Comment by dp-hackernews | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dp-hackernews | Hacker News Reader

Questions of curiosity to the person directly would be a useful way of drawing attention to the action/behavior in question.

The problem comes when the person is unaware that they do or behave in any particular way, which is entirely subjective and open to interpretation anyway, or they are unwilling to acknowledge the presence of a blind-spot. Which may or may not be considered by them as perfectly normal/okay - that's why it's subjective.

The real problem is when they see that action or behavior normal/okay for them to do/be towards others, but not when it happens the other way around.

A simple ideal that may be useful for each party to adopt could be - "do unto others as you would like done unto you".

Although, this is still flawed as it is still open to interpretation, as again "do unto" is completely subjective from both parties.

What be the solution? Attemping to understand, and apply some form of reasoning to establish what middle ground may exist?

This. Striking a tone of curiosity helps soften what you're saying, versus creating an accusation that they feel they have to defend against. Ideally, it'll open up the person you're talking to, so they can join in your curiosity and better see in themselves what you are seeing, or at least create more mutual understanding.

Unfortunately, people that are immature and deal with their insecurities poorly this doesn't tend to work on.

At a certain point, people have to want to work on themselves and you have to not concern yourself too much with how they react to information that triggers their cognitive dissonance defenses as long as you are approaching them from a position of empathy and curiosity. It's easy to want to keep helping people no matter what but at this point they will just drag you down to their level as a form of self-protection.

So I think the "solution" (or maybe it's a cop-out?) is that you can nudge people certain ways and expose them to new information, but what they do with it is entirely their responsibility and you have to let go if you make a good effort to communicate and they just aren't receptive. We only have so much emotional energy and should use it wisely.

> This. Striking a tone of curiosity helps soften what you're saying, versus creating an accusation that they feel they have to defend against.

Spelling it out for the empathetically challenges ... it is possible to go one step further and recast your entire mind in a curious frame for better results. The reason a curious tone gets good results is because a curious mind gets productive results and tone is a hint at mental state. There is a conversational technique here, but being genuine in curiosity is more powerful.

> This. Striking a tone of curiosity helps soften what you're saying,

The way you phrased it: Yes, many will rightfully respond poorly to it.

Difficult Conversations is the first book I read on communications, and it has advice most such books have:

1. Don't act curious. Be curious. You have to set the tone, but it isn't sufficient.

2. Don't deliver messages. Be curious. If a tone of curiosity is just an avenue to delivering a message, then this will annoy people. People don't like leading questions masquerading as curiosity.

Likely this is not what you meant to say - I'm merely criticizing your phrasing of it.

> A simple ideal that may be useful for each party to adopt could be - "do unto others as you would like done unto you".

The problem with the golden rule is that it is still self-centered. What I may like is not the same as what others may like. "Do unto others as they would have done unto them" is better. It makes one have to understand and anticipate others' desires, and update your understanding of others constantly. "As you would like done unto you" is only useful as a first approximation when you have exactly zero idea of what the other may desire.

That was introduced to me as the "platinum rule" and in such a way that stated that the "golden rule" was wrong. I'd say neither is wrong, and one is not better than the other. In fact, both are trying to help understand and communicate with each other effectively.

I'm a little confused - why does the existence of platinum cast gold as negative? Both are "positive" elements, but one may have greater value than the other.

Maybe that's not what you meant though.

> That was introduced to me as the "platinum rule" and in such a way that stated that the "golden rule" was wrong.

Heh. I often refer to it as "the bronze rule" for similar reasons (as in gold, silver, bronze medals). It's a useful rule, but not the best rule.

The Golden Rule has gotten me into trouble way too often. At some point you realize that how you want to be treated is not how a significant portion of the population (perhaps the majority) want to be treated.

That's easy enough to solve; simply conclude that the way you like to be treated is for other people to try and understand what you want and to take that into account. (Granted, yes, lacking direct information it makes sense to try and fill in with projection.)

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