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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> And for producers of advice:

Step 0 I think should be "maybe don't give advice". You want to help, you think you're really good, you think it will improve things, but that's not how other people see it. They may seem like they need advice or seem like they are asking for it between the lines, but they just really want to unload or chit chat, or share some difficulty. The answer to that is sometimes to listen and not give advice.

Yes, if someone asks for it, and they seem like they really are interested in it, by all means, give it to them. But in many cases, spraying advice around can be frustrating for both the givers and the (often unwilling) receivers of it.

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Will second that many times. As a fairly proactive guy who almost never leaves any loose ends in his relationships, I overdid giving the advice and some people started avoiding me. I was bitter about it until I realized they did not want their problem fixed, they sought sympathy.

Nothing wrong with that, it's just that my mind immediately jumps to potential solutions.

But I was severely humbled on that front after I have allowed a super dark period in my life (7-8 years, still ongoing but is now being actively attacked and positive signs are starting to get visible). I began to understand that there are also situations where you can't do almost anything but you still need a kind word.

So I started giving that and only vaguely hinting at the potential of an advice (so subtle that most people missed it which I am very okay with) and lo and behold, the new people in my life love chatting with me.

We have a saying in our country: "You can't force-feed wisdom and shove it down people's throats like you would do for a sick person who still needs food".

> until I realized they did not want their problem fixed, they sought sympathy.

That goes both ways, as many of the people I've run into who just want sympathy, can bring a lot of stress on the listeners. E.g. I can't take hearing complaints about abusive partners, etc so that they feel a little better for the moment, then they march right back to them.

Growing up with a serious complainer caused me to instinctively try and fix issues, and to avoid if you don't want that type of help.

Yup. Sometimes all the listening is doing is enabling a very dangerous situation.

If someone is the recipient of that kind of complaining as a kid from a parent, it would also explain some ‘don’t even try that towards me’ reactions.

Absolutely. No one can listen or provide sympathy indefinitely. Trying to is a short path to burnout. Almost everyone could benefit from being listened to, but I have to remember, it doesn't always have to be me

Quite true. I am not advocating for "always listen" and even if that brands me as a monster I very often do NOT advocate for "always be kind" -- there are many people whose problems I have zero patience for.

My bigger point was that if you consciously chose to sit or take a walk with that person and if you truly care then you should make sure they feel listened to and understood before giving advice -- if you give advice at all.

This presupposes that you care about that person which I'll immediately agree is not a given for most people you'll ever meet.

We have a similar saying: "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make 'em drink." At least, it seems similar to me.

Oh yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Thanks for reminding me the English / American idiom.

This is spot on. I took a few counseling courses in college, and the thing I remember most was that we were instructed to never give advice. Ask questions, get clarifications, repeat back information, but don't say "Here's what I would do.."

In many ways it was similar to rubber duck debugging, as the goal seemed to be to facilitate the person being counseled on finding the solution on their own by seeing the problem with fresh eyes.

Im on the opposite end. I wish people gave more unsolicited advice, or at least asked if I wanted it. I look around and think there is a dearth of advice and opinions. People are so cautious about giving subjective feedback that they dont offer it at all, leading to detriment.

I think advice is an important part of a community and a support network, and am exceedingly grateful to those who have offered it to me.

You can instantly improve that situation by asking for advice and feedback.

Nine times out of ten, people want to give advice to either 1) to feel cleverer than the person receiving it or 2) get them to stop talking about their problems.

If you're struggling with a problem, do you usually need someone to act smarter than you or tell you to be quiet?

I was at a bakery grand opening from an uneducated rural family.

Plenty of their rural friends listened to the difficulties, wished them the best.

Bring in the MBA + Industrial Engineer, and tell them some advice on processes, economics, and as a bonus, I was an Electrical Engineer for a few years so I had some advice on their oven problem.

What is better? The person that says "You look beautiful", or "You have a piece of fuzz in your hair?"

Sometimes I want to hear that I'm beautiful, even with the fuzz in my hair.

You are beautiful, even with the fuzz in my hair.

Thank you for sharing! Based on your last sentence I think we're in agreement that it's probably not great to give someone unsolicited advice (but it's fine if we disagree). I wanted to throw out a couple more thoughts:

I think that having experience in the business (or not) is important. I think that sometimes giving advice on an area that one doesn't have experience in can be a weird way to put oneself in a 'one up' position. Kind of a "Look, I don't even do your job, but let me tell you how to do it better" kind of statement.

I'm not saying that this was your intention or your effect but I think it's something engineers are prone to - I know I've done this. Wasn't there even a name for this? Something about "dinner party advice"? If this rings a bell for anyone I'd appreciate the help about this.

Sometimes I've found that if I have experience in the area I can suggest a small change with a substantial benefit (because I've actually done this enough times to know that the advice will actually help, actually) but even there I'd be really hesitant to offer unsolicited advice.

And, as an added bonus, consider that they may have already committed to what they're doing. In which case, even if you're right, you're basically telling them that they've done something wrong - maybe they can fix it (with more effort and/or money) maybe they can't, but that's gotta be an extra burden for them.

