[frankish]

Does "good enough" satisfy the definition of "Leveler" though? How can we objectively predict that "good enough" would still not cause offense?

I personally think not because I do not think "good enough" can be objectively predicted without testing it out on the other person -- "good enough" is subjective.

If "trying" is all that matters, then how hard are we supposed to try? I personally struggle with this as I find it very time consuming and stressful to even know when to stop trying. I have no objective measure to stop because I have incomplete knowledge and am just guessing.

Granted there are obvious and quick things to consider to avoid being "cruel or dismissive," but I had to learn about those things beforehand. Everytime I say something I will learn some more, but I will definitely not learn everything.

The OP also seems to be claiming that collaboration is the greatest ideal to strive for in every context. But what if I have different priorities such as objectivity, truth, and reason?

[dang]

(I'm not sure I understand you fully, because I don't know where the phrase 'good enough' came from in this context.)

In terms of gauging one's impact on others and calibrating one's expression—that's definitely a long, hard road for a lot of us. But just the insight that being right isn't sufficient already gets you a big chunk of the way.

This comes up with HN moderation because people frequently break the site rules and then justify it by saying "but it was a factual statement". I usually point out that there are infinitely many facts, and infinitely many ways to express a fact. These things don't select themselves—people choose them, very much for non-factual reasons, and different choices can have quite different effects.

Human communication is complicated; more than one dimension is involved, and to get it right requires navigating all of those dimensions—not just the "true vs. false" dimension. The latter is important, of course, but the relational dimension is as well. If you (I don't mean you personally!) blast someone with a truth in a way that they're not capable to hear, you actually give them an incentive to reject the truth even harder, and that hurts everybody.

> But what if I have different priorities such as objectivity, truth, and reason?

I believe you that you care about those, but no one cares only about those. If I were you I would cultivate the skill of tracking my other motives as well. That isn't comfortable, but it eventually produces huge benefits in just the area you're asking about. Best of all, it doesn't require you to give up any of your passion for truth and reason. You just widen the frame to include more information. As you become more aware of that "more information" in yourself, you become more aware of others too, and this gives you more skill (and less stress!) in navigating those waters.

[fisf]

> I believe you that you care about those, but no one cares only about those. If I were you I would cultivate the skill of tracking my other motives as well. That isn't comfortable, but it eventually produces huge benefits in just the area you're asking about. Best of all, it doesn't require you to give up any of your passion for truth and reason. You just widen the frame to include more information. As you become more aware of that "more information" in yourself, you become more aware of others too, and this gives you more skill (and less stress!) in navigating those waters.

This implies, that some people prioritizing objectivity are not aware of their internal motives, and the perception of others, or rather not able to incorporate this effectively in their communication. In other words: it is their fault, made subconsciously, to deliver (bluntly?) a message that their counterpart are "not capable to hear". And it's something they could work on.

But have you considered, that this choice is made consciously? People can absolutely pick truthfulness, and stick to it, as a matter of principle. The delivery has by no means to be cruel, and not stating specific facts can be very tactful. But shying away from uncomfortable truths, and being incapable of hearing them, is first-and-foremost a problem at the receiving end (given they are delivered respectfully).

[dang]

> first-and-foremost a problem at the receiving end (given they are delivered respectfully)

The problem is that respect has many layers. What the speaker considers respectful may not at all be experienced as respect by the listener.

I think we all need to work on both sides: we need to do a better job of listening to truth instead of rejecting it; and we also need to do a better job of calibrating how we express the truth so that our expression can have good effects rather than harmful ones.

In my experience, people who see themselves as deliverers of objective truth and see other people as deficient in truth-hearing capacity (I'd include myself in this group btw) do tend to have an oversimplified view of this, and yes, do tend to be unconscious of the effects they're producing, which they mostly ascribe to inadequacy in their audience.

Don't get me wrong—I'm not suggesting that anyone reduce their passion for truth. I'm saying it's one axis and there are other axes that are orthogonal to that one—for example the relational axis. Where you're located on those other axes also matters. If you occupy a point of high passion on the objectivity/truth axis and low awareness on the relational axis, it becomes easy to cause both others and oneself a lot of pain. You can think of the truth—especially uncomfortable truth—as a power tool. Wielding it skillfully is important.

The solution is to maintain one's high passion for objectivity and truth while at the same time taking up the work of advancing where one stands on the other axes.