For example, maybe you work as a program coordinator in a liberal arts college, then you may target the thalamus- the center of logical reasoning. You explain to professors how the program you’re responsible for will advance some goal that seems logical though no one feels emotional about it.
Or maybe you’re a drill sergeant whose job it is to ensure that when soldiers are under duress in war, your barked commands and insults will be burned into their amygdala, their emotion center that handles fight or flight immediate responses and related fast and deep emotional memories, so that they will respond as trained instead of forgetting everything that was learned and running away, because that may not be as effective. Logic doesn’t play into decisions under duress.
Linus may have later decided that hurting others was not as helpful, but he wasn’t being a bad leader when he did and said what he felt he needed to at the time.
Sometimes it takes a little tough love to make things happen. Even Jesus had to overturn some tables.
Seeing someone value a serious project higher than random guy's personal feelings is extremely refreshing.
> But you don't need to be mean
You don't need to be nice either
...right, mostly. Being nice is nice, but the truth is more important. A corporation that could figure that out would run far better.
The point is, "but evolution" is a weak argument to justify any particular feature of an entity facing selection pressure. The laryngeal nerve detour would have been a better example but I wanted to stay accessible.
Nah, I don't want these people in my company. Speaking specifically, to be clear, of people who can't tolerate polite, precise correction. If I can't find enough reasonable people to grow, then that's fine. But honestly I think there are fewer of those people than you might think, given the right environment where (among other psychological safety factors) being proven wrong is fine and normal and genuinely does not require a counter attack.