[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.