Just discovered your substack. Being an octogenarian, I generally skip these emails, but happily I have found yours. What fun! Especially the irreverence, love it!
I've noticed that there are a whole swath of behaviors like this. I really appreciate you writing about this. It feels like there's two sets of behaviors that people do that they think of as political dialog. One is about feeling good or even genuine self care. The other is about getting things done. But the one about feeling good _feels good_! And so there's a tendency to do it even when it's actively working against getting things done.
ITYS seems like a very good example of this. But I also feel like it's the tip of the iceberg. Self care should be done among friends, not while trying to persuade undecideds or persuadable opponents. And definitely not through yelling at unpersuadable opponents.
Totally agree. Have to remind myself of this frequently. Also I try to keep in mind Proverbs 24:17-18: “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, And let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, And he turn away his wrath from him.”
"my frustration that too many people are incompetent or bad at their jobs. Not wrong! I want people to be excellent!"
Yeah, I think that's a personality type. My wife and I are both this way -- "it would have been easier to do it right!" And any place I have even a little experience makes it even rougher, e.g., when eating out I have a Spider Sense for a waiter or busperson screwing up.
I realized today, when our Well Guy was here for a service call, that pretty much every person (well guy, plumber, electrician) are the sorts of handy + curious people that I feel like I could turn into a coder (what I do) in a week.
The question is what to do that not everybody is this way and vibrates at a lower frequency? And not just the incompetent, there's also your friend who's probably totally competent but is saying, "Turn it down to like a nine at least please because you're stressing me out". I feel like finding the calmness to not turn those people off is a key in actually winning an argument about the incompetent.
Well, it's more of a theory because I never have been able to and everyone just gets upset and misses my point about how this thing could have been done better. Which is how I got fired from teaching kindergarten.
When the extent to which the average public actually comprehend a subject is basically, "I heard it on TV, it was my favorite TV personality, who I trust and love, it sounded good to me (the marketing message hit the target), so I've formed my opinion on the matter," I believe there will be a commensurate cohort of people who simply cannot debate a topic on its merits and therefor resort to "I told you so" and my favorite "shouldn't you be spending your time on something more important."
I'll try not to ITYS too hard when everyone finally realizes Twitter is a bad place best avoided.
Just discovered your substack. Being an octogenarian, I generally skip these emails, but happily I have found yours. What fun! Especially the irreverence, love it!
I've noticed that there are a whole swath of behaviors like this. I really appreciate you writing about this. It feels like there's two sets of behaviors that people do that they think of as political dialog. One is about feeling good or even genuine self care. The other is about getting things done. But the one about feeling good _feels good_! And so there's a tendency to do it even when it's actively working against getting things done.
ITYS seems like a very good example of this. But I also feel like it's the tip of the iceberg. Self care should be done among friends, not while trying to persuade undecideds or persuadable opponents. And definitely not through yelling at unpersuadable opponents.
I think this is one more thing where the problem is more Twitter/X (and honestly all
algorithmic social media) than the behavior itself. In real life people don’t usually do this unless they have a clear reason.
Totally agree. Have to remind myself of this frequently. Also I try to keep in mind Proverbs 24:17-18: “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, And let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, And he turn away his wrath from him.”
"my frustration that too many people are incompetent or bad at their jobs. Not wrong! I want people to be excellent!"
Yeah, I think that's a personality type. My wife and I are both this way -- "it would have been easier to do it right!" And any place I have even a little experience makes it even rougher, e.g., when eating out I have a Spider Sense for a waiter or busperson screwing up.
I realized today, when our Well Guy was here for a service call, that pretty much every person (well guy, plumber, electrician) are the sorts of handy + curious people that I feel like I could turn into a coder (what I do) in a week.
The question is what to do that not everybody is this way and vibrates at a lower frequency? And not just the incompetent, there's also your friend who's probably totally competent but is saying, "Turn it down to like a nine at least please because you're stressing me out". I feel like finding the calmness to not turn those people off is a key in actually winning an argument about the incompetent.
Well, it's more of a theory because I never have been able to and everyone just gets upset and misses my point about how this thing could have been done better. Which is how I got fired from teaching kindergarten.
Sorry I missed a detail: every tradesperson I have wound up relying on is someone you could call in any crisis.
When the extent to which the average public actually comprehend a subject is basically, "I heard it on TV, it was my favorite TV personality, who I trust and love, it sounded good to me (the marketing message hit the target), so I've formed my opinion on the matter," I believe there will be a commensurate cohort of people who simply cannot debate a topic on its merits and therefor resort to "I told you so" and my favorite "shouldn't you be spending your time on something more important."
see??