In general, but the risk-reward ration is now way off, as the author of the article mentions, so why risk it if you potentially face harsh repercussions.
If you've been thoughtful in your reply, there should be no risk of repercussions. Post your message publicly. If you were thoughtful, no reasonable person should be able to look at your communication and fault you. If you weren't thoughtful, you deserve the scorn for proving the point of the person who called you out. If you're not confident that you can be a decent and empathetic person in your communication with others, then yes, I suppose that's a good reason to avoid putting yourself in a position where your foot can enter your mouth.
This reminds me of the idea of physical risk for someone with a lifespan of a 1,000 years. If you're 60 with an average lifespan of 70, your actions are risking 10 years of life. If you're 60 with a potential lifespan of 1,000 years, you're effectively risking everything and might be inclined to be more risk averse.
When public discourse magnifies the risk of your comments, you'll tend to be risk averse also. Once upon a time, your opinion would be spoken almost all the time, and perhaps put in a letter rarely. The effort for anyone to raise hell over a minor quibble would involve spreading the word, and doing so enough to find the rare people with a tendency to join you. Go back decades and that is infinitely less likely.
Now, chances are your comment is in writing or recorded, and even if it isn't, the quibbler can broadcast their version of events to increasingly wider circles in seconds, at no cost and with virtually no effort.
I delete half of the comments I start writing online, thinking "What's the point? At best, one person appreciates it. At worst, thousands want to argue."
Yeah, that's often raised in the hypothetical. Typically, older people with the least remaining life to risk are the least rash with their decision making!
> "If you've been thoughtful in your reply, there should be no risk of repercussions."
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.", attributed to Cardinal Richelieu.
> If you've been thoughtful in your reply, there should be no risk of repercussions.
I agree that there shouldn't be, but as life advice this is a bad thought to operate from. If someone doesn't like you or what you've said, there's always a way to put you in a bad light. With discourse that contains a lot of risk, it's probably better to just avoid it.
You are projecting your own thinking style onto the "other" person with this. There are many people who have a pathological sense of responsibility (that is, they have NONE) and will always react defensively to any feedback.
Thoughtful is the keyword here. If it’s not a thoughtful person they might spread close to lies. For example: -masks help! -no what helps is distance!
This is what my doctor said. A non thoughtful person would say that is antimask, and it might imply it, but until you ask the person that directly, you don’t know and there is so extremely much bad faith articles online that spring from polarized anger.
When I say “there are better and worse ways to communicate”, that is what I’m implying. Of course you should try. But the way in which we adjudicate these matters should take into account the fact that perfection is impossible. We have no silver bullets here.
In collaborative situations, the vast majority of the time you should try to trick others into critical thinking instead of using logic to explain things.
A risk here is that this is even trickier to do right, and is even more dependent on the person receiving it. It’s very easy to accidentally come across as condescending.
Not sure why you're downvoted. I'm open to suggestions.
The Socratic Method is similar. But it differs because it is trying to expose a contradiction in thought about a particular subject through questions. Whereas you can trick others into critical thinking about a subject just by helping them think critically in general, and it can be done without the use of questions.
Them having their own interpretation doesn't mean you did anything wrong, nor that they should have no expectation of reason.
Thoughtfulness is for the aware, and many investors aren't even aware of how they can be raked over the coals by a bloodthirsty mainstream outrage machine for something minor, petty, completely misinterpreted, or intentionally twisted for click bait.
Effective communication requires effort, but many people speak impulsively and fail to convey what they actually mean. If someone is unable to clearly express themselves without being misunderstood then either their thoughts need to be distilled further or the statement needs to be carefully worded.
If I am not responsible for how people interpret my words, who is?
You're not wrong, but the key insight is that one key technique for careful wording is "clamming up".
Personal example. A friend mentioned that a new hire at her work didn't have to go through as much interview training as her, and she was wondering if she should take offense. If she were a guy, I would have said something along the lines of "come on, 'amount of interview training' isn't a real status marker, you're getting worked up over nothing". But I strive to be an effective communicator, so I couldn't just bluntly refute her feelings like that; it'd sound like I'm denying the very real ways that women can be subtly mistreated in the workplace. Instead I clammed up, and she ended up deciding to file an HR complaint, which is unlikely to have a positive impact on her career.
