We’re all so bad at communicating and it is the bottleneck in most relationships, workplaces, and in politics.
We talk past each others when we argue. We’re bad at definining the stuff we argue and talk about. We’re bad at ignoring the pedantic stuff and focusing on the “spirit” of the argument.
At the workplace I feel the ability to share information to all the relevant parties without it being noisy has never been solved in big corporations. It is either a free-for-all situation where you’re expected to read hundred of emails, answer anyone anytime, go in tons of meeting, OR to work in complete silos where you only talk to a supervisor once in a blue moon.
In friendships you have people who talk but don’t listen and people who listen and don’t talk. Oversharers, bullshiters, people who can’t get to the point, people who gives 5 minutes of context and disordered information for every little things. Friends who mumble, or who don’t finish half their sentences.
In relationships we let unresolved issues become taboos, and we let petty stuff buildup because we can’t addresss it without anyone feeling attacked.
Communication is important, as you’ve already been told by a poster or an HR person, but I rarely see people actively try to better themselves in that area, nor the corporations I worked at. You won’t have anything durable without it, or anything capable of scaling efficiently.
I am probably very bad at it too, for the simple reason that virtually all the people I know are ever good at best at a few aspects of it. I am self-conscious about communicating properly but I too probably suck at it and I have my blind spots just like everyone else. For this reason, this is the thing I hate about everyone, we can’t communicate for shit and we don’t even realize it most of the time.
What’s most frustrating about it is that even when I try to help others see that this is the real cause of friction between us - that poor communication or misunderstanding is the real cause of our arguments, many if not most would still fight me that I’m wrong and they’re right and it’s like nobody wants to reach a solution, they’d rather forever spin in the accusations
The fallacy of the middle ground. This is where most ‘centrists’ fall.
That’s interesting, because I was going to say I hate how a lot of people are very susceptible to extremism and binary thinking.
Agreed, but some solutions have a fairly binary answer. Extremism is a huge problem, but that is part on centrists tolerating intolerance and not taking a stance. There is no middle ground for racist ideology. There is no room for it in society. The answer to “I believe the Jews should be exterminated” is simply opposing it, "Jewish people have a right to maintain and cultivate themselves and their culture. To put it simply, for someone who wishes complete death for the Jews, the answer is not the middle ground. You cannot compromise and say “how about we kill half a Jew only?”. This example is stupid and has lots of flaws, but I just came off of night shift.
There is no middle ground for racist ideology.
Perhaps, but what counts as an expression of “racist ideology?” It’s usually not as simple as the true extremists make it. Is a comedian making that tired old joke about how Black people fought to be able to sit at the front of the bus and now they all sit at the back racist? How’s about when a Black person cals a White person a cracker? What about when White people say the word removed when talking about the word historically? I work with the poor and mentally ill (therapist), and I have plenty of clients who have made generalized statements about the other racial groups they share their neighborhoods with, but they wouldn’t consider those statements racist, because in their experience they’re true, and they can’t be racist if they’re factual, right?
95% of the racist content out there is not so easy to discern and we as a society agree far less on it than our academics and news organizations suggest.
Dualistic thinking. The idea that things must be either good or bad, true or false, normal or perverse.
False dichotomy is humanity’s favorite logical fallacy.
That they’re people…
That we all think we’re far more in control of ourselves than we are. Yes, including me. A person isn’t in charge of the self, even a majority. Not by a long shot. We’re the smartest monkeys in the room, but we’re still monkeys. None of us are fully rational robots, but a lot of us pretend we are.
I think irrationality is evidence of our control if anything. Animals are generally more rational than us (I say this as someone who hates people who worship rationality.)
I don’t think animals are completely emotionless, but a lot more of what other animals do can be explained by survival instinct than humans.
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Twitter should be one of the easiest social media platforms to leave. Mastodon seems every bit as good as Twitter with the lack of users being it’s only real flaw.
The microblog style seems to work the best with federation as well since you’re following people.
I tried mastodon and it wasn’t an easy switch from twitter for me.
I mostly followed artists on twitter, none of which had moved to mastodon, and likely most of them never will.
It was also pretty impossible to just happen upon cool people I’d wanna follow randomly because the default feeds are just everything.
