[HN Gopher] A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People
___________________________________________________________________
A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People
Author : NaOH
Score : 270 points
Date : 2025-04-24 22:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.swiss-miss.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.swiss-miss.com)
| bix6 wrote:
| "Having more people say, "We just want to make sure you can do
| your magic," is what the world needs."
|
| Amen to that!
|
| I've found early enthusiasm hard to come by. It really seems to
| pick up once others are onboard. But the initial 1-2 people make
| all the difference.
| conception wrote:
| This is a trick for event planning btw. Put up a "hey anyone
| wanna go to x?" Crickets. Quietly one on one find two or three
| people and then say "hey the four of us are doing x anyone else
| want in?" works a lot better. Most people want to know
| something is gonna succeed and avoid the risk of failure.
| rfl890 wrote:
| Thought this was the Swiss Miss (hot chocolate powder) website
| for a second
| dkh wrote:
| You can be a fan of that too if you want
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| Me too! I was like, what a weird timeline - wonder what a hot
| chocolate company leadership has to say in these "interesting"
| times.
|
| Good read though, thanks to OP for sharing!
| HanClinto wrote:
| This is so needed. This was a very encouraging article.
|
| "Being a fan is all about bringing the enthusiasm. It's being a
| champion of possibility. It's believing in someone. And it's
| contagious. When you're around someone who is super excited about
| something, it washes over you. It feels good. You can't help but
| want to bring the enthusiasm, too."
|
| Stands in contrast to the Hemingway quote: "Critics are men who
| watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the
| survivors."
|
| It feels socially safe, easy, and destructive to be a critic.
|
| I'd rather be a fan.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yes, but .. there is no worse critic than a _scorned_ fan.
| There 's a lot of fandoms all around the world, and while
| they're mostly harmless fun the edges can get weird and
| dangerous. Or when fandoms collide.
| HanClinto wrote:
| Not entirely sure what you mean. Care to expound?
|
| Are you talking about people who act out on their fandom by
| criticizing others? "Oh I'm a fan of X, therefore I'm a vocal
| critic of Y". I agree that such things are toxic -- fandom
| doesn't need to be a polemic.
|
| I want to cultivate the kind of fandom that builds up without
| feeling a need to tear down others.
| lukan wrote:
| I rather think he or she means gamers for example, who send
| out death threats, because the developers introduced a new
| thing they don't like.
| bombcar wrote:
| They're referring to "anti fans". You see it with online
| personalities especially; the most rabid fans (often
| parasocial, think online streaming) are the ones who will
| become the biggest detractors or anti fans.
|
| Most people are "oh that's fun to watch ok" and then when
| they don't like it anymore, they get bored and forget about
| it entirely.
|
| The anti-fans continue to follow it, but rabidly hate it.
|
| Think Syndrome from _Incredibles_. He 's always been the
| biggest fan.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Wasn't Selena killed by a scorned fan?
| zupatol wrote:
| There's a healthy way to be a critic, which is helping people
| find and enjoy works they didn't notice.
|
| There are also unhealthy ways of being a fan, for example if
| you admire someone there's probably someone else you despise.
| It's much better to follow the title of the post and believe in
| people in general.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I imagine being a healthy critic is a skill, something
| personal to be worked on.
|
| It's just so easy to be critical and even if you have good
| intentions, being critical can take the wind out of a
| dreamers sails.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I agree but, doesn't the world need critics?
|
| I think of a company where young inspired engineers want to
| build new things all the time.
|
| Their heart is in the right place but they need someone(s) to
| be respectfully critical since their efforts and time spent
| have very real impacts on the company.
| phkahler wrote:
| Critics maybe. Antagonists no.
| o11c wrote:
| I can't agree with this at all. There's something deeply
| wrong with the world if any form of opposition is
| considered problematic.
|
| Some variant of "the customer is always right" applies in
| the marketplace of ideas as well. People are allowed to
| have different preferences.
