Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 7, 2022, 1:21 pm

Thank you so much for the feedback, LOF!

It's super helpful, and if I had to go back and re-write the first analysis, I'd now include the last message I (mistakenly) left out, and highlight the ad hominem parts (also worth noticing that Kavalier himself later said so, and apologized as well).

And yes, I also agree it's really cool being able to address the issues, own up (to what we agree on), avoid being nasty for what we don't agree on, learn, and move on.
I must say, when I read Kavalier saying that we're preventing turkey spirals, I thought "hmmm... Let's wait for that :)". And instead, pretty cool to see that in the end, everyone soared.

Quote from MMC on July 7, 2022, 2:10 pm

Quote from leaderoffun on July 7, 2022, 12:52 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 7, 2022, 9:52 am

Hey LOF,

If you focus on that message alone, I think you're right (my interpretation of it was based on what preceded it, and taking into account as justification the previous misunderstanding/possible power moves).

As for the feedback for me, absolutely, and pick the format you prefer (if it's about anything relating to these last exchanges, I think public is better so others also have a chance to learn / stay in the loop).

Ok, feedback for Lucio in public. The fact that this is possible is awesome; some leaders may want to hide under the authority role they have to be beyond criticism. Not so Lucio.

Tho problem here is that there was an ad hominem. The fact that Lucio didn't pick up on it, or nobody else for that matter, is slightly disconcerting. We are training here to pick up slight social cues; to finetune of social senses; to do power accounting on very slight changes in power.

Yet this was an ad hominem. This is a 'scratch sound and stop the music' moment. In a face to face social situation, it should create a void that is hard to fill. Whoever used an Ad hominem attack singled himself out of the group, and it's very hard to come back.

Politicians know this, so they don't do it.

Hell, even redditors know this. And reddit is far from the paragon of civility online. If anything, the culture is a bit whiny and negative. Yet no ad hominems allowed on any subreddit worth anything.

I've been around communities online since the web was a thing you could access at the university only, and one thing that was constant since then is that no online community tolerates an Ad hominem attack without devolving into what we would call here 'A turkey spiral'. So every admin or moderator is always prompt to act on ad hominem attacks.

I organize a biweekly dinner, and imagining this situation in that setting, I can't think of a way of anyone coming back from using an ad hominem attack. From that point the dinner is ruined, the person would likely not come again (at the request of the other guests), and everyone would be reminded why this is a bad idea. If the host doesn't act on it, it would look strange. Out of touch even. As in 'why did you let this one slip', losing 'face'. I never said being a moderator or dinner host is easy.

What I see here happened in story mode 🙂

Imagine a group of people who are into researching UFOs (ufologists). They have an entire book collection describing sightings; key terms to describe photos, energy patterns, archaeological patterns.... the works. They have a leader who has reputation off the charts. And he' s analyzing a piece of scrap metal that is believed to be part of an UFO. The students are gathering around him. They are all pointing their handheld spectrographs at the tiny object, and listen intently to the leader of the group. At this point, meters away from the group, an actual UFO lands. A little green man waves. The leader looks at him over his shoulder, without turning towards him. And utters 'the range of frequencies between 20 and 100 Hz indicates that this metal is not an alloy known to man'.

The good news is that this is the first time I've seen an ad hominem attack in this forum; The bad news is that it flew in front of everyone's face, and nobody mentioned it. If we can't catch things that are, using a simpler name, insults, what's the point of trying to catch subtle things like who is the power up in a couple argument on youtube? I have high hopes this will be the last. If anyone gets insulted, this should be a red line, and I'll stand for the attacked person if this ever happens again.

So Lucio, I think your finely tuned social sense misfired here. You missed a big one. Not gonna hold it against you, you have contributed so much to me having an awesome life this is not even worth mentioning. I respect you exactly as much as before; but I do think this is the one time I've seen you miss a big one, and I'm honored you asked for feedback. I hope you don't take it as an attack.

And Kavalier, we are good. Let's put this behind us and start fresh.

EDIT: fixed typo on spelling ad hominem lol

Hi LOF, thanks a lot for offering valuable thoughts. I think ad hominem is a big topic that worth a separated thread. Could you please give more examples?

ad hominem attack is a new word for me. In my limited understanding, one form of ad hominem is saying things like "you do not know XYZ, so you are not at the same level as us, so your points are worthless and you should not be here". Is my understanding correct?

