[j-bos]

> The meta-point of the article is that we should express are thoughts without qualifiers and embellishments to manipulate other people's perceptions of us.

In my experience this is a common failure point among tech/analytical folks (myself included) which leads to their words and actions being genrally misconstrued and effectively misunderstood by the larger segement of the population which is rarely able or disposed to handling communications without embellishments.

[Ar-Curunir]

“Technical” people are also people, and that doesn’t exclude them from communicating like reasonable adults.

Blaming the rest of the world for an inability to communicate effectively is not orienting the blame correctly.

[ryanackley]

You're wrong (IMO) The onus should not be on the communicator to qualify every statement of opinion. This is tedious and unreasonable.

Not prefacing what clearly is an opinion with "IMO" is not a jedi mind trick that makes others believe it as fact.

You're also demonstrating some hypocrisy by presenting your own point of view in the same manner. No qualifiers. You're simply stating something as truth

[saghm]

> The onus should not be on the communicator to qualify every statement of opinion. This is tedious and unreasonable.

I fundamentally disagree with this. In my experience, it's in pretty much in possible for people to perfectly understand intent without a certain amount of effort from both the communicator to express it clearly and the listener to understand it. In practice, I don't think there's a good chance of successful communication for any nuanced topic without good-faith effort from both sides, and I can't differentiate between the language the author used and what I'd expect to hear from someone who reflexively dismisses any disagreement as in bad faith.

[ryanackley]

This argument over the semantics of how to express an opinion feels like a proxy for people who strongly disagree with him on remote work seeking an outlet.

I say that because you (and everyone else who seems upset) clearly understand it's just his opinion. Therefore, why are you offended by his intent? Whatever his intent might be, I think it's irrelevant. It's simply a strongly held opinion.

[saghm]

> I say that because you (and everyone else who seems upset) clearly understand it's just his opinion.

I genuinely don't understand whether it's the case or not, and I've tried to be clear about that. I am not able to tell whether it's their opinion or if they actually feel like they're objective facts; both are plausible to me, and I'm arguing that if they want people to understand which they mean, they need to be more specific. Otherwise, people will draw conclusions that may not align with their intent, and that's something they could avoid if they put more care into how they expressed it.

[didibus]

I think the issue is that the OP wasn’t giving an opinion. They stated things as facts. When you say “x is y” you’re making a truth claim, and people are going to challenge it if it sounds wrong or depends on context.

A lot of folks flip to “it’s just my opinion” only after they get pushback, but if you present something as a fact, it’s fair game to question it.

Like if someone says “apples taste bitter and have no flavor” that reads like a universal claim, so yeah people will argue. If you say “I find apples bitter and lacking flavor” that’s obviously personal taste and nobody is going to demand proof.

Nobody is asking for IMO everywhere. Just don’t frame opinions as facts or the other way around.