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| it's easier to image a dystopia than an eutopia, or even
| utopia, depending how you see it
| rayiner wrote:
| The world needs critics, people who say "that's stupid."
| Because Sturgeon's Law is real. 90% of everything is crap. So
| the people who calm everything crap, and help slow the
| enshitification of everything, serve a valuable social role.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| There is a big difference between thoughtful critics, and
| mindless cynics.
|
| I would argue that the latter accelerate enshitification.
|
| Criticism and Cynicism isnt restricted to change, but is
| also applied to the current state. Thinking the current
| state is shit and change is shit leads to decay.
| RankingMember wrote:
| I think the key distinction is between critics and cynics.
| Critics serve a purpose that provides value, whereas cynics
| are just all-around bummers who negatively impact the world
| around them.
| vunderba wrote:
| _> It feels socially safe, easy, and destructive to be a
| critic. I 'd rather be a fan._
|
| Trotting out absolute statements does no one any good. I could
| just as easily spin this on its head and say that it feels
| socially safe to always show blind enthusiasm for the latest
| trend lest you be labelled a "hater".
|
| It feels like we're just redefining critic to be synonymous
| with cynic. There's no reason that you can't simultaneously be
| both fan and a critic of X.
| MrJohz wrote:
| In fact, the best critics of something are often its biggest
| fans. Roger Ebert, for example, wrote some pretty critical
| pieces, but nobody can deny that he was driven primarily by a
| love of cinema. Or take politics: I've seen people complain
| that left-wing commentators were too critical of Biden when
| they should have been criticising Trump, but often it's
| easier -- and more useful -- to criticise the things you like
| in the hope that they will improve, rather than spending all
| your time criticising something you don't like that will
| never listen to you.
|
| That said, it's still important to take the time to sing the
| praises of something you like. If Ebert had spent all his
| time talking down bad films, reading his columns would have
| been painful drudgery (see also: CinemaSins, Nostalgia
| Critic, and similar attempts at film-criticism-by-cynicism).
| A good critic wants their target to succeed, and celebrates
| when that happens.
| RyanOD wrote:
| It is a real skill to critique a thing and not come off as
| complaining about it.
| memhole wrote:
| Very accurate description. I think this gets missed
| sometimes. Sometimes you're criticizing because you know a
| subject well and want to see it improved.
| atq2119 wrote:
| See also: code review
| tpmoney wrote:
| Two things I try to do in every code review:
|
| If I'm doing the review, I try to find at least one or
| two items to call out as great ideas/moves. Even if it's
| as simple as refactoring a minor pain point.
|
| If I'm being reviewed I always make sure to
| thank/compliment comments that either suggest something I
| genuinely didn't consider or catch a dumb move that isn't
| wrong but would be a minor pain point in the future.
|
| As you note, code reviews can be largely "negative
| feedback" systems, and I find encouraging even a small
| amount of positivity in the process keeps it from
| becoming soul sucking
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| If you're a real critic, absolutely. But most of what passes
| for criticism today is just hindsight dressed up as insight.
| It ignores the fact that choices are made in a fog, assumes
| outcomes were inevitable, and retroactively assigns blame. It
| feels like scorekeeping not being a rational/fair critic.
| lanyard-textile wrote:
| The absolute irony of this comment :)
| deadbabe wrote:
| Irony is often the language of truth.
| jasondigitized wrote:
| Oh the irony - Sometimes people need to stfu and root for
| something without pointing out how it could be better.
| "Awesome! Did you think about..... STFU!"
| gyomu wrote:
| Feels like engaging with the logic and content of an
| argument is more in the spirit of this website than
| replying "stfu".
| Jensson wrote:
| > Oh the irony - Sometimes people need to stfu and root for
| something without pointing out how it could be better.
| "Awesome! Did you think about..... STFU!"
|
| There are many such people already, there are also many
| haters, and many people in the middle. This diversity is
| how humanity managed to get this far, we need all of them.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I always liked Brendan Behan's quote:
|
| _"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it 's
| done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do
| it themselves."_
| nthingtohide wrote:
| Critics could be experts of past era who have seen it all and
| are now seeing the same mistakes being repeated.
|
| Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But
| since no one was listening, everything must be said again. --
| Andre Gide
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Love that quote!
|
| Thanks!
| watwut wrote:
| Harems did not had much of heterosexual sex going on in them.
| Whole point was gender segregation. Eunuch in harem have seen
| women, but did not seen them having sex with men.
| bigbadfeline wrote:
| Behan's criticism of critics then makes him an eunuch who's
| criticizing eunuchs... according to his own "logic".