If my understand is correct, then I think, last year when I first joined, I saw one or more ad hominem in some unnoticed corners. Something like: "if you cannot understand these, then your social intelligence is poor, and you'd better leave this conversation and here is not the right place for you." Cannot remember exactly.

Quote from Kavalier on July 7, 2022, 6:18 pm

Disclaimer: at this point, real-life Kavalier would have just withdropped from the room with his friend Sancho and got lost into the horizon – but only after trying to say something short that made him look cool. But he’ll continue here because there is more to learn and be learned and he’ll try to climb back the turkey spiral alongside his new friend (but he wants to do so without looking dumb).

Ad hominem is valid against ab auctoritate

Ad hominem arguments can be valid. It's especially valid when the debater who made the argument relies on ab auctoritate to make claims. If one presents a source and the only thing we have to evaluate the argument is the authority of the source, then the only thing we can do is to question the authority of the source. If a debater who made the argument presents himself as an authority, it's fair to question his authority, honesty or whatever.

What I did was just an insult - not part of an argument, so also not technically an ad hominem. And, yes, you are right: I went very low level there. Let me expand on this. It made me lose face. If I had reason before that, I’d have lost. It made clear to everyone watching that Kavalier doesn’t behave so gentlemanly as he prides himself for trying to do, and instead lacks social finesse. Kavalier didn’t acknowledge LOF’s due value and hit back by swearing. And he doesn’t really have an antifragile ego after all, he totally lost it in an online forum. He is human and there is only so much he can take.

And I apologize.

Now, I already pointed out your unintentional misuse of referencing. Let's also take a closer look at this:

[...] in science we make progress by coming up with hypotheses and testing them. If you take what they say [...]

We've already agreed that this use of we and you is the source of the problem. It's okay when the text is addressed to a general audience. But when someone starts by saying Kavalier (or the context implies that your answer was addressed to Kavalier), in a well-written text you refers to Kavalier until the writer makes crystal clear that he changed the addressee (and also let’s be fair: saying “I wasn’t refering to you, I was refering to everyone here present” before everyone accepts your frame that they were not power moves is not optimal. You want to address that).

TPM community is not high school

Look. You are addressing social scientists, lawyers, doctors, linguists, and people from many trades who know their shit. You don’t have to come here and explain to everybody how evidence works, how hypotheses are raised and tested. Everyone can attest that everything we say here is evidence-based and sound according to scientific criteria. We don’t discuss that because we all agree on this and therefore concentrate our valuable time on what we are here to learn: social effectiveness. But how evidence-based in our fields work is different from how evidence-based in your field works. I repeat: you are no authority to school us on how science is done.

Data-driven approach is cool: but what it does is enhance evidence. It gives further evidence. Data-driven analysis doesn’t rectify a supposedly lack of evidence in anyway.

So it is very insulting to say:

The 'method' we have so far is that the community goes 'yep, that nails it'. The more people weighting in on the thread saying 'yep, killed it', the stronger our belief that this is the best way to act becomes.

You do know your shit. But please, respect our shit.

Covert agressions are not subtle for TPM readers

Speaking about subtleties: I pointed out respectfully that you were insulting me in several charges (funny enough, those were textbook argumenta ad hominem. But they were covert). And yes, as you say, we are all here to address those subtleties of speech, so I was assuming that you were aware of those subtleties or that, if I they were pointed out, you were willing to reassess those subtleties. Saying "I don't agree, Kavalier, but I'll be more aware" was pretty much enough. Let’s be fair: you not picking up on them was slightly disconcerting, because for they wider public they may seem subtle, but for everyone reading TPM they are glaringly obvious.

But, no, you just doubled down, made an attempt (or seemed to make) at triangulation and after all this, you crossed the line after I hit back (emphasis on back) with the only insult of the whole interaction that was not covert. Really? The only one you picked up was the one that was overt?

So my frame changed instead to "oh no, man, this guy reads TPM. He knows what he's doing it and he is doing it nonethless". It was fair for me to be angry.

Let's climb back the spiral

Now, you made your point, I made mine. We all concluded that there was miscommunication from your part and overreaction from my part. I apologized.

 

 

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 7, 2022, 7:08 pm

Quote from Kavalier on July 7, 2022, 6:18 pm

Let's climb back the spiral

Now, you made your point, I made mine. We all concluded that there was miscommunication from your part and overreaction from my part. I apologized.

It's a very good summation, Kavalier (and please do not ride in the sunset with Sancho :) ).

I also agree with the word "overreaction" since we can't isolate one action, from what preceded it.

