Comment by MauranKilom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MauranKilom | Hacker News Reader

This is an interesting article to me because I feel that I have been approaching this from the exact opposite direction.

It took me many years to learn that speaking in honest, innocent truths is not all there is to communication. Even if what you say is topical and meaningful, the way it is perceived by recipients has little correlation with how truthful your message is. This is what is meant when "factual information" is only one of four aspects of communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-sides_model (see in particular the example at the bottom of the page).

Essentially, the best way to communicate something always depends on the receiver.

My approach has thus been to try and run everything I want to say through a "if I were the other party and heard this, what would my reaction be? Is that reaction what I'm trying to achieve?" filter. I understood the article as this being the "manipulative" element that the author wanted to eliminate. But for me personally it's been life-saving to have some way of making sure that I'm not completely misunderstood. And that will happen if you present the right information at the wrong time, in the wrong context, to the wrong people or with the wrong presentation. Yes, I deliberate a lot over how I word my emails...

This take on "communication is not just truths yelled into the void" is also reflected in several XKCDs: https://xkcd.com/1028/ https://xkcd.com/1984/ https://xkcd.com/1860/

And this one in particular is very poignant: https://xkcd.com/1576/

My take on this is there's constantly a "friend or foe" subtext to everything that's going on. So you have to be careful about how you state things, or you're going to subtextually saying "I am a foe" or "I am attacking you".

This is context-dependent. If someone is e.g. coaching you in something, it is expected they'll critique, and that will not carry connotations of attack. There's also a level of closeness where giving someone shit is actually affectionate. Etc.

Just in case you haven't heard about it: I'm a huge fan of Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication. It's been extremely helpful in terms of understanding how & why I communicate.

As you say, empathy matters for communication, and considering the other person's feelings isn't manipulative. On the flip side, I've experienced the danger of explicitly choosing how I want the other person to feel - that part crosses over, for me.

NVC is really helpful in that regard, because one of the core tentets is that you communicate your own state. So, if I'm afraid I might use the wrong words, "Hey, I'd like to talk to you about X, but I'm afraid I might not use the right words. I would like outcome Y of this conversation, please let me know if I'm straying from that goal".

XKCD1028 makes that point beautifully - the goal of the communication is "I want you to know about something", not "there's a hole in the ground!".

And thank you for the Four-sides model. I hadn't heard of it before, and at the same time it maps nicely to NVCs four components: observations (fact), feelings (self-reveal), needs and requests(appeal).

I do see that at least my understanding of NVC doesn't directly map on the relationship aspect of the four-sides model. (It's implicit, but not called out)

Food for thought...

I second the vote for NVC.

"Is that reaction what I'm trying to achieve", interesting perspective.

It seems apparent to me that this is something most people do more or less intuitively (and for those that are especially proficient at it, I can see how it would become manipulative very quickly). I'm getting better at it, but it's still largely a manual/conscious effort.

Tangentially, I also found the way Alan Turing was portrayed in The Imitation Game to hit extremely close to home in this regard. E.g. this key scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOjMfUCgyyw. Regardless of how historically accurate it is, the movie contrasts these differences between interacting with computers/math and other humans (in that the former is solely about "factual content" alone) very well in my eyes.

Wow interesting video. Thank you.

In acting, that's precisely how we're taught to evaluate every line we speak. "What do I want? How will saying this help me achieve it? What do I expect to happen when I do?"

You build a performance that engages the audience by having a commitment to your character's goal. You are constantly aware of how people react, which isn't just about what you say but how you say it. Everyone does that already; actors just get practice doing it more consciously and explicitly.

>if I were the other party and heard this, what would my reaction be?

so, just regular empathetic communication then?

Exactly! But some of us have to slowly/manually learn that instead of being naturally proficient at it.

And also it is exhausting and if you over do it, you end up spending all your mental energy worried that something you said was misunderstood by someone.

I think I ran across this at Bloomberg.com:

"Linguistic scholar George Lakoff was among the first to acknowledge the Sanders milestone, comparing it to a President Richard Nixon quip from 1973. Lakoff tweeted, 'When you negate the frame, you activate the frame. When Nixon said, ‘I’m not a crook,’ people saw a crook.' Lakoff didn’t go there, but President Bill Clinton likewise negated the frame to activate it in 1998 when he insisted that he had not had 'sexual relations with that woman.'

Context and contextualization is an important point to honest, open communication. What might appear as factual differences or a stubborn opponent might really be stepping into the conversation with intersection free frames. Sometimes we tend to frame things in such as way as to remove our agency, or posit the other guy as the jerk etc.. So knowing your frame, and knowing a frame often enters into it (ex. DBT deals with this) is an important element to honesty to self and honesty with your your audience.

Talking without a filter; that is without constantly editing oneself to make it PC or conform to the normative organizational human structure in the room is a kind of openness too. On the other hand merely free-form raw, honest feelings or bottom lining the situation to avoid social norms to let the "truth" out isn't per se really open.

To are caveats here: there are a range of defensive behaviors (see below on Human Element and Dr. Schutz) so that while one may come across as honest and authentic (ex. not PC, not catering, not-careful) are in fact non-self-aware behaviors one exhibits to avoid conflicts with self-esteem.

Consider a prototypical alpha-male: as long as I criticize and blame someone on their lack of competence and failure to succeed ... could seem like honest feedback. Or it's the fog I hide behind to avoid dealing with myself. As long as the other guy is on the hook, I don't have to look at myself. All the more so if this is my go-to in difficult situations. Other people don't do criticism. Their go-to is playing the victim, or playing it off (what problem? what are you so upset about?) etc ... these behaviors often arise in heated, hard to solve situations when one is unable to cope well.

Openness in the good way, and the ultimately the most beneficial way wherever pairs of people interact has a strong focus on self, feelings & fears about self, and is less outward looking that might otherwise be thought at first. And it's worth pointing then genuine openness needs safety. An office that's doesn't promote safety will just get a bunch of people who say what they have to or what they can get away without without losing their job or so pissing off someone that there's payback.

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