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Feeling good about shit all the time isn't practical and it
| indicates a lack of individual, refined taste. Its ok to like
| things that you like and dislike things others like and one
| should be able to hold their own opinions without influence
| from the crowd.
| throwup238 wrote:
| That's an amazing quote. I recently just started going to some
| LA Kings hockey games with my family for the first time, so
| this hits close to home.
|
| I played high school sports (with a three day hospital stay for
| a serious concussion to show for it - thanks, football), but
| I've never been a fan of watching sportsball on TV unless it's
| a social gathering like Superbowl parties. I've generally had a
| low opinion of people who cared about their city's teams and
| all the useless competitiveness that goes along with it.
|
| But being there, in the stadium around all the other fans?
| _Fucking electrifying._ I celebrated, I jeered, I cried, I
| booed Edmonton, I cursed the refs, I complained about the
| stadium food and the line for the men 's bathroom, and I was
| probably the loudest person in the 318 section of the Staples
| center. I almost fell over the glass boards onto the ESPN
| newscasters during Wednesday's game on the fourth goal. Too
| much overpriced beer plus standing up to wave the "Built for
| This" towels too fast.
|
| I still don't give a flying fuck about the Kings or Lakers or
| Clippers or whatever, but I am definitely going to enjoy going
| to their games and feeling the energy. The exact words my mom
| used were "I've never seen this side of you."
|
| WE WANT SKINNER!!!
| keybored wrote:
| A top-of-thread subthread complaining about critics on the
| topic of believing in people.
|
| We didn't last long.
| igorkraw wrote:
| I really believe in the importance of praising people and
| acknowledging their efforts, when they are kind and good human
| beings and (to much lesser degree) their successes.
|
| But, and I mean their without snark: What value is your praise
| for what is good if I cannot trust that you will be critical of
| what is bad? Note that critique can be unpleasant but kind, and
| I don't care for "brutal honesty" (which is much more about the
| brutality than the honesty in most cases).
|
| But whether it's the joint Slavic-german culture or something
| else, I much prefer for things to be _appropriate_, _kind_ and
| _earnest_ instead of just supportive or positive. Real love is
| despite a flaw, in full cognizance if it, not ignoring them.
| paulpauper wrote:
| It's so hard to to believe in people or have a positive opinion
| of them when much of my interactions are negative. Or when
| people who embody the opposite of goodness are promoted and
| have status. It's like we live in a society in which
| mediocrity, borderline sociopathy, and meanness are rewarded.
| Unless you're Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, but there is a huge
| middle where people who are competent, smart, and do the right
| things do not get the promotion or recognition they deserve or
| are entitled to. It's like you have to super-brilliant to have
| any hope , or just lucky. No room for the hard-working middle.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| Not only is "it" not needed, "being a fan" is pervasive to a
| detrimental extent. "posio-paths" are everywhere and are
| basically the default. In order to say something correct, make
| a correction, or present a counter-factual you have to layer
| your tone with a thousand feel-goodism's and niceties.
|
| Otherwise you just get labeled as a hater, a contrarian, or
| worse - a critic. It's exhausting. People confuse being direct,
| dry, or taking a level-tone with dispassion, disinterest, or
| again being a "hater."
|
| I would even say I've seen so many people being "super excited"
| about something that it's the opposite of contagious for me, it
| causes me to doubt how knowledgeable or sincere they are about
| the subject (whether it's a general topic or even a person).
|
| We have too much fake-niceness, and we are over-enthused quite
| often on things that turn out to be nothing, at least in the
| U.S. We don't need more of it, at least IMO.
| felixarba wrote:
| This was wonderful. The choice to be a fan is within us all.
| svelle wrote:
| I had a manager and mentor who was a fan of me. It felt amazing
| having someone who is _actually_ rooting for you. Him cheering me
| on and giving me constructive feedback and building me up in a
| way no one did before that has fundamentally changed my
| professional and private personality, hopefully in a good way.
| pmkary wrote:
| I had too, and it was the only reason I was with that company.
| patcon wrote:
| This woman founded Creative Mornings, which has been one of my
| most well-respected and beloved quasi-centralised organizations
| (I tend to have a bias for loving humane decentralized/horizontal
| orgs/movements, and Creative Mornings struck a delightful balance
| between order and chaos)
| briankelly wrote:
| Very glad to see an active chapter near me - sounds awesome and
| I plan on checking it out.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| What we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place.
| Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled
| upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A
| man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about
| the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a
| man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to
| assert--himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought
| not to doubt--the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility
| content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble
| that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if
| we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our
| time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our
| time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous
| humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old
| humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a
| nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old
| humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make
| him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about
| his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.
