[slibhb]

This is a really thoughtful comment, especially considering your personal experience.

There's a hard problem here: what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? I don't know, but exiling them seems like a shame. Training them to play nice may not be possible.

A reasonable option may be recognizing that some talented people are "difficult" and providing students with a path around them. Keep the professor who makes students cry but don't require anyone to take his classes, ensure that there's a path to a degree that goes around him.

We should keep in mind that there may be no correlation between being a douchebag and being talented but there's also no correlation between being nice and being talented.

[underwater]

Someone doesn't immediately become a brilliant asshole. Both skillsets take time to evolve and solidify.

If we stop making excuses for people – "that's just they way they are, you know coders, they just don't have social skills, he's an asshole but the company would be in trouble without him" – then may be these people would get the feedback that they need before it becomes a problem of this magnitude.

[thinknboutstuff]

Seriously, if you're that brilliant you can develop some basic social skills. And from what I'm getting from this thread, we are talking fundamental thinking before you engage in a social interaction skills.

It's ok not to be great at everything, but it's not acceptable to be toxic on the basis of your other skills. At the very least, sometimes that means the genius team member needs to just shut up and choose their battles.

And the first step for many of these type of asshole genius types can be to talk less. Once they master choosing their battles, they can work on how they approach the battles they choose to take.

[KronisLV]

> Seriously, if you're that brilliant you can develop some basic social skills.

I'm not entirely sure that this is always possible, since some of those people could possibly be on the autism spectrum, have Asperger's or perhaps other pathologies, that would impede their emotional intelligence. Obviously that's not always the case, but the assumption that it's always possible doesn't seem to be true.

> It's ok not to be great at everything, but it's not acceptable to be toxic on the basis of your other skills.

With this, however, i fully agree. I do find myself wishing that there was some socially acceptable way to call people out when their behaviour is not appropriate, without antagonizing them. For example, it would have probably been better to inform RMS in that way, rather than resorting to mob justice and "cancelling" him.

[toomanybeersies]

Autistic people are capable of following basic social protocol by not insulting or yelling at others. Anyone who says otherwise is just using their autism as an excuse for their toxic behaviour.

[blagie]

Intelligence isn't unidimensional.

Neither is culture, for that matter, and social skills, what's toxic, and when to shut up is culturally-situated.

[bredren]

It’s generational as well. Particularly the “strong man” style of leadership. You could see it in the Biden / Putin summit.

[chevill]

>Training them to play nice may not be possible.

I'm autistic. It is possible for the socially inept to learn to be less of an asshole and to have better interactions with other people. I did it and we should expect everyone to make an effort to be kinder.

[jolux]

I’m autistic too, and I think what happens is that autistic people who also happen to be brilliant are not expected to learn how to interact well with others to the same extent that autistic folk of average intelligence are, so it ends up being on them whether they care enough about being kind and gentle to others to learn how to interact congenially. I know a lot of autistic people and most of them are nice but some of the more clever ones are indeed rude and socially inept. They also invariably believe that their rudeness is an inescapable aspect of their brilliance, but knowing a lot of brilliant people, autistic and not, this is just untrue.

[123123as1asd12]

The other side of this is that some of us do end up trying to fit in, hiding it but not well enough... Just come off as assholes or socially inept and hurting peoples feelings a lot more than if you were obviously on the spectrum,

[throw3456548]

Yes, this is really difficult problem. From my experience, doing these three things when being critical puts you in the not an asshole category by the vast vast majority of people: 1. don't raise your voice or yell, 2. don't insult people personally (say "this code is bad" instead of "you are bad for writing this code"), 3. if it is your first time critiquing someone, explain your style of criticism and note that it should not be taken personally.

Of course, there are very sensitive people, and you can't please everyone, but in my experience people will try to be accommodating if you tell them your situation.

[skissane]

On the one hand, people should try to fit in with society.

On the other hand, society should try to be more tolerant and understanding of people who find doing so significantly more challenging than the average person does.

I worry that this conversation seems to be focusing on the first point and not paying as much attention to the second.

[jolux]

There's a difference between finding it challenging to fit in and being a bully though, and let's try not to collapse that.

[skissane]

What is "bullying"? Here's one definition [0]: "Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm."