Let me wrap it up from my side:

I've seen an apology from Kavalier so far, not yet from LOF.
If you LOF agree with the feedback given, then there should be no reason why you also can't apologize to Kavalier, and that's the only way to truly move forward without leaving personal scars.
It's up to you of course, but you should be aware of the consequences: it doesn't look good when both parties agree they've been in the wrong, but only one apologizes -and that would disempower Kavalier, too-.

On my part, I learned that I should have intervened earlier probably, and once agreed to provide feedback, to analyze all interactions, including the last one, in order to provide a fairer representation to LOF.

I'd like to add that conflict is OK and part of life, and can even be good and healthy.
But always state your point clearly, directly, and assertively here on TPM. We can't always use assertivness in real life as there's plenty of thin-skinned people and sometimes there are strategic considerations to make. But we can do it here.

That should have been obvious, but to state the obvious: please no power moves within the community, no games, no covert aggression -there's plenty of that outside of it :)-.

Hopefully we all learned something from this.

Thank you both for a good learning opportunity.

Quote from Emily on July 7, 2022, 7:22 pm

@lucio thank you a lot for your detailed analysis. I resonate with it because it was a shocking opening for two strangers, as I don't know about MMC's expression and debate style before the thread.

The more I see posts from him, the more I realized that he tends to intellectualize and philosophize, which is a personality trait that is neutral. There would be great thoughts sparking from this style of communication, but what I am used to is building rapport first. I think being able to build rapport and being more personable (aka power protect) is value-adding regardless and is something we all have to practice on.

Quote from Emily on July 7, 2022, 7:26 pm

Quote from Anon on July 6, 2022, 10:03 pm

Off Topic

I want to point out that after reading this part:

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 6, 2022, 4:48 pm

 

LOF's reply used Kavalier's mention of chess as a quick bridge to something very different, and that might feel like a brush-off (Kavalier can confirm that or deny).

I've also previously noticed that LOF sometimes adopts a "free-flowing" debating style that does not always take much of the original reply into account.
That can irk the person who took time to write the post because the person feels ignored. The exchange doesn't feel like a two-ways influencing street as all exchanges between equals and people who respect each other should be.

When we feel we're open to being influenced but the other person skips our good points, the feeling is that we are giving with our openness, but the other person isn't.
So it's a sucker's trade of persuasion (ie.: it does feel like the other person is playing a win-lose game).

Ignoring large portions of what one says can be good when debating to win in front of a public, but it's something to be careful with when one wants to exchange opinions, build bridges, or learn, because the feeling is that one is not interested in exchanging ideas, but in monologuing and/or winning.

To avoid that issue, if LOF wants to avoid being sidetracked or stick to his proposal, he should first validate the other person's point of view, and clearly state that he's going to skip a longer reply.
For example:

Great message!
I partially agree with some but not with all. I will reply later if I find the time. As of now, I want to stick to the original idea of testing PU's ideas because I think there can be much added value there.

 

 

− there was a *click* moment for me and a lot came together.
Now I get -why- it is so important and effective to validate what others have said and why that builds rapport, and why certain things break rapport. I had an intuition and knew it works, but until now I didn't really get why:

It's because a good conversation or persuasion is a flowing exchange where both sides have to be -open- and are constantly -giving- and -receiving-.

And that's why there is no real rapport with people who push an agenda (like stereotypical salesman or street preachers) −they are not open, but they want you to be open and try to change your thoughts. And that's not an exchange of equals, so we close and shield ourselves from either their agenda or them.

Being aware of this simple yet powerful rapport building process consciously will probably improve overall conversation skills and intuition significantly, and will make difficult situations - like criticism, easier.

In my opinion this is PU worthy, as it is both very important to realize and there are countless situations where we can benefit from it.

Off Topic

Anon, this is great insight! It is simple but profound to me. A conversation needs to be flowing, where both participants match each other on the same level.

Quote from Emily on July 7, 2022, 7:59 pm

Quote from MMC on July 6, 2022, 8:13 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 6, 2022, 5:04 pm

Emily / MMC

This a simpler one in my opinion.

And I think the main thing there was that MMC's post largely took the side of Emily's attacker.

That's always a thorny thing to do, and you want to be careful with it, especially on a forum.

