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by Karn 4721 days ago
I'm glad Linus isn't budging on this one. As soon as you start considering how not to hurt someone's feelings, you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts. If something is fucking stupid, then someone needs to say exactly that, not "That's a good idea, but it seems to me and my mealy mouth that such and such may be another way of doing it...?"

The fact that the hacker community is full of mean gits is no coincidence. Let's consider where the opposite type of people (the ones who'll smile charmingly while stabbing you in the back) congregate - HR, PR, management, politics - all fields where creativity is less important than manipulativeness.

I'll take a brutally honest genius over a charming "socially intelligent" liar any day.
2 comments
groby_b 4721 days ago
There's nothing wrong with "That's a really bad idea, and here's why". There's everything wrong with "THAT IDEA IS FUCKING STUPID. YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT".

Do you really think the only way to communicate a mistake is like this: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 ?

And Linus is perfectly capable of giving a more reasoned response while still being direct: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/99 (same thread, Linus' reply to a reasoned response from yelled at developer)

Still pretty direct, but gone are the insults. Nobody has been asking for a sugar coating, but simply for Linus to stop being personally abusive.

Yes, people make mistakes. Really stupid mistakes. But if you think they're idiots, don't accept their contributions. If you don't think they're idiots, why call them that just because you can't control your anger?

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Karn 4721 days ago
And here we see the pitfalls of fuzzy thinking. There is all the difference between "that's a stupid idea" and "you're an idiot."
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thejsjunky 4721 days ago
> you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts.

I would argue that for many of the people I have met in my life, this would be a good thing. I don't we need to coddle each other all the time, but neither is the opposite workable or desirable - a little consideration is important.

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