|
| (quoted)
| nathan_compton wrote:
| This seems like Chesterton to me. Good writer, but I take
| exception to his world view. We should simply doubt that which
| is warranted to doubt and be confident in that which warrants
| confidence. If modern people doubt truths more than people used
| to, perhaps its because those so-called truths aren't so
| obvious as some people would have you believe.
|
| "But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims,
| which will make him stop working altogether."
|
| This just fundamentally misunderstands what aims are. They can
| neither be doubted or correct. I can doubt empirically, or
| epistemologically, but I can't doubt that I want to eat a
| doughnut or that I want to be healthy or that I want a world
| with less cruelty in it. It's a waste of time and energy to
| doubt these things, although I can try to line up all my
| desires and figure out how they stack up with one another when
| I try to make plans, the efficacy of which is in the realm of
| the believable. I can look at other people's actions, try to
| determine their desires, and decide whether to assist them or
| interfere with them or fight them, but when I do this its not a
| cosmic battle about truths. Its just two people acting out on
| their desires in a shared world.
| dayvigo wrote:
| > I can't doubt that I want to eat a doughnut or that I want
| to be healthy or that I want a world with less cruelty in it.
|
| The common case of the smoker (or someone around them)
| doubting whether they "really" want to quit cigarettes or
| not, after claiming they do want to quit and will quit, and
| then failing to do so, shows this is coherent though. It's
| just not applicable to the two examples you gave, because
| that's not what is meant.
| roarkeful wrote:
| Having quit nicotine, I can say that it's simply a matter
| of wanting to quit. I do love smoking still, and have a
| pipe or a cigar roughly every two weeks, but my half-a-tin
| of 12mg nicotine pouches a day habit is gone.
|
| I miss it, and I didn't _want_ to quit, but it was
| financially a little silly and that much nicotine causes
| health effects. You can _desire_ to stop something but also
| not want to. It seems fair to allow both to be true.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| The thing that makes you different from the beasts is that
| you believe that there is a way things ought to be,
| regardless of how they are. You can view your desire to eat a
| doughnut separate from your prescriptive belief of whether
| you ought to eat the donut. You can beliefe that you ought
| not to eat the donut even though you want to, you can beleive
| that you ought to eat the donut even if you don't want to.
| You can even believe that you ought not hold any beliefs
| regarding what you ought to eat based on your desires to eat
| it.
|
| Accepting that prescriptive beliefs exists, the claim by
| Chesterton is quite simply factual. It would be much truer to
| say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in
| himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin;
| complete self-confidence is a weakness.
|
| The question as to what prescriptive beliefs we ought to hold
| is another matter, and one Chesterton has dealt with
| masterfully.
|
| (quoted)
|
| When I had written this down, I felt once again the presence
| of something else in the discussion: as a man hears a church
| bell above the sound of the street. Something seemed to be
| saying, "My ideal at least is fixed; for it was fixed before
| the foundations of the world. My vision of perfection
| assuredly cannot be altered; for it is called Eden. You may
| alter the place to which you are going; but you cannot alter
| the place from which you have come. To the orthodox there
| must always be a case for revolution; for in the hearts of
| men God has been put under the feet of Satan. In the upper
| world hell once rebelled against heaven. But in this world
| heaven is rebelling against hell. For the orthodox there can
| always be a revolution; for a revolution is a restoration. At
| any instant you may strike a blow for the perfection which no
| man has seen since Adam. No unchanging custom, no changing
| evolution can make the original good any thing but good. Man
| may have had concubines as long as cows have had horns: still
| they are not a part of him if they are sinful. Men may have
| been under oppression ever since fish were under water; still
| they ought not to be, if oppression is sinful. The chain may
| seem as natural to the slave, or the paint to the harlot, as
| does the plume to the bird or the burrow to the fox; still
| they are not, if they are sinful. I lift my prehistoric
| legend to defy all your history. Your vision is not merely a
| fixture: it is a fact." I paused to note the new coincidence
| of Christianity: but I passed on.