There were a few concessions that Emily's attacker had some issue, but still, the overall balance of the post was 90% defending the attacker.
Some passages also seemed to suggest the attack and disempowerment was mostly in Emily's mind, which is something that victims are (often rightfully!) very sensitive to since it's how gaslighting works.
Still, MMC's point of view is fair to share and it's also good to have different opinions... It's just that MMC may want to consider some more tact if he wants more social finesse, and to avoid the (expected) push back.

BTW, siding with the attacker can work great in real life... If one does it a certain way.
It's possible to take the attacker's side in real life when you have some social capital -or when you know you can rebuild social capital later on-.
It can be a great technique to initially take the third party side for shock value, to challenge the speaker to share more of their own faults, and to "steelman" the only person who can't defend himself in order to more quickly reach a slightly more neutral version of the events.

However, in real life, you then turn around and you also put yourself in the speaker's shoes -such as, you kinda of side with both, but generally end up closer to the speaker if a) they seem in the right b) they're your friends; c) you want to be Machiavellian-.

On a forum medium, when you only take the attacker's point of view, it's a lot more likely that it will just feel like siding with the victimizer for no apparent reason, and feels like a slap and a slight to the original poster.

Thank you for your opinion and your time.

As I said, I provide neutral feedbacks and I did not take side. I kindly reject the frame that I team with an "attacker". Anyone will feel uncomfortable when you parallel him to "gaslighting". As a positive person, I kindly ask Lucio to stop putting his negative words, such as "attacker" or "gaslighting", into my mouth. I believe you as a rational and positive collaborator with growth mindset.

In a case study, the main character is not necessarily the writer himself/herself. We must be neutral and give all subjects the equal status.

Moreover, when analyzing a case, we must put truth first. Again, if anyone disagrees with any analytical points in my post, I am very happy to discuss or be convinced.

To be fact-based, let's objectively review the analytical points I made (of course, I am not a perfect guy and made mistakes: one of them is failing to properly credit the existing ideas to the first contributor; I am trying to salvage my mistake here):

Point 1: Some of Emily's wording sounds drill-sergeant like or teacher-like.

Both drill sergeant and teacher are positive or neutral words: "A drill sergeant is a symbol of excellence in initial entry training".

I cannot take the full credit for contributing this point. I must credit Lucio for bringing up a similar (but much more stronger) idea earlier than me. In the thread, Lucio noted that Emily's wording is "judgmental", "invasive", and down to "one-upping". My point, while being much milder, is heavily based on Lucio's ideas. I apologize that I did not cite/credit Lucio for the origin of idea and innovation.

If you disagrees with this specific point, I am happy to discuss. Emily is also free to disagree with any of the specific point.

Point 2: I will personally think twice before judging a person by his dating successfulness, tastes, career choice, or friendship choice: he could be low quality but more information is needed.

This point is just an expression of personal preference. It takes no side.

This point is not a new idea and I cannot take full credit for this contribution. I must credit Kavalier for coming-up-with a similar idea first.

Point 3: I guess some context of the quotations in the case-study might be missing. This is a neutral comment on the case-study itself, not on any personal traits.

Lucio repeated several times that there is a forum rule: one must try to post a relatively complete conversation to have a meaningful analysis; isolated sentences cannot be meaningfully analyzed. For example, if the writer quote "Him: Just because you say all of this doesn't make it true", the writer must also provide what the other party said right before that quotation.

I must credit John for first bringing up a related idea: not all of the guy's words are attacks by themselves.

Emily also explicitly admitted that a long message from her side was "omitted". If you disagree with this specific point, I am happy to discuss.

Point 4: The guy's wording seems unfriendly.

Point 5：The guy has no power over Emily. The guy cannot determine others' power. This is also nothing new. There are plenty of well-established sources on "not-giving a fuck" and "anti-fragile ego" that I cannot take their credits.

Point 6 (main point)：I repeated twice, in the beginning and the end, that the guy seems highly emotional.

If you disagrees with any of the specific points, I am happy to learn from your great wisdom. At the same time, to have a fruitful discussion and avoid the turkey's down-spiral, I must refuse any side-taking which has nothing to do with scientific debate. I sincerely believe you are able enough to practice objective case-analysis on specific points. TPM is science-based and we must put truth first.

MMC, I genuinely think that your thoughts were to point out what my mistakes might be (which is not a bad thing, as I am open to learning), which I openly admit. It was the strong tone you used in a stranger encounter (as I didn't know you before) that would cause problems.

I am not a fan of your use of the word "neutral". It was through my science training and in this specific professional circle dealing with people who claim to be "neutral" that I learnt - we are all social animals, and the best we can do is try to be balanced, since nobody is really neutral. If you don't admit this fact of human fallacy, it can sound hypocritical.

