come off as
complaining about it.
sethammons wrote 9 hours 26 min ago:
Instead of statements, I favor questions. Instead of "I, me,
you, etc,", I favor communal "we, the code, the team." Be
specific when possible. I try to focus on what should be done
vs what shouldn't be done.
"Why did you not handle $situation" -> "how does this code
handle $situation?"
"You shouldn't do $thing" -> "$thing has sharp edges, see
$link-to-more-info. The general approach used in the code base
is to $alternative."
rubicon33 wrote 1 day ago:
I agree but, doesnât the world need critics?
I think of a company where young inspired engineers want to build new
things all the time.
Their heart is in the right place but they need someone(s) to be
respectfully critical since their efforts and time spent have very
real impacts on the company.
RankingMember wrote 1 day ago:
I think the key distinction is between critics and cynics. Critics
serve a purpose that provides value, whereas cynics are just
all-around bummers who negatively impact the world around them.
mxmilkiib wrote 1 day ago:
it's easier to image a dystopia than an eutopia, or even utopia,
depending how you see it
phkahler wrote 1 day ago:
Critics maybe. Antagonists no.
o11c wrote 1 day ago:
I can't agree with this at all. There's something deeply wrong
with the world if any form of opposition is considered
problematic.
Some variant of "the customer is always right" applies in the
marketplace of ideas as well. People are allowed to have
different preferences.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 10 hours 56 min ago:
Iâve learned that there isnât a âmagic bulletâ policy
that we can enact, that always ensures that we do things
correctly. Human nature is messy and varied. A word of praise
can be weaponized.
I often encounter people that use praise as a domination tool.
They praise you in a manner that suggests that, if they did not
recognize and note something, you would not have it. They use
praise to âdeclare ownershipâ of your good traits.
I encounter this, because I have highly valuable skills, that
can make others a great deal of money, and have an aspect that
predatory people think is âweakness.â They believe I have
low self-esteem, because I am not always tubthumping.
Also, we have to be careful of saying things like âDonât
complain, if you donât have a solution.â[0]
[0]
URI [1]: https://littlegreenviper.com/problems-and-solutions/
zupatol wrote 1 day ago:
There's a healthy way to be a critic, which is helping people find
and enjoy works they didn't notice.
There are also unhealthy ways of being a fan, for example if you
admire someone there's probably someone else you despise. It's much
better to follow the title of the post and believe in people in
general.
rubicon33 wrote 1 day ago:
I imagine being a healthy critic is a skill, something personal to
be worked on.
Itâs just so easy to be critical and even if you have good
intentions, being critical can take the wind out of a dreamers
sails.
pjc50 wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, but .. there is no worse critic than a scorned fan. There's a
lot of fandoms all around the world, and while they're mostly
harmless fun the edges can get weird and dangerous. Or when fandoms
collide.
HanClinto wrote 1 day ago:
Not entirely sure what you mean. Care to expound?
Are you talking about people who act out on their fandom by
criticizing others? "Oh I'm a fan of X, therefore I'm a vocal
critic of Y". I agree that such things are toxic -- fandom doesn't
need to be a polemic.
I want to cultivate the kind of fandom that builds up without
feeling a need to tear down others.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago:
Wasn't Selena killed by a scorned fan?
steve_b wrote 21 hours 19 min ago:
Not quite. She was killed by someone who started out as a fan
but then became one of Selenaâs employees, who was then
caught embezzling.
bombcar wrote 1 day ago:
They're referring to "anti fans". You see it with online
personalities especially; the most rabid fans (often parasocial,
think online streaming) are the ones who will become the biggest
detractors or anti fans.
Most people are "oh that's fun to watch ok" and then when they
don't like it anymore, they get bored and forget about it
entirely.
The anti-fans continue to follow it, but rabidly hate it.
Think Syndrome from Incredibles. He's always been the biggest
fan.
lukan wrote 1 day ago:
I rather think he or she means gamers for example, who send out
death threats, because the developers introduced a new thing they
don't like.
rfl890 wrote 1 day ago:
Thought this was the Swiss Miss (hot chocolate powder) website for a
second
pixelatedindex wrote 1 day ago:
Me too! I was like, what a weird timeline - wonder what a hot
chocolate company leadership has to say in these âinterestingâ
times.
Good read though, thanks to OP for sharing!
dkh wrote 1 day ago:
You can be a fan of that too if you want
bix6 wrote 1 day ago:
âHaving more people say, âWe just want to make sure you can do your
magic,â is what the world needs.â
Amen to that!
Iâve found early enthusiasm hard to come by. It really seems to pick
up once others are onboard. But the initial 1-2 people make all the
difference.
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 11 hours 16 min ago:
This is true.
I have a fairly senior presence, in an organization that I
participate in, and my voice often carries a bit of extra weight
(just like me).
I have found that opening my mouth, early in a silent meeting, will
often âbreak the ice,â and get things flowing. I donât have to
say anything particularly earth-shattering. Just the talking, is all
that is necessary.
conception wrote 1 day ago:
This is a trick for event planning btw. Put up a âhey anyone wanna
go to x?â Crickets. Quietly one on one find two or three people and
then say âhey the four of us are doing x anyone else want in?â
works a lot better. Most people want to know something is gonna
succeed and avoid the risk of failure.
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