| dkarl wrote:
| > But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims,
| which will make him stop working altogether
|
| Chesterton is just giving clever voice to the eternal
| prediction that the decline of traditional morals will produce
| a fundamental degeneration of humanity. T.H. Huxley, who had
| been dead for over ten years when Chesterton wrote this, was a
| wildly successful person, an eminent scientist, prolific
| author, and public figure. But these predictions are eternally
| about a _coming_ collapse. It didn 't matter that Chesterton's
| exemplar of the "new humility" had been one of the most shining
| examples of ambition and fruitful labor of the 19th century. He
| could still predict that Huxley's ideas would reduce the _next_
| generation to helpless ineffectualness. And even after three of
| Huxley 's grandchildren became eminent public figures in the
| 20th century, there will be people who read this and find it a
| compelling prediction about the 21st century.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| > Chesterton is just giving clever voice to the eternal
| prediction that the decline of traditional morals will
| produce a fundamental degeneration of humanity.
|
| No.
|
| (quoted)
|
| We have remarked that one reason offered for being a
| progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better. But
| the only real reason for being a progressive is that things
| naturally tend to grow worse. The corruption in things is not
| only the best argument for being progressive; it is also the
| only argument against being conservative. The conservative
| theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable if it
| were not for this one fact. But all conservatism is based
| upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them
| as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you
| leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post
| alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want
| it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is,
| you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want
| the old white post you must have a new white post. But this
| which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special
| and terrible sense true of all human things. An almost
| unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because
| of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow
| old. It is the custom in passing romance and journalism to
| talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact,
| men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under
| tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years
| before. Thus England went mad with joy over the patriotic
| monarchy of Elizabeth; and then (almost immediately
| afterwards) went mad with rage in the trap of the tyranny of
| Charles the First. So, again, in France the monarchy became
| intolerable, not just after it had been tolerated, but just
| after it had been adored. The son of Louis the well-beloved
| was Louis the guillotined. So in the same way in England in
| the nineteenth century the Radical manufacturer was entirely
| trusted as a mere tribune of the people, until suddenly we
| heard the cry of the Socialist that he was a tyrant eating
| the people like bread. So again, we have almost up to the
| last instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public
| opinion. Just recently some of us have seen (not slowly, but
| with a start) that they are obviously nothing of the kind.
| They are, by the nature of the case, the hobbies of a few
| rich men. We have not any need to rebel against antiquity; we
| have to rebel against novelty. It is the new rulers, the
| capitalist or the editor, who really hold up the modern
| world. There is no fear that a modern king will attempt to
| override the constitution; it is more likely that he will
| ignore the constitution and work behind its back; he will
| take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely that
| he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the
| fact that he is free from criticism and publicity. For the
| king is the most private person of our time. It will not be
| necessary for any one to fight again against the proposal of
| a censorship of the press. We do not need a censorship of the
| press. We have a censorship by the press.
|
| ---
|
| The pagans had always adored purity: Athena, Artemis, Vesta.
| It was when the virgin martyrs began defiantly to practice
| purity that they rent them with wild beasts, and rolled them
| on red-hot coals. The world had always loved the notion of
| the poor man uppermost; it can be proved by every legend from
| Cinderella to Whittington, by every poem from the Magnificat
| to the Marseillaise. The kings went mad against France not
| because she idealized this ideal, but because she realized
| it. Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia quite agreed
| that the people should rule; what horrified them was that the
| people did. The French Revolution, therefore, is the type of
| all true revolutions, because its ideal is as old as the Old
| Adam, but its fulfilment almost as fresh, as miraculous, and
| as new as the New Jerusalem.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've always been a fan of enthusiasm. I find many people react
| badly to it, though; especially in tech. We have a lot of
| curmudgeons.
| fullshark wrote:
| We've become jaded by phony enthusiasm or people hijacking it
| for their own purposes. I agree it's bad, but this industry
| does seem to run on the enthusiasm of naive 20-40 year olds,
| the end result of that is many jaded 40+ year old curmudgeons.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| What I have encountered, is a bit different.
|
| There's a fetching shade of gray, to my well-coiffed
| pompadour, and I find many younger folks are almost
| immediately hostile, before I've even had a chance to give
| them a reason to be.
|
| Speaking only for myself, I am _very_ enthusiastic about all
| kinds of things, and devote a great deal of effort towards
| helping folks out. There's reasons for that, which is a story
| for another time. Suffice it to say that I've seen darker
| times, and that can add a lot of shine, to what others take
| for granted.
|
| That said, I've also seen quite a bit of life, and have
| learned where a lot of the claymores are planted, so some of
| that "helping folks out," is mentioning things like "Are you
| _sure_ you want to pet that rattling snake?".