Was Felleisen's behaviour a "deliberate misuse of power... that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm"? I don't know this guy personally and all I've read is some stories about him on these blog posts, but I'm not sure if he was deliberately intending to hurt other people, or merely doing so inadvertently out of social incompetence, deficits in cognitive empathy, emotional dysregulation, theory of mind deficits, difficulties in perspective-taking, etc? Individuals with neurodevelopmental and other psychiatric disorders can sometimes exhibit all of those inadvertent sources of interpersonal harm. (I'm not saying Felleisen has any such disorder – maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, I have no idea, so I must assume he might.)

[0] https://www.ncab.org.au/bullying-advice/bullying-for-parents...

[chevill]

>On the other hand, society should try to be more tolerant and understanding of people who find doing so significantly more challenging than the average person does.

I agree completely. It took me a while to find a place where people didn't just treat me like I'm weird. Kindness, patience, and forgiveness are important things for everyone to work on.

[jolux]

Yeah I mean I still mess up sometimes but everyone does. Developing a reputation for being an asshat requires carelessness or malign intent.

[chevill]

I totally get that and it happens to me too. But I'm just talking about making an effort and the guy from OP didn't sound like he was making an effort at all.

Its possible that if he has social issues like some of us do that he didn't realize how bad his behavior was because everyone was afraid to tell him. But now that he knows I hope going forward he tries to get his anger under control a little more.

Kindness and understanding works both ways. We should also expect people that are naturally good at stuff like empathy and social skills to be patient and forgiving if they see that we try and fail.

[freeopinion]

Why don't we just assume that everyone with such an abrasive personality is very high functioning spectrum. Should we cut everybody slack, now? Is there a line where we let some have a pass and others not?

[chevill]

People are simply saying he might have social issues, not declaring it as a fact.

Its a realistic and common possibility in this industry and there's nothing wrong with mentioning it. My parent comment that yours falls under specifically mentions that even if he does have such issues, its no excuse to spend the rest of his life being toxic to people.

I think its probably more likely that he knew what he was doing and did it because he could get away with it as the leader of that project. However, I can't entirely dismiss the possibility that he has social issues because as I mentioned its a common problem.

[r-w]

Who’s “we”? Everyone has their own standards, and they’re in their right to stick by those standards. It’s whether “we” accommodate those standards that makes the difference.

[undecisive]

I desperately want to agree with this, but something sticks at the back of my mind:

This is not acceptable behaviour.

The way we define acceptable behaviour changes from circumstance to circumstance. What's acceptable for Steve Jobs isn't acceptable for the guy at the window of McDonald's (either side of that window). That's maybe just the way it is - but it probably isn't right.

But what if everyone around this guy got together and said: There is a minimum behaviour you must conform to. We won't accept you shouting at us, we won't accept you belittling us. If you do it again, we will say "You need to calm down or leave the room please". When you're told that, those will be your only two choices, or everyone else will leave the room. And we may not come back. Because this is not acceptable behaviour.

It no longer becomes a question of training. It becomes a question of priority, of data. He can see that he is hit with this phrase day in day out, and he can understand that his behaviour is toxic. Eventually either people will stop saying it because it isn't working, or they'll stop saying it because he is getting the constant negative reinforcement. If it's the former, at least someone has tried. My worry is that with too many people, the individuals are too scared (or scarred) to try.

I also worry about the concept of "a path around him". If part of your job description is the instruction of students, you need to learn to deal correctly with those students. If good behaviour is not part of your skillset, then you do not have the skillset for the job, and that should have repercussions.

I guess there's an issue with the concept of tenure. But I don't feel like saying "You have the option of entering into this abusive relationship" is the right solution (even if it was that bluntly worded from the outset, which it absolutely should be). And I certainly don't think you should be told "You've tried the abusive narcissist, now that you've suffered you're welcome to escape"

If he truly cannot change, then that is sad for him. It should not be the source of damage for yet more people around him though. And looking at the apology, he clearly hasn't understood the effect he has on the people around him.

[nojokes]

It is also not acceptable for Steve Jobs but they can get away with it.

[fatbird]

It's not actually a hard problem. We're not short of brilliant people who are also nice or at least not generally toxic. We don't need to exile the brilliant monsters; we just need to not make allowances for them. If they can learn to meet norms of civility, we can welcome them; if not, we can ignore them.

How many brilliant people have we lost access to because they were driven out of the field by someone like Felleisen? All we have to do is not tolerate their bad behaviour.

Everyone who met Felleisen and walked away is to be celebrated for not coddling his terrible behaviour; everyone who makes excuses for him should be shamed for enabling him.

[lmm]

> We're not short of brilliant people who are also nice or at least not generally toxic.

