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Comment by onan_barbarian | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, the poster chose to break his dignified silence by posting a epic paean of fatuous self-praise on-line, interspersed with some quotations from his fathers 'blog on wisdom'. Really.

It would be interesting to hear the other sides of the story:

"Yeah, when he finally spoke, we were all surprised he could still talk, it was sort of weird. But I guess he was our manager so we had to listen to him".

"When he went silent in the middle of the negotiation I wondered what the hell he was doing; is this some sort of new trick?"

Dispensing this kind of wisdom seems to be yet another popular form of 'premature victory lap' on HN, where fairly wet-behind-the-ears types with no major runs on the board can puff themselves up by handing out the Keys to Their Success.

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I'm truly sorry that you got nothing of value from this article. Far from being a sudden, empty insight, this is an idea I've been thinking about for years, and in fact I've told that story many times to many people (and it generally gets across what I consider to be a powerful idea).

I've also used the technique many times myself. I've run 3 businesses, and it's an exceptionally powerful tool in negotiation. Not, of course, applied bluntly like an imbecile (like the "boss" mentioned in one of the other comments), but subtly, at the right moment, without emphasising it. Letting the other person think, talk, and say what you need them to say rather than trying to goad them into it is an essential business skill. You probably use it without even thinking about it.

So, really sorry that you personally found nothing of value here (many other people did, from the looks of it) but I don't think the personal attacks were called for and they're out of place on a normally respectful forum like HN.

It is sad that your pointless name-calling now dominates what was a healthy discussion. I wonder how many people didn't post interesting comments and anecdotes because they saw your territorial markings at the top of the conversation. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I don't doubt you've been thinking about this idea for years, and have told this story to many people. It was abundantly clear from the post that from your subjective point of view, you regard this technique as having prime importance; there's no need to reiterate.

All this being said, my remarks stand. Your post reads like an uninterrupted barrage of self-praise. This idea is neither new, nor thought-provoking, and is justified entirely by your own assertion that you're a Really Effective Guy.

Your solipsism continues, with you convinced that a wonderful exploration of your big idea was just around the corner until that Onan guy came and fucked it all up, with his awful, mysteriously-at-the-top-of-the-discussion-for-some-reason, posting. Your major anecdote in support of this comes from a situation where you were the boss and the evidence of how well it went is entirely from you. Aside from us all trotting out our own tales of how wonderfully we too resolved various situations in similar and equally subjective fashion and praising you for your insight, I'm not quite sure what you're looking for here.

posting a epic paean

I didn't think it was all that long. I often post things longer than that, in email form or on blogs/websites I own (and probably even here as comments). Seems like an ugly thing to say and not at all accurate.

The word "epic" can be used to describe tone, not only length.

Still not seeing it. Both the tone and length of the post I replied to seem far more guilty of either interpretation (in context, given that blog posts are frequently much, much longer than posts on a forum) than the blog post it is basically smearing. The post seems uncalled for and contributes nothing of value to HN. It is merely scathing, for no apparent reason. It amounts to a personal attack rather than a critical analysis of the ideas put forth. Very often, posts of that character are rooted in personal vendettas. I'm not aware of some personal history between the two HN members in question, but the whole tone of the post just rubs me completely the wrong way.

the whole tone of the post just rubs me completely the wrong way

I could say the same thing about the blog post. It's seems to me it's not saying anything except "I'm a smart guy".

Very often, posts of that character are rooted in personal vendettas.

Now THIS is uncalled for. As is saying his post is smearing, worthless, and constitutes a personal attack, but this is most uncalled for.

I think onan_barbarian just thought that the idea from this blog post isn't really novel or interesting enough to be submitted here and that the author stated it in a way that makes him sound a little full of himself. He was being a little mean while making his point but people often react like that when something "rubs them the wrong way", no?

