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Regarding the importance of communication vs "hard skills", I often think of a quote by Nassim Taleb: "You cannot possibly trust two classes of people: educators who are better at explaining than understanding because they’re selectively better, and science journalists, who are better at communicating than understanding. Then, you end up with things like scientism." [1] The pandemic and climate crisis has also shown us the huge importance of thoughtful communication. Having both theoretical and years of practical background in journalism, I do wonder, though, how much of this emphasis is slowly becoming a hype; a source of well-paid bullshit jobs. There are companies and institutions with deliberately honest communication out there, but often times "good communication" leans towards masterful, smooth hiding of wrongdoings or stuff you don't actually grasp. It's way too easy to (accidentally) become better at explaining than understanding in this field. In this light, it's probably always good to have those more straightforward "hard skills people" around you as well. All in all, I think it's an excellent time to read Dostoevsky and think about the volatility of human temperament. We're often trying to hide our rough edges with (soft) communication, but who knows how well, or for how long, this actually works. I would also definitely bet on Dostoevsky's fiction being relevant in 50 years, too. 1: https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/bryan-caplan-nas... |