I've heard it called engineer's syndrome. "You start believing that since you're an excellent engineer in one specialty, then you're a friggin' genius in everything you do, because it's all the same, really" [0]

It apparently affects physicists too, and must be common enough to warrant two xkcds. [1][2]

0. https://web.archive.org/web/20071226220909/http://www.pcmag.... 1. https://xkcd.com/1831/ 2. https://xkcd.com/793/

To be fair, engineers are rational. You don't get that with other professions.

It makes them great for advice because they arent going to use emotions or hopes.

But also, in this case, me and my wife are 2 business owners that have been doing it for a decade. This person started a few weeks ago.

https://books.google.com/books?id=uJQbhDs4dMMC&pg=PA47&lpg=P...

Depends on context.

If someone just needs the emotional energy to get back into the fight then a compliment is often what is needed.

If someone is about to do something imminently that you see a correctable fault with and they don't then pointing it out is likely correct.

So many people up here thinking there is always 1 exactly right course of action! Why?! Why do so many otherwise smart people fall back to the silliest of binary thinking and heuristics?

> So many people up here thinking there is always 1 exactly right course of action! Why?! Why do so many otherwise smart people fall back to the silliest of binary thinking and heuristics?

I was one of those. I know the answer: I wasn't/I'm not that intelligent. I learnt that being technically right is not as important as I thought (and I also learnt to care less about it specially when I'm surrounded by other technical people).

Reflection is a form of intelligence. Being able to acknowledge you were once wrong is not a skill everyone has (and being technically correct is a super important part of being smart at least in tech). I hope you see how smart you are and keep getting smarter.

> I learnt that being technically right is not as important as I thought

Only in discussions, whenever you do anything being right is the most important thing as doing the wrong thing is just contra productive, being right saves a massive amount of time and work.

Careful to not get sucked into a binary trap. Most (but not all) problems exist on a gradient you can often be "right enough", "fast enough", and as uncomfortable as it seems we can be "correct enough" or even "coherent enough" to succeed.

I think there’s a difference between being right and being technically right (I wrote about the latter). For example, being technically right could mean not to lend money to your best friend because you have historical proof that the money will be lost and you won’t get paid back. Being right in this scenario means: give that money to your best pal because that’s what best friend are for. I could be getting this wrong, though (bear with me).

I don’t want to be technically right 100% of the time (it’s hard for me because of my background, I tend to think in analytical terms first, and in humane terms second). Obviously this doesn’t apply to every scenario, but I think the audience gets the idea: there are people out there (me in the past) that go 100% of the time the “technically right” way, no matter what and you cannot convince them of doing the opposite because they can prove it to you that they are “right”

> Only in discussions, whenever you do anything being right is the most important thing as doing the wrong thing is just contra productive, being right saves a massive amount of time and work.

Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes doing it the way people expect will be better for future maintenance. Sometimes doing it the way that makes your boss look good will be better for you. All interesting decisions are close and uncertain.

>So many people up here thinking there is always 1 exactly right course of action! Why?! Why do so many otherwise smart people fall back to the silliest of binary thinking and heuristics?

What implied it was binary?

I think that is your own thoughts.

You did.

> What is better? The person that says "You look beautiful", or "You have a piece of fuzz in your hair?"

Or sometimes worse: Person genuinely wants advise for a real problem, you give advise, which they take, and it turns out badly. Now it's your fault.

these people are boring, words spent talking about nothing is akin to throwing fresh food away, I'm not a psychologist and I have my own problems, why should I have to listen to others drone on about nothing when we could be working together to fix either or both of our issues.

Because much of the time you just haven't realized yet that you don't really know shit about shit, and good friends communicate in a variety of different ways about different subjects, sometimes just listening, sometimes actually helping someone with an issue they've asked for help with. Lack of versatility in that area means one will probably struggle to form more than the most superficial of relationships, because ironically it ends up being more shallow to think you're in a position to do something more impactful than offering your time to listen.

It's like coming onto a new team as a junior software dev thinking you'll introduce whatever hot new build tool or refactor the code that sucks that someone wrote 15 years ago, and then getting fired because you're clueless.

I agree.

My wife basically never gives people feedback unless its positive. She is a people pleaser, popular, all that stuff. No one asks her for advice.

I am much more controversial. I have to ignore emails and text messages of people asking for advice because it happens too much. (I'm busy with my own life, the people asking for advice are low-mid tier and wont follow it, people are asking for my expertise for free)

I've actually hired other people to be a second brain because my wife cannot give negative feedback.

Fascinating. Can you say more about that? How did you find them and vet them?

Found them on the website Indeed, I talked to ~20 people on the phone.

I had some screening questions.

Advice giving is a bit overrated, lots just want validation, not solutions

My daughter said she's planning on going to try heroin, fentanyl, and meth this weekend with some friends. Should I give her advice?

If you're reading and asking HN to find out, it may already be too late ;-)

You’re not actually a parent, are you?

Instead of giving advice, you may show her what these things do to people, and ask her if that's what she wants in her life. Also show her what hard work, focus and dedication does to successful people.

That sounds like advice to me

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