In response to your points:

Point 1:

I have an intuition that you are not from a country where English is the official language, as this seems pretty off to me. But if you are, then my mistake.

Point 2:

Fair, and some points should not even be in there. It was more about my emotional reaction to his negative emotion dumping after he made certain choices and things didn't work out later.

Point 3: 

I personally don't think that the message before he attacked me was as relevant to overturn the overall impression. I realized later that my frame control was bad before this point, and I went full-meta/strong tone with him. I was getting pretty irritated, thus unrelenting. But he started this first. But since you have been focused on that, MMC, here is the message:

Him: Good. Stop there.

Me: It's too bad that your attitude is what matters most when in social relationships the principle of quality comes first. When you say 'good' or 'bad' you are judging people and robbing themselves of their agency to evaluate if their behaviors are appropriate or not, when you are in no position to do so. You acted out of line multiple times before but I didn't speak out because I didn't want to break the rapport, and for my own emotional well-being I don't want to tolerate this anymore. When you don't reflect on your own behaviors while others raised issues, it communicates that your feelings and attitudes trump everyone else's and that's not OK with me.

Him: I literally don't understand this.

Him: And just because you say all of this doesn't make it true.

...

Again, there is long-standing history where he says "Good", "Great job", "Bad" and any combination of judging words, when he was not higher in the power chain. When he says something like "Good, stop right there", it was really triggering for me.

Point 4, 5, 6:

Your principles are right, as I have openly appreciated before. I could have built rapport and frame control better, and also stopped this interaction before things escalated. What lies in the interaction between you and me, is that if you could say some kind words to show your empathy of me being in such a situation, it would be more socially smooth to me.

Quote from Kavalier on July 7, 2022, 8:26 pm

Thank you Lucio, for your feedback. Now, honestly: I don't think this kind of fight over the internet is something worth picking. But I thought that going along with it would be a good exercise of our rhetorical skills and an opportunity to have the community evaluate them from a power aware perspective, if it so desired and if it found that there was value in it.

This is not to say, though, that the escalation was premeditated. This I was not expecting:

Talking about antifragile egos, a thread like this one is where you truly can put that to the test.

This thread proved to be much more challenging than expected, because both parties ended up overreacting and overinvesting. As you said before, things in this thread get intense. It's not because it's Internet that we are above it :)

But I also think both parties did pretty well in the end.

Thank you for the opportunity and the valuable insights provided!

Edit: in hindsight, I wouldn't have done it. I used to think that there was a "real" me, and an "Internet me". Going through this thread taught me that our brains don't really differentiate that very well, and the relationship damage can be very real. To put that at stake just to "learn"is not worth it. I'll reassess how I give feedback in the future.

Quote from John Freeman on July 7, 2022, 9:22 pm

My 2 cents:

I learned that it’s a lot about not taking things personally. It’s quite difficult when someone says something that is hurting or triggering. So I think it helps a lot to stay detached. Or even take a few days to cool off before answering.

I also learned that it’s important to value the relationship over what is being said. It’s more difficult when we don’t know the person and have a skewed perspective on them through the internet.

That means also resist the thought “this guy/girl is an asshole” which is actually a self-justification because we feel we’ve been attacked.

I imagine this quote won’t talk to everyone but it might to some:

“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been” - Marcus Aurelius

Finally the Machiavellian approach is to keep your thoughts to yourself. You don’t agree with what the person says, you think it’s stupid or even that they are stupid. Well, just don’t act on it and don’t say it. You’ll have a better relationship and realize that what is being fought over is a small thing. Or at least that it is smaller than the relationship and the consequences of making an enemy. This is the concept of relationships before truth. We don’t have to share the same opinions but yet can get along and exchange information and perspectives.

I’ve been in your shoes guys on this very forum. Lucio knows it. So this is all learned from my own personal experience.

Reason over emotions gives better outcomes I think in these situations. So it’s important to detach. It’s important to recognize that we feel we are attacked so our instinct is to fight back.

However this also means that the other person has power over us since we are reacting to them.

I hope this is helpful. I’m open to feed-back as usual.

I salute you all with the way you handled the situation. It takes courage to take your responsibility in a given exchange. It is eagle-like.

You got top notch analysis from Lucio and these are gold nuggets for growth. I learned a lot as well so thank you all.

In the end, growth is what matters the most as these experiences are wood for our fire of growth.