I really don't get how you can defend his post and turn around and state that mine is uncalled for. I am well aware that my posts are not "polite" and there is no good way to rebut the remarks that were made -- that stating "that's a personal attack" almost always ends up being a personal attack. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Many people on HN come across as socially awkward, full of themselves and so on. Hackers are not exactly known for their suaveness as a group. (Personally, I have no fondness for suave people, but I imagine commenting on that would really strike people as "uncalled for", personal attacks, sweeping generalizations, and so on.) I don't see how sounding to someone else (not me) like he was full of himself invalidates the point or makes it uninteresting. I also don't see how even if it were guilty of such things that merits the characterizations in onan_barbarians remarks of "fatuous self praise" and so on. For me, it is good food for thought. I tend to be too talkative. I've had to work on such issues. I rarely find good insights into the type of problems that causes.

Anyway, it would probably be best to drop this. I'm quite tired, which is not a good place from which to try to politely disagree or parse out such things. And I strongly suspect that we are both merely putting out the fire with gasoline (since I really don't think you intend to be ugly and I certainly don't either), which really adds nothing of value any way you slice it.

Peace.

What would you have said about PG's writing before he had started YC, and was still working on ViaWeb? Imagine PG writing back then with the same level of introspective insight, would you have shot him down too?

I think that if you look beyond the messenger, you will see a message worth reading, irrespective of who has delivered it.

You're assuming the pg's awesomeness in everything he writes is a given. Like any smart, opinionated person who writes on a wide variety of topics, pg ranges between insights that make me think "damn, I wish I had thought of that" to "what is this I don't even". It turns out that pg isn't a Philosopher King on every topic.

In any case the point is moot. The original post in question isn't that profound (introspective insight is in rather short supply) and most of the evidence mustered in support of it comes from experiences where the guy is just telling us how awesome something that he did was. It could well be that he should have handled the situation by reading both disputants the riot act and breaking up the meeting; we have no evidence beyond his say-so. Maybe this clever-clever "I am the Silent One" stuff just wasted vast amounts of everyone's time...

I disagree completely. In swombat's example with the two employees, he let them resolve most of the dispute, and then stepped in when necessary. If he had done a majority of the talking, I'm sure there would have been many things left unsaid and it would have led to a less satisfactory result.

It is better to shut up and give the impression that you are stupid than to talk and remove all doubts of it

Takes one to know one

Why is this comment, and the discussion about it, taking up the entire first third of the whole discussion page? (And now I'm adding to it, though only in hopes of reducing recurrence.)

If you don't think the OP is interesting/insightful and/or you have nothing interesting/insightful personally that you can add to it, just don't vote it up. If you're capable of it and have the time, come post a more intelligent treatment of the topic in the discussion. But to take the time to type out even a half-dozen lines of cutting sarcasm -- haha, he quoted his father, how embarrassing! -- well, what does that give me, one of the mass of readers who come here for sustenance?

The original post was short enough to read, and covered a basic idea that could have served as a foundation for more meaty discussion. E.g., how it's different if you're being quiet but you aren't the "boss" in the discussion, how much body language matters, etc.. At the very least, well-told stories of how being quiet can backfire.

Maybe that's in here, somewhere; but now I've used up my HN break trying to sift through the complaints about complaints, and complaining about them.

Years of exposure to self-improvement makes one cyclical.

I'm not cyclical - or cynical (?) - about the experiences of those who have done something impressive or who have something interesting to say...

Years of attempting actual self-improvement do make one weary of hearing people praising themselves for doing stuff that isn't very profound or impressive. Sad to say, the experience of actually improving yourself by doing something difficult involves regular meetings with the realization that you aren't as smart as you thought you were, or as organized, or as persuasive, etc.

Constant struggling against your own carelessness, partial understanding of your field and the limits of your intelligence doesn't usually lead to this kind of half-smart undergraduate self-congratulation. Those who aren't struggling are either going to be rampaging, obvious successes, or are comfortable and smug exactly because they're not doing anything all that hard.

The original guy was resolving some problems in a team of devs at Accenture, not putting a man on the moon or sequencing the human genome for the first time or building Facebook or whatever.

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