We absolutely are, especially with the all-encompassing definitions of toxicity that are popular lately.

[fatbird]

Is there a shortage of people with CompSci PhDs to staff universities and do research? Is there a shortage of people to present at conferences?

Just because you feel like cancel culture is cancelling people who don't deserve it, doesn't mean we need those people to fill open positions. Every time we make excuses for people like Matthias, we're filling a chair that could have someone else who's not toxic in it.

Not to mention: if we have a shortage of brilliant people, why aren't you asking how many brilliant people are driven out of the community by people like Matthias? What's the opportunity cost in brilliant people that Matthias represents?

If 2 or 3 people who could make comparable contributions to the community leave because of him, we're already in a net-negative situation wrt smart people advancing the field and community. Even if Matthias is twice as smart as the next best, it only takes a few more for him to be a net negative.

[lmm]

> Is there a shortage of people with CompSci PhDs to staff universities and do research? Is there a shortage of people to present at conferences?

There's a shortage of people doing top-quality work that advances the state of the art.

> Just because you feel like cancel culture is cancelling people who don't deserve it, doesn't mean we need those people to fill open positions. Every time we make excuses for people like Matthias, we're filling a chair that could have someone else who's not toxic in it.

> Not to mention: if we have a shortage of brilliant people, why aren't you asking how many brilliant people are driven out of the community by people like Matthias? What's the opportunity cost in brilliant people that Matthias represents?

I absolutely do ask that. But the disproportionate number of brilliant people we see being cancelled lately makes me think that "toxicity" is practically a requirement for brilliance.

[fatbird]

> There's a shortage of people doing top-quality work that advances the state of the art.

Ok. What do you have to back this up?

From my perspective, a PhD is defined by making a new contribution to the field, and we're graduating lots of PhDs. Part of Butterick's ire is directed at the many other prominent members of the Racket community who have passively enabled Matthias by ignoring his bad behaviour. If Matthias was hit by a bus, would Racket cease ongoing development? Of course not, there are many very smart people driving it forward in interesting ways. I would assert that Matthias isn't even necessary, now to the continuing advancement of the state of art with respect to Racket.

[lmm]

My perspective is that progress feels remarkably slow (despite minting an ever-increasing number of PhDs as you say), and Racket is one of a very small number of exceptions. I hope you're right that Matthias isn't necessary for Racket to keep advancing, because I fear we're about to find out.

[_pmf_]

I think the honest, uncomfortable way of dealing with the Stallman and Felleisen fallout would be to ask "what can be done to offer non neurotypical persons an alternative career path that does not involve creating a living hell for other people by becoming managers" (saying this as someone who probably is in this category as well).

As long as there is no non managerial career (which is the case in all of academia), people will have to fake being a manager.

[denton-scratch]

I don't buy the story that people who piss-off other people are "non-neurotypical" or "on the spectrum".

I piss people off quite often, and quite inadvertently. When it happens, I feel remorse. Friendships have failed terminally because of this.

But in general, people like me - they enjoy my conversation and my sense of humour.

The thing is, I'm rather blunt - I say what I mean. I don't like to lie, because once you start, things can get pretty tangled ("Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive"). This bluntness isn't because I'm on some spectrum or other; it's a consequence of experiences I've had through my life, philosophical views that I've integrated into my personality, and a whole slew of unconscious biases and preferences.

(When I say "unconscious" I don't mean "subconscious" or "repressed"; I'm aware of my biases and preferences, on the whole, I just mean that they come to operate automatically).

I've known and worked with aspies. I know that Asperger's is a real thing. I don't think I've ever known anyone who was autistic. But I think there is a trend for anyone who is a bit abrasive to get labelled "spectrum" (or to label themselves). This is particularly a thing in IT.

It is not a sign that you are "on the spectrum" if you get people's backs up. A habit of speaking directly doesn't put you "on the spectrum". A dislike of small-talk doesn't put you "on the spectrum". Not caring much whether others think you're a wonderful person doesn't put you "on the spectrum".

IT people tend to steer away from small-talk, and have a preference for nuts and bolts. Their job is dealing with machinery, and machinery doesn't usually work better just because you stroked its ego, or gave it a compliment (I find that swearing at machines is much more helpful!) That's simply their training; it doesn't make them "non-neurotypical", or psychologically unwell. they're in IT because they enjoy working with machines, which isn't weird or sick.