Say what you will about algorithmic social media feeds but they’re a lot better than just showing you everything at once.
I tried to switch to Mastodon a few times in the past, before the twitter issues were even happening and I could just never get into it.
And you’re right, the only reason I was ever on twitter is because I was following artists that weren’t anywhere else. Now I’m not on there and some of those artists never moved platforms because it was a hassle for them to and they risk losing their audience when they move platforms cause you can never just expect people to follow you as an artist.
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That in times of conflict, human nature, the default mindset of humans, is often used as a crutch like a medical condition would be, and that we simultaneously still consider ourselves persons as we define persons as members of the moral community, the same one we use human nature to excuse ourselves for violating.
Noise.
This one really gets me. Makes me feel like a cranky old asshole, but I find myself regularly thinking (all directed at my neighbors):
“Do you really need to slam the front door on your way out every day?”
“Do you really need to slam the car door every time you get in and out?”
“Does your meaningless 3 hour phone conversation really need to be on speaker for the whole neighborhood to hear?”
“Are you an elephant? Or is there a reason you can’t walk across the apartment without banging each foot like you have a vendetta against the floor?”
I could go on and on.
I had a girlfriend who would slam the fuck out of the toilet lid every time she used it. Not like, extra force, as far as i could tell, just let it drop from vertical to close. Super loud. It was ruining the hinges… I asked her over and over to please stop doing that. No change… I was set to install cork bumpers and she insisted NO, can’t do that. Okay… so stop slamming it? A year later, still every single time.
Me, I’m hard of hearing and probably have undiagnosed ADHD. You may have heard of auditory stimming: basically, that the ability to make noise that one can hear helps regulate dopamine production. I need to hear the door close to feel like I closed it. Hearing my own footsteps allows me to take my concentration off walking without falling over. I sing more-or-less constantly.
I stopped living in apartments ASAP because I didn’t want to inconvenience those around me, but I can’t just “be quiet” unless I’m actively concentrating on it the whole time.
People who use speakerphone in public were raised wrong, though.
I totally understand this, and it makes a lot of sense. But your type of behavior is not the problem. You are aware of this fact about yourself, so you avoid living in apartments. That makes you a considerate and thoughtful human being. I appreciate you, and wish my neighbors were like you (by leaving lol).
The shit I’m dealing with is at all times of day and night and is from all my neighbors, all of whom are very different people. The sounds are extreme, startlingly loud, and are clearly because of their lack of consideration. I’m continually dismayed that they’re so oblivious of their surroundings.
Mate, now I want you as my neighbor.
Can you be my neighbor? Let’s buy a lot somewhere lmao
We would be like ninjas (almost)
Especially when it’s comes from their mouth from chewing food.
When I ask them a simple question and they answer with at least ten-sentences-long answer.
Jes, I do it too.If you want someone to give you a simple answer ask them a close ended question.
For example, “Should I do A or B?” If you ask for “this or that” it is clear to the listener that you considered your options already and have invested sufficient thought to your question. Therefore they can just offer you their opinion as it is asked.
If you ask “What should I do?” The listener has no idea where your head is at so it feels like their job to justify their answer.
Alternatively if you ask A or B and the correct answer is C then the listener may feel the need to correct your understanding because you asked for their assistance. The same teach a man to fish vs give a man a fish analogy applies here. Noone wants to repeatedly fish for the peraon too lazy to learn.
For example, “Should I do A or B?” If you ask for “this or that” it is clear to the listener that you considered your options already and have invested sufficient thought to your question. Therefore they can just offer you their opinion as it is asked.
Ask customer if it’s this or that - they respond with just “yes”
You underestimate how stupid the general public truly is.
Exceptions exist to every rule.
If someone responds like that they’ve said a lot (about themseleves)in very few words. It is still helpful.
I totally get where you’re coming from! It can be frustrating when you just want a quick answer to a straightforward question, and instead, you’re bombarded with a seemingly endless stream of words. It’s like trying to take a sip from a water fountain and getting hit by a firehose, right?
But here’s the thing, sometimes those long answers are necessary. Think of it like this: Simple questions might have complex answers hiding beneath the surface. So, when someone provides a lengthy response, they might be trying to give you a complete picture.