| layer8 wrote:
| Sometimes that comes with most of the things you were
| enthusiastic for ending up far from fulfilling their promise.
| spyrefused wrote:
| They often seem to me to be two sides of the same coin:
| fanaticism becomes curmudgeonly with what does not coincide
| with your fanaticism.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I think it's the curse of being online. Most IRL based social
| groups in every culture I've been in subconsciously filter out
| cynics. These folks often feel disenfranchised IRL and
| congregate online instead. Their presence crowds out non-
| cynics, who then leave. These online communities then
| reorganize around cynical baselines.
|
| Apparently Threads had made a decision earlier on to
| deprioritize negative and charged political topics because of
| Meta's belief in this negative flywheel.
|
| (I'd rather not go into a discussion about Meta itself in
| replies here because I find those discussions on HN to be
| highly unproductive, and I won't respond to comments regarding
| them.)
|
| EDIT: r/Coronavirus on Reddit was a great place to observe
| evidence of this flywheel. My partner started using it when she
| felt really depressed during lockdown restrictions. All the
| content on the sub was about how the world was irreparably
| broken and how society as we know it was about to come to an
| end. Commenters were clamoring for humanity to be cleansed.
| Then news of the vaccines came out. At first nobody on the sub
| believed it would work. But when efficacy numbers were
| released, the tone of the sub changed quickly and the sub
| started having a lot fewer people posting to it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Huh, I was going to post the opposite. We have enough
| enthusiasm and True Believers in tech work, especially in the
| USA where even PR pieces read "We are so excited to
| announce..."
|
| We may or may not have enough critics/curmudgeons, but whether
| they are there or not, they certainly don't seem to rise into
| leadership roles where they can use their discernment and
| wisdom to steer better and to stop terrible projects. I know in
| my company, the top ranks are all filed with beaming excitement
| and positivity about everything, and everything we are doing is
| great, and we are so confident in this, and excited about
| that...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I don't consider that "real" enthusiasm, though.
|
| It's "cargo-cult enthusiasm," where they believe that keeping
| an almost manic level of energy will magically transcend the
| bourgeoisie prison of reality, and poop out rainbow unicorn
| turds.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I think the best thing I get out of social media such as Mastodon
| and Bluesky is finding people who get enthusiastic about me --
| when somebody discovers my profile and then I see they read
| everything I've posted in the last month and they favorite 20% of
| it, I know I have a fan.
|
| I know those folks exist on HN but HNers are more reserved and I
| only find out about them when they stand up for me against the
| haters.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I stand with Houle
| bicepjai wrote:
| I love the take on fandom, this is how I would want it. While
| this article portrays fandom as a pure, innocent and positive
| force, my experience shows it can have a darker side. In places
| like South India, fandom often evolves: fandom becomes factions,
| factions become gangs, gangs become political groups, and
| political groups become dynasties or kingdoms. This cycle limits
| leadership diversity and negatively impact governance and
| society. IMHO fandom isn't always innocent; it can wield
| significant social and political influence, for better or worse.
| Note: written with gpt4o
| neilv wrote:
| > _Note: written with gpt4o_
|
| Good points, but I hope you had your own thoughts, and wrote
| your own words. And that this tacked on at the end was a joke.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Linked article above broken for me; this one works:
|
| https://creativemornings.com/blog/a-love-letter-to-the-peopl...
| gavin_gee wrote:
| so wholesome. what a great day to have found this blog.
| badmonster wrote:
| What a beautiful tribute to the power of enthusiasm and belief in
| others
| Havoc wrote:
| Also, people that don't have an adversarial bone in their body.
| They just want everyone to be happy and succeed.
|
| A lot of people reckon that applies to them, but the real deal is
| pretty scarce in my experience.
|
| Always find people like that inspiring.
| aerhardt wrote:
| I like people like that too, but surely the world and more
| narrowly the human experience also benefit from having people
| that are competitive or even disagreeable?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Mostly, yes, but I think at its core, the world benefits from
| honesty more than out right agreeable- or disagreeableness.
| We should speak up when we feel the need to agree or
| disagree, but we shouldn't play devil's advocate for the sake
| of it.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| You can be competitive and supportive of your enemies.
| pbsladek wrote:
| Shared with my team. Lovely read.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Reminds me of the _Pygmalion effect_ [0].
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect
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