[smsm42]

I think there are ways between "ignoring it completely" and "unperson anybody who isn't perfectly polite", and there are ways to provide feedback to people about them interacting in a bad manner without exiling them. I think most people would be amenable to such training - just as they learn other social norms. If the professor's management would be willing to employ such training - without choosing between "ignore it" and "lose the professor" - I think many douchebags would learn to keep their douchebaggery in check. Of course, it may require some effort from the management side...

[WalterBright]

> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven?

Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense.

> makes students cry

There's no crying in baseball.

If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. Save the crying for that.

[throw3456548]

You're getting downvoted, but there is some truth to this. Many years later, when I was much more confident in my career, I took a very well paid but short contract gig with a horrible boss. I found that the best way to deal with his outbursts was to find them funny. Screaming at the team for not making an arbitrary deadline he never told anyone about -- there's something comical about that. HOWEVER I would never want to work with someone like that for more than a few months.

In the situation with Felleisen, I was around twenty, in a new city, new to the academic world. The student I mentioned was one of one or two female students in the entire class and already unsure of her place. Asking people in those situations to not take insults from their professors, famous people in the field, gatekeepers personally is to ask them to overcome human nature itself. I would describe that as a hard problem.

I want to distinguish between a hardass and an asshole. Some people are conflating them, and the middle section of their Venn diagram is not empty, but they are not the same thing!! There are more choices than cuddly "everybody gets a trophy" snowflakes and calling children worthless morons! Everyone should have a hardass professor or a hardass boss at least once in their life. These people have high standards and push you, they don't accept excuses. You learn to work. They don't insult you or throw a fit, though. Hardass professor: "This is not good work. These are the reasons your work is bad. I expect better from you next time." Asshole: "This is not good work. These are the reasons you are a stupid and worthless person."

On the other hand, there are drill sergeants and similar situations. I don't know how to work them into my model. Some people seem to thrive in an environment like that. I wonder what the difference is?

[WalterBright]

You bring up a good point - a third category. The hardass who pushes you to be your best. The other two:

1. the bully who enjoys hurting others

2. the socially inept person who means no harm

They're very different.

As for a hardass, there's a story about Chuck Yeager who was assigned to command an Air Force base during the Korean War. Upon arrival, he went out to the field to watch the airmen land. Afterwards, he laid into them for their sloppy landings. He got some paint and laid down two lines cross-wise across the runway, and said they were going to take off and land with the wheels touching down between the lines.

One of the pilots told him that was impossible and unreasonable.

Yeager then got into an airplane, took off, made a circuit and touched his wheels down dead center between the lines. He didn't get any more crap from the pilots.

Me, I'd want to work for a hardass like that. Yeager wanted his pilots to be successful, and that means demanding perfection. I don't want a cake and ice cream commander, I'd want one who was a hardass, and keep me and my buddies alive.

You might also want to read "With The Old Breed" by Sledge. He thought boot camp was unreasonable, the drill sergeants too harsh, etc. In his combat at Tarawa, which was horrific, he realized that what kept him alive was the hardass training he got in boot camp.

On a gentler note, one of my profs at Caltech was demanding and a bit harsh. Other students had a bit of a negative opinion of him, but frankly I thrived in his class because of that. Working with demanding and "no excuses" people brings out the best in me.

[aidenn0]

There is an incompatibility here between the set of people who act like Felleisen and the set of people who react like Butterick.

There is inevitably a message from the community to one side of "change or leave." Whether explicit from action or implicit from inaction.

There is both a pragmatic and a moral side to the decission. From the pragmatic point of view, a brilliant asshole might be worth more than the sum of all those offended, or not.

From the moral side of things, we can choose to set limits to behaviors even when the benefit of their contributions is net positive considering those who avoid the community.

Your argument seems to speak to the moral side of things; that Felleisen's behavior is not so odious as to cross the moral event horizon. What about the simple fact that there are people who will take offense at his behavior, and the community will therefore lose their contributions?

[tluyben2]

I used to think very much like WalterBright as I never took offense (was raised to just listen to what people try to say, not how they say it) (and if someone goes physical (some people, when they cannot hurt you with words, start shoving you etc) I punch them in the face).

But that way, usually, the bully just moves to someone else and, even though I am untouched, the person did not change. So now that I am older, I think both sides need to work on this issue: the abuser needs therapy and the victim needs to grow a backbone and thicker skin. It is very sad, but people who start crying from verbal abuse will always be victims: in school and in companies. Bullies sniff them out intuitively. If only to have a better life, I would recommend getting less sensitive through whatever means possible. But out the bully too: they need help or get fired imho.