Sure, not everyone’s a fan of reading a novella in response to “What’s the weather like today?” But consider that some people are genuinely passionate about sharing their knowledge or experiences. They might want to make sure you understand the topic thoroughly or provide you with additional context that could be helpful down the line.
It’s like when your grandma starts telling you a story about her pet hamster from 30 years ago when all you asked was if she wanted a cup of tea. Annoying at times, sure, but she’s just excited to share a piece of her life with you.
The key here is balance. If someone’s giving a longer answer than necessary, it might be polite to gently remind them that you were just looking for a quick tidbit of information. But remember, on the other side, there’s a real person trying to be helpful or connect with you in some way. So, maybe next time you see a long response to a simple question, take a deep breath, skim through it, and you might just find a hidden gem of knowledge or a new perspective you hadn’t considered before!
But here’s the thing, sometimes those long answers are necessary. Think of it like this: Simple questions might have complex answers hiding beneath the surface.
That’s the biggest problem I had with Twitter since day one. It was designed to not allow for nuance or detailed explanations.
case in point :)
Didn’t even need to ask them a question. They just started talking.
Some people are better/worse with this than others.
I remember when I was training for something in school, I dreaded asking my professor a question even though I really needed to. He would go into 10 minute long tirades and never really answer the question.
Every single time…
Who would ever do something like that?
Me? I totally don’t! I’m a paragon of succinctness, here’s why: [insert 40 sentences explanation filled with 20 examples]
When I ask a simple question and get a ten-paragraph answer that has nothing to do with the actual question.
“Giving a simple answer” can get a person yelled at for “lying by omission.” Or yelled at for “why didn’t you tell me this other detail?!”
On that note, I hate question dodgers. Especially since I work online chatting with customers, and I’ll ask them something direct, like “when were you meant to receive this check” and they fucking come back with “So my check is missing”
Like damn, fuckhead. I am already aware your check is missing. Definitely not what I asked. And I can’t tell if they are just that brand of dumb or if they’re being difficult on purpose.
I had a gf who would answer half my questions with something completely irrelevant. Or if I told her anything remotely like criticism, she’d respond by criticizing or attacking me about something completely irrelevant, and never address what I said, ever, no matter how fair or important it was. Drove me nuts.
I’m impressed that you managed to reach gf level with someone like that.
If I can’t get through a conversation with a person it’s just like, too frustrating for me. Makes me feel crazy too. Like I know I’m being coherent but talking to someone like that makes me feel like I have to try extra hard to understand them even though they’re the ones not making sense.
I’m not sure what it was like when we were first together, though we did drink wine and have some frustrating conversations even then.
Something less pernicious she does is just say things that are really vague, like not using enough words or specific enough words for me to have any idea what she’s talking about. For example she’d might ask me “hey, will we have time today to do the other?” and i’d just be like what?? The other WHAT? And it would be something we were talking about the day before. With no context, there’s no way at all I could ever have figured out what she meant. Or she’d tell me about news, like “Did you see what happened to him today? They’re going to court!” And I’d just be … WHAT? And it would turn out it wasn’t something we were talking about or I was thinking about at all.
Ha ha, a great example just happened yesterday - we’re talking about how she’s getting her paintings to a show or something and out of nowhere she says “the numbers are looking really good”. I was “what numbers?” She says “My numbers!” as if I’d know what that means. Sometimes I just ignore the bizarre out of context statements, but it’s also really frustrating so I asked “WHAT NUMBERS? What does that mean??” “Oh, my social media views”. Okay… maybe just say that in the first place.
Trying to do projects together was pure hell, or if she needed help with her computer, she’d say something like “the files all doubled up!” A lot of people are pretty bad at describing software issues though.
How easily it is to normalize hate and violence to almost any human.
Because that’s the default. We have to learn to be better.
Nothing indicates that’s the default… we had less war and violence before the emergence of the nation state and hierarchical power structures.
Ah, the old “noble savage” canard.
What…? The “noble savages” are indigenous peoples and it’s a modern idea.
What the fuck what I said has anything to do with that?