Is there any way I could have told her what I thought without being misunderstood? Sure, maybe, if we'd had 30 minutes to sit down and talk about a bunch of abstract principles. Is there a strategy that would have fit inside the 30 seconds of conversation we had on the topic? I don't think so.
I am unsure. I would say maybe if there is a lot of trust there. I offered candid responses before with mixed results. I did get into minor trouble but nothing horrible. Looking back at the experiences though, I still think twice before responding and I am a very talkative person.. In short, I am not sure you could have helped her there. Frankly, the person, whose first reaction is running to HR is not likely to be my best friend.
> Is there a strategy that would have fit inside the 30 seconds of conversation
What about: "I personally wouldn't have cared about that." -- then you didn't say what you thought she should do, instead just what you yourself would (not) have done.
And she could have used that as a data point when making her own decision.
And, optionally continue with: "you got more education than X, I wonder if that might as well mean that the company decided to invest more money in you, maybe a good thing for you. Maybe X could have filed a complaint about that as well"
Create a fake female role model employee that was previously at the company. Talk about how that role model was successful despite challenges X and Y because she did Z.
Of course the problem with this is that the facade will crumble at some point because the person doesn't exist.
Someone I know got their career start as a janitor. Their first boss would teach technique by saying things like, "We used to have this guy, he mopped the floor like this (demonstrating), can you believe that? I do this now."
> If I am not responsible for how people interpret my words, who is?
Not everyone that you speak to is objective or level headed.
Maybe they're low-sugar and crashing. Maybe their dog just died.
You have absolutely no way to prepare for all of the ways someone will be ill-equpped to handle their day. And this is probably a high percentage of people at any given time.
But we can't afford a society where everyone treads on egg shells.
>If I am not responsible for how people interpret my words, who is?
Others too.
First because "Effective communication requires effort" from BOTH sides.
And also because others can deliberately misinterpret your words for their own gain, or because they're biased, or because they've been primed by factors outside your control, or for lots of other reasons...
>If someone is unable to clearly express themselves without being misunderstood
That has been the case for everybody for the entirety of history.
There are better or worse ways to express something, but there's no foolproof way to express even the simplest thing in a way that you "wont be misunderstood".
Sometimes even saying "yes" or "no" with the wrong tone (or what the other person perceives as the wrong tone) can be misunderstood.
Your comment only works if it’s possible to construct your words so precisely that there is no way to misinterpret them. You honestly believe that’s possible?
Ironically, I’m honestly unable to interpret your response. Are you listing examples of sentences that are 100% unambiguous, in conjunction with a third sentence that is unintelligible?
If that is the case, then it doesn’t invalidate what I’m saying. I’m not saying it’s impossible to create unambiguous statements. What we’re talking about here is complex conversational speech, especially in regards to sensitive topics that people feel strongly about. And specifically, we’re talking about the usage of such speech in everyday interactions, in which words have to be formed on the fly at a rapid pace.
nothing nearly as heady, mate. Just pointing out the obvious trope about wish spells backfiring because unambiguous wording is absurdly difficult. It's all throughout media -- so your argument must be something that people should be able to easily intuit.
No I don't, I'm being misunderstood even in this thread!
What I do believe is that as the speaker I have to do my very best to make sure the receiver can understand what I'm saying, they have to do their part too, of course.
If the speaker neglects to choose their words with sufficient care, or the receiver doesn't make an effort in their interpretation then the balance of understanding tips away from being 50/50 and chaos ensues.
Sibling comments mention all kinds of secondary factors such as mood, bad faith, bias, but these are clear violations resulting from the offending side not making the necessary effort to meet half-way.
> Your comment only works if it’s possible to construct your words so precisely that there is no way to misinterpret them.
Not really. We have a responsibility for the effects of our actions. There is a practical limit to how far we can take worrying about those effects, but that doesn't mean the responsibility goes away.