[WalterBright]

Nobody here is excusing bullies.

[tluyben2]

I know you are not, but if you shrug off their bad ways, that will sustain them instead of stop them.

[r-w]

Going back to MB’s article:

> what all bullies crave: the silence of their targets.

[dTal]

What's the point of this comment? That crying is wimpy and that it's fine to abuse multiple young adults to the point of tears because it's their fault for "taking offense"?

We are not talking about whether tears are a sensible and productive response. We are talking about whether it is reasonable to tolerate someone who consistently provokes them. Perhaps both sides need to take some responsibility, but redirecting the conversation like that seems to me to be making excuses for bad behavior.

[WalterBright]

1. Don't allow other people to control your feelings.

2. Be forgiving of people who do not mean offense, but are simply inept at the social graces. It's not that hard. You get to choose whether to be offended or not. Choose the not.

BTW, sometimes I listen to celebrities when they deal with hecklers trying to get under their skin. It's fun to watch how they parry the verbal knives. I recall Prince Phillip once being interviewed by "60 Minutes". The reporter really tried to get under his skin. Prince Phillip effortlessly and deftly turned the dagger away each time. He's evidently had a lot of practice :-)

Howard Stern was fun to watch, too. He knew how to get the goat from his interviewees. Except Paul McCartney. McCartney was a master at this game. Watching those two verbally duel was great sport. McCartney got the better of it!

> making excuses for bad behavior

Not at all. I've had to ban people a couple times from the D forums for unprofessional behavior. Not because they made me feel bad, but because I have no interest in running a sewer. We've been fortunate that it's only been a couple, and usually a private word can set things straight.

[dagw]

1. Don't allow other people to control your feelings.

Isn't that a lot like curing depression by saying "why don't you just stop being depressed?" Different people are wired differently and humans are on the whole really bad at consciously controlling their psychological state.

You even said in the previous post that crying and being sad is OK in some situations (like when a loved one died). Why didn't you choose to control your feelings and not be sad then?

[steve_g]

I agree with your rules generally, but they're not workable when there's a big power imbalance between the offender and the offendee. Professors and grad students, in particular, have a massive power imbalance. A grad student's success in their multi-year quest for the degree is heavily dependent on the whims of the professor. The student must care about what the professor thinks. Escaping a tyrannical prof could set back the student's career by years.

I considered graduate education after I got my BS, but the risk of ending up as some professor's dog wasn't worth it to me.

[dTal]

That's all well and good but you're still directing your comments at the students. When there's multiple students all complaining about a single person, that's misdirected. Apply some systems thinking here.

[RogerL]

In your comment, in response to what should be done, you replied "just [stuff the victim should do]'. That strongly implies that that is all that should be done. Very different message then is you had started with "One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is [the rest of your message]"

I suspect you are being misread due to that word choice, but to be honest I am not quite sure.

[TomSwirly]

> Don't allow other people to control your feelings.

1. You offer this as an excuse for profound hostility and rudeness from someone in a position of power.

2. Every human has buttons that can be pressed and you are no exception.

3. Bullying behavior by someone who has power over others logically causes fear in the target of the bullying.

4. Bullying works. That's why people do it, even though it's a cheat. You are literally blaming the victim.

"Don't allow other people to control your feelings" as a response to a man with a career of bullying shows a profound and perhaps pathological contempt for the well-being of others.

[WalterBright]

It isn't blaming the victim any more than taking a self-defense class is blaming the victim.

Nor is it making excuses for bullies any more than locking your door at night is excusing thieves.

[jolux]

I mean you said that behavior that offends is partially the fault of the person taking offense, I don’t understand how that’s not blaming the victim here. Having a thick skin is important but I question your priorities when your response to somebody not wanting to be woken up by a screaming phone call at 3am is “there’s no crying in baseball.”

[bryanrasmussen]

>There's no crying in baseball.

I think at that stage in the movie Tom Hanks' character is not the best guy to look to for life examples.

I mean if we have to accept that some people are difficult and hard to get along with and we should try to accommodate them then I guess we should accept that some people are easily hurt and will cry and should try to maybe help them when they are hurt.

[soco]

I notice there's still that fairly common trend in blaming the victim. They could have dodged the bullet, right? Well, I'm happy the society starts to point the abusers out - to their dismay and ironically also victimization.