Are you saying all non-statist and hierarchical societies are like American indigenous peoples? Or that all American indigenous peoples were stateless or egalitarian? Both are extremely wrong.
Just so you know, I was referring to civilisations like the Indus Valley Civilisation and Cucateni Trypillia. Not “noble savages” AT ALL…
I’d argue the opposite. Kids aren’t born hating anyone different from them. They are taught “anyone with that skin color/gender/sexuality/religion/etc is inferior to you and you should hate them.”
The big problem is that hatred can be passed down. My father’s racist. Not in a “hang all black people” way, but more in a “I can’t be racist because I have a black friend but black people should act more like white people” way. Growing up, I started taking on his beliefs (as young kids often do).
At one point, I made a very insensitive joke in class about a religion and the kid sitting behind me said that he was in that religion. Now, I don’t know if he was or wasn’t, but it was eye opening to me. I realized what I was doing and didn’t like it. I took the time and effort to root out my prejudices.
It wasn’t easy. Even now, over 30 years later, I’ll occasionally realize that some action I’m taking is driven by prejudice. Still, I’ve rooted out many prejudices that otherwise would have made me into just as big of a bigot as my father. And my kids go even further than my at being accepting of others. One of many reasons I’m proud of them.
Hatred doesn’t come naturally. It is taught. Luckily, it can be “unlearned” if the person is willing to do the work and acceptance can be taught/reinforced also.
Racism is artificial, sure, because race is artificial.
But violence? Violence is the state of nature. You can see it in small children, and in those that are poorly socialized. Cooperation is natural for us, but true eusicial behavior? It’s an ongoing project.
Can’t they just fucking read AND comprehend.
If people would not just read things but also use some brain power to comprehend the words they just read, then the world would be a few percentage points smarter overall.
Also while they are at it, observe the world you are living in. People ask stupid questions all the time because they don’t open their eyes and take in the world for a few seconds. “where is the bathroom?” As they ignore the sign. “What time does the bus come?” As they ignore the printed schedule. “How do you open this hatch?” As the arrows point to the handle.
I’ve honestly been astounded at how much of the population appears to be functionally illiterate. You tell them how to spell a url and they’re more likely to just hand you the phone because that’s hard.
I sometimes wonder if that’ll be what’s left - illiterate masses cared for by a few not-quite-dumb bastards that can work a can opener or read the instructions on the pump.
Damn humans, they ruined humanity!
Narcissism. I don’t give a fuck about your vacation. Or your dinner. Or that your kid won the spelling bee. No, I don’t want to see your facetube or insta or whatever the fuck. Go find your validation in something real.
I hate that many people idolise other people.
It’s possible to like some of the work of somebody without idolising them and blindly listening to or following absolutely everything they do.
Elon Musk is the best example: SpaceX has some really cool ideas (Falcon 9, Starship, Starlink) and Tesla made EVs palatable to car enthusiasts, which is an important step.
But on the whole he is an absolute piece of shit with a fragile ego.
That’s a great example, I was prompted by the Fluke Skywalker stuff going on, But there are plenty of times when people who are famous for something are found to fall short. Then you get this outpouring of grief and disappointment, It happens enough that people should know better really.
The inefficiency. Why the fuck are we walking so goddamn slow? Why can’t you eat faster? Oh god, don’t make me watch you not use keyboard shortcuts. Why is everyone living like they want to be here in this goddamned line more than anything else in life?
Why the fuck are we walking so goddamn slow?
I also walk fast all the time but I am trying to be a little slower so I don’t get sweaty while going places. Maybe it’s like that for other people as well. What I don’t understand is why so many people seem to be completely oblivious to their surroundings and the way they block the path for other people.
Why can’t you eat faster?
Some people like to enjoy their food.
Oh god, don’t make me watch you not use keyboard shortcuts.
I can actually get behind this one.
Why is everyone living like they want to be here in this goddamned line more than anything else in life?
I’m unable to decypher what exactly you are complaining about here. What line are you talking about?
People slowly going about their lives in every manner instead of doing everything as quick as possible so you can get back home and be alone for longer.
for some folks that’s full power / max speed.
other folks are just happy to be out and about.
not my preferred way but I get that for some people it’s their reality.
Yes. This.
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