The same is true for considering how different audiences will interpret your words. You have a responsibility do take those interpretations into consideration but there is a practical limit to how far it can be taken.
However, I believe the listener shares some of the responsibility to consider other (possibly more generous) interpretations beyond their initial reaction.
If both parties do this, is is remarkable how quickly disputes get resolved. If neither party does this, a conversation accomplishes nothing.
>We have a responsibility for the effects of our actions. There is a practical limit to how far we can take worrying about those effects, but that doesn't mean the responsibility goes away.
Doesn't it? I might sneeze and inadvertantly cause a typhoon in Malaysia through the butterfly effect but I can't possibly know or predict that, so how can I take responsibility for it? What does "responsibility" even mean if it's practically outside of your control?
I would argue that the limits of our responsibility are defined by practical limitations. We can't take responsibility for accidental negatives, any more than we can take credit for accidental positives. If you tried to account for your entire impact on the universe, regardless of the practicality, you'd be paralysed with indecision.
You seem to have missed my point and tried to explain the subtext of my argument to me.
The point is that the line for what you are and are not responsible for is a grey and fuzzy one that depends on the context the the decision, the magnitude of the decision, and your own capabilities as an agent.
My point is that the limitations of trying to understand how your words may be interpreted are similarly based in practical considerations.
>Not really. We have a responsibility for the effects of our actions. There is a practical limit to how far we can take worrying about those effects
If you can lose your job because someone misinterpreted what you said (or chose to misinterpret something clear), then that "practical limit" can get quite high...
>If both parties do this, is is remarkable how quickly disputes get resolved. If neither party does this, a conversation accomplishes nothing.
Well, if every person loved each other, then there would be no crime either!
Let me play devils advocate here: I got offended reading your post. And (according to what you said) you are clearly responsible. Now how are you going to compensate me for my harm?
What did you find offensive? Your beat bet is to explain how you understood what I said and how it was offensive to you. That will give me the best bet of understanding how you and people like you interpret the things I say.
No matter how well you believe you have expressed yourself, it is always possible for someone to take your words the wrong way (not the way you intended them to be taken). You can, and should, take the time to craft what you say so that it best (given constraints) represents what you want the person to understand, but that is not always enough. Sometimes, people hear what they expect to hear, not what you say.
Yup, language is a sort of compressed code that exploits model biases. If the receiver's model is biased in a different way than the sender's model decoding fidelity plummets.
Put differently, expectation is half of sensing. That insight goes back at least as far as Helmholtz.
please also take into account that unlike theoretical systems the real world is a constantly moving target. the moment that I've formed an opinion it is probably already outdated within the nano-second an additional thought has entered my subconscious and is waiting to be integrated into what I think is my "truth".
So, we're mostly engineers here. Let's use an engineering metaphor. We're trying to achieve interpreters communication. We need to send some piece of data.
We'll simplify down to three elements: the serialization process, the communication medium, and the deserializatiom process.
The serialization process is our speaker. How well can we represent our data in a line protocol? Do we lose fine details, maybe data types get converted? Do things get entirely mistranslated, like a zero value becoming a null? A speaker can do a poor job converting their thoughts (data) into words (serialization format).
The medium is how the data gets exchanged. Maybe details are lost (again) via headers being stripped, or sourced getting over written. People can lose a lot of information based on medium as well, in particular text based communication, different cultural context, or just a noisy room.
Finally, there's deserialization. No matter how well formed your line protocol, how reliable your medium, the receiver can have a library that incorrectly decodes the data. Ints can become strings, zeros can become nulls, formatting can be lost.
So, as you said the speaker is responsible for being thoughtful and careful, but even if they are the listener can get the wrong message due to their own flaws or even just circumstances. And that is leaving aside intentional misrepresentation, which is a problems unto itself.
You forgot 99.99999% of what matters when communicating: the context/culture/shared model of the world. You can send a single word and in one context it is a death sentence and in another context it shows that you are part of the group.
But distilling an idea can take lots of time.
In the startup partner scenario, one want quick, honest feedback and start the discussion to refine the idea.
Holding up ideas from your partner is... Less then ideal.
