[Garlef]

> I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions

I feel you! It's so nice to be independent and not subject to one's own emotions.

But have you considered that it's possible that you're just not observing yourself well enough?

After all: "Advertisement works on everyone... except for me!"

[lesuorac]

I dunno.

Somebody going "I hear you" and then proceeding to make my problem worse or describe something completely different really doesn't make me think highly of them.

[jonahx]

Right, you dislike phony validation.

When it's real, you won't notice it. What you'll probably experience is just "an honest actor" or "a good guy" or "someone like me." And the things that person says which are disagreements you experience as "an interesting point I hadn't thought of", etc...

[gblargg]

So the advice isn't "put on the performance of validating", rather "find it in yourself to see legitimacy in the other person's situation so you can take interest and listen to them openly".

[jonahx]

Yes. And you won't always be able to do that, because you won't always feel that way. Even then, some (honest) sense of your own fallibility and basic respect for where the person might be coming from can help.

[bch]

You found out being a good listener doesn’t just mean being within earshot. I don’t know how common or rare good listeners are, but I have one friend who is phenomenal, and it’s nearly mind-boggling what a difference that makes.

[astura]

>Somebody going "I hear you" and then proceeding to make my problem worse or describe something completely different really doesn't make me think highly of them.

This is not at all validating, it's exactly the opposite.

[bigfudge]

That isn’t being validated though. That would involve actually listening and understanding your problem.

[mikepurvis]

I completely agree— and that's across spheres of life. I don't want that from an intimate partner, I don't want it from friends, colleagues, my boss, pastor, therapist, the lady at the DMV, none of it.

Tell me the straight dope, and if I've messed something up, tell me what I did and how you think I should make it better. Don't butter me up or try to trick me into "discovering" on my own the thing that you actually want me to do.

[sixo]

That's just not validating your emotions—trying to, but doing badly. If ever someone actually did validate them it would feel validating, which feels good—rather tautologically, but hopefully you see my point.

Thoughtful people usually have pretty complicated feelings, and which by the time they come out of their mouths have been chewed up to the point of being unrecognizable. It can be very hard to get to the bottom of them. Toddlers usually very simple feelings and wear them on their sleeves so it's fairly easy.

[furyofantares]

> After all: "Advertisement works on everyone... except for me!"

Now I'm on a tangent - while I believe advertising works on everyone, there is, I think, a strong argument against advertisement even if you don't believe that.

Even if it's true that "advertising works on everyone... except me", the thing effective advertising does is increase prices. Which you have to pay even if advertising doesn't work on you.

[simonh]

Advertising increases sales, which can lead to economies of scale, which can reduce prices. It also encourages price competition, so it's nowhere near as simple as that. Some highly price disruptive activities such as direct to consumer marketing would be impossible without advertising.

[furyofantares]

You HAVE to advertise to get sales because everyone else advertises heavily already, and because advertising is so dominant that consumers have come to rely on it as the majority of how information enters the zeitgeist. It is a barrier to entry for competition.

If we could reduce the advertising footprint we could increase information flow from things like consumer reports or wirecutter, and we could reduce the dependence on advertising to get sales and increase the ability to get sales by making a better product.

Economies of scale are no doubt a very, very good thing but they are not tied to advertising. If we stopped spending 100s of billions of dollars every year competing for attention this only adds to the productive capacity of our society.

I find it eye opening to talk to local small businesses, the eye popping amount of money they have to spend on facebook, google, and yelp feels like a racket, not an opportunity. Many types of business that were capable of operating before digital advertising are now incapable of operating without paying the piper.

Of course there are businesses that couldn't operate before but now can because digital information flow is better than analog information flow. This is easy to confuse with it being enabled by digital advertising because our information flow is dominated by advertising.

But I don't advocate for just deleting advertising and going back to analog word of mouth; I'd prefer a market for digital information that isn't simply purchased by the person who wants my money but instead competes on the value of the information.

[OrderlyTiamat]

I can't figure out if this is genuine or a snarky way to make fun of the proposed method.

[dkarl]

The purpose of the validation step is to get someone out of a reactive, unreasonable frame of mind into a frame of mind where you can start problem-solving together. It can feel condescending if they're already in a problem-solving frame of mind. "There, there, it's natural to be hysterical."

It's like when your team is sitting together handling an issue calmly and competently, and a manager strides into the room yelling, "Okay everybody, calm down! Everything's going to be okay. No need to panic." It shows that they aren't paying attention and don't appreciate the professionalism of the team.

[thereddaikon]

Or the classic example of,

"Hey man calm down!"

"I am calm!"

One of the best ways to upset someone is to claim they are upset.

[fc417fc802]

There are two sides to that classic example. The one you mentioned, and the one where the other person isn't calm but also lacks self awareness and just becomes more upset.

There's a broader lesson about how if your stated solution is simple and obvious then in most cases it probably isn't actually a solution.

[genewitch]

"No! You start getting excited!"

[gblargg]

Yeah, emotions are how we perceive our organism (body as a whole) going into action to deal with something. They are the idiot lights on a car dash. You can put tape over them or say you ignore them, but the underlying process is still occurring.

[some_furry]

I see what you did there.

[aaronbrethorst]

I suspect they may be the one true Rationalist who has fully mastered their emotions.

[kridsdale1]

I am in awe. We must study him.