John Bowers

>There's absolutely no reason to be "brutally" honest.

You mean to say there's no absolute reason to be "brutally" honest, because then you can see there's no absolute reason to be smotheringly polite either. (did you read the brief piece I linked?)

There absolutely is a reason to say what springs to your mind, it's quick and efficient, and that's something that people who quickly come up with quality thoughts prize as the ultimate. Laboring over how to say something a different way is very time-consuming, and unnecessary especially if you are addressing people who think-speak the way you do.

And, you're saying people like me should change? Why? Why not suggest that people like you change? (did you read the brief piece I linked? included here for the lazy or those who think there is absolutely no reason they should need to read links)

the following Copyright © 1996, 2006 by Jeff Bigler. https://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html

All people have a "tact filter", which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it. Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. Thus whatever normal people say gets the appropriate amount of tact applied to it before they say it. This is because when they were growing up, their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!"

"Nerds," on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the…

Second all the points you made.

There are other unintended consequences that are also worrying. I'm a bisexual/pansexual man and software engineer and the climate has become so antagonistic between the sexes in the past few years that I personally feel a massive relief whenever a professional setting is devoid of attractive women. I feel no such concern with attractive men or unattractive people of any gender. Even the most innocent interactions these days are liable be construed as harassment, especially by those with a socialized victimhood-mentality.

The fact that accusations based on perceptions/interpretations of the accuser involving situations and circumstances that are often highly ambiguous are accepted as unassailable fact is highly troubling. There is no room for nuance and misunderstanding anymore. The fear of public reprisal through shaming over misunderstanding and ambiguity is very palpable and meets the criteria for a hostile work environment.

Personally, I have the luck of being relatively attractive, but I have concerns for less attractive male colleagues whose innocent interactions will almost invariably be taken as creepy simply by virtue of being less attractive. The precariousness of their situation is made worse when some of these colleagues are on the aspie/autistic side of the spectrum and are often wholly unaware of how their interactions may be misinterpreted. Engineering used to be a safe haven for those on that end of the spectrum, where they…

I couldn't help myself but I think at least GPT-4 gets you:

USER
What is principles can be extracted from this saying:

>Is the ability to think scientifically the defining essence of intelligence? ; Physicist Carl Sagan once wrote that "science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking." This type of thinking requires skeptical rigor and brutal honesty to thoroughly investigate,...
I think the key to brutal honesty is the ability to deliver and accept brutal honesty between peers and rivals. This is the skill you f'ing idiots seem to be losing, because it hinders hearing the autistic perspectives which are quite useful in science. I dropped the completely meaningless f-bomb not to insult anybody but to test your ability to read the sentence without the most basic of intensifiers, what I like to call the f-italics. https://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html

ASSISTANT
1. The importance of scientific thinking: The saying emphasizes the value of adopting a scientific mindset in understanding and problem-solving.

2. Balance of skepticism and openness: A scientific thinker should be rigorous and skeptical in their analysis but also open to new insights, even when these challenge previously held opinions.

3. Brutal honesty: To engage in a productive scientific discourse, it is essential to be brutally honest, both in terms of providing feedback to others and in accepting any criticism directed at one's own work or ideas.

4. Valuing diversity of perspectives: It is…

I've noticed that people who write posts like this like to quote their subject, and then go, oh my, how shocking! what an appalling thing to say! without addressing the thing that was said, which in this case was (among other things):

“I think it is morally absurd to define “rape” in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”

He was responding to a student, who said "Giuffre was 17 at the time, this makes it rape in the Virgin Islands." He was addressing her specific point. He brought up the 17-18 thing because the student herself specified Giuffre's age as the condition of her being raped.

Like, if the student had said "Giuffre was raped because she was coerced against her will," that'd be different. But you can't yourself bring up the technical definition of rape to make your point, then get mad when other people point out that the technical definition makes no sense. If what you really want say is that rape is wrong because it's wrong, just say that!

Of course, the author cares about none of this, because what Stallman said was "problematic." What does that even mean, by the way? This whole post consists of the author repeatedly asserting that various things Stallman said were problematic without explaining why.

This brings me to my next point. Here's an article about "tact filters," a term describing how different people deal with the issue of tact:

http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html

People…

I find I get more from what other people contribute if I focus on what they say and mean, rather than how they say it. For instance, a Japanese person is used to a hierarchy of polite and formal modes of addressing people, but their hierarchy doesn't apply where I come from, but that doesn't mean they don't have anything useful to say, so I struggle a bit to ignore the frills. That burden is on me.

Focus on the message, more or less polite doesn't really have to matter. When I try to do that myself, in reading what you say I realize you really say nothing to me (NOP!), it's all about how to say things. The facts you present (visionary developer, built something millions use, gets along with his cohort...) you yourself attempt to undermine.

But, do read this, it's a funny take on this type of debate (with permission of the author, Jeff Bigler, license to copy below):

| All people have a "tact filter", which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it. Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. Thus whatever normal people say gets the appropriate amount of tact applied to it before they say it. This is because when they were growing up, their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!"

| "Nerds," on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction. Thus, whatever anyone says to…

First I want to thank you for your well considered and detail response. It's a huge breath of fresh air and reason in a debate that often include people who are quick to cry foul, jump to conclusions or condemn without stopping to think if they are succumbing to the fundamental attribution error.

1) Awesome. I'm happy your math experience was great.

2) That sucks. Fortunately access to a computer lab or the internet is sufficiently democratized that the unfortunate scenario you encountered shouldn't occur anymore. Having access to any computer and the internet today provides any child today orders of magnitude more privilege to learn and explore their passions than any kid growing up in the 80s, 90s and even 00s. I think there are still many communities that are still computing and internet poor, but we're getting closer and closer to the point where access to computing and the internet is inching closer to being considered a fundamental human right. At least now, it's only a minor socio-economic barrier and the height of that barrier is dropping rapidly, such that in the developed world, more and more people have access to a computing device and internet and the cost of acquiring a minimum viable general purpose computing device with a screen and keyboard can be had for less than $100.

3) From your description, it doesn't sound like many (or possibly any) of those boys were hackers (or became hackers). I think this is an important distinction to make that few people…