Comment by digi59404

Id guess by your smile there is an element of humor in your response, so this isn't a rebuttal, but rather i identified a lot with your point, and I was thinking that this is such a human response to vulnerability.

If it was guaranteed that it will not be abused or that I would regret it, it would not _be_ vulnerable. Just like its not bravery if I am not afraid or I am assured of my safety. Such a paradox. Being vulnerable for me is acknowledging that it might have an increased probability of a more negative outcome, but still trying to be vulnerable because of the huge connection unlocks that (often) occur in my experience.

On balance intellectually i am coming to see the expected value from being vulnerable in communications is high, but my little lizard brain keeps saying to me "what if you get hurt though" and being closed off haha. its an exercise to shut it up.

Yeah. As phrased it is bad advice - nobody actually needs to be "vulnerable". Everyone should be in a headspace where they might actually change their mind rather than persuade the counterparty, which feels like vulnerability to people who define themselves by their own beliefs. The trick is not to do that; a person isn't their beliefs. People have beliefs, but those can change. They're still a person both before and after the change (which sounds a bit ridiculous to have to say, but by observation some people don't seem to believe it to be true).

There is no guarantee of this. The only guarantee is that if you put yourself in a vulnerable state, and someone abuses that, you now know their true intentions and can adjust accordingly.

I am biased in this answer on vulnerability, and I know it. I’ve lived a full life. I’ve nearly died multiple times, one instance was on my knees with a SWAT Team standing behind me with rifles pointed at back.

When you’ve lived through such events your risk calculus changes. Things that seemed terrible like being fired or laid off, tend to feel not as insurmountable or scary.

I say this to outline my bias, but also add evidence to my view on vulnerability. I’ve seen both sides, and while being concerned about abuse when vulnerable is a concern that should be seriously considered.. often people who are forced to make that decision miss the other part. The audience.

Vulnerability will almost always grant you the favor of the audience. If you work a job with half decent people, being vulnerable and abused when exposed will cause leadership to side with you. In my experience, most people are decent and want to cause the least harm to others in personal and intimate settings. So being vulnerable is almost always a win, even if it’s not the win you want.

And the place/scenario in which you’re purposefully vulnerable results in abuse/neglect without recourse for action… well.. then unfortunately you’ll know that situation is untenable and unlikely to change. So you can react accordingly.

Without effort there is rarely a big effort. You have to listen to achieve better results. If you don't listen, your results will be misaligned. Unfortunately no one can guarantee that you won't be abused. You have to ask yourself if the risk of being abused is worth the result (typical result: bigger money for a better program).

I was the yielding type, not speaking up, letting others take charge. In my experience, it's not always worth it, especially if you care about the thing you are working on. I went so far as to just dissociate from everything and distance myself from others. The problem is that people deserve your honest opinion if you care about them, even if it's not what they want to hear. But it's so hard to spend mental energy to listen, correct, try to prove your point... even if you succeed, they will resent you for it.

Still a good thing to mention as lots of people think they can continue arguing and convince someone else. That always ends up in a fight.

Though one strategy I've learned is I'll explicitly tell people what will change my mind. I think this has a few benefits.

  1) it helps *me* avoid being too stubborn and ensure my mind *can* be changed [0]
  2) it helps the other person know what to focus on and direct their arguments [1]
  3) it signals to the other person that I'm making a good effort and encourages them to do the same

It's not bulletproof, nothing is, but I find it helpful. When it's not helpful I find it is informative about the type of conversation I'm having. It's far more likely to fail on the internet than in person, which I think says something...

[0] were always, to some degree, wrong. So your mind should always be able to be changed. You're not omniscient

[1] often we talk past one another rather than against. Because we have different base assumptions that have been... assumed... and so we assume this assumption is shared. That's often a point of breakdown

I believe you’re right, it’s not great to assume this beforehand. Many things are negotiable, but there are a whole lot of things that aren’t.

When you’re faced with convincing someone of $TruthA or $FactA and one of those two collides with a persons worldview, makes them uncomfortable, or causes them pain. Sometimes that truth or fact will be thrown out because of its ramifications.

For example, if we’re in Iowa, and you prove to me that plastic straws don’t kill turtles.. but as a kid my first trip to the ocean resulted in seeing a dead turtle die to a straw. It’s going to be very difficult for me to believe otherwise.

My statement about a person not accepting something because they won’t want too… is less about them.. and more about the person trying to argue/explain/etc.

It’s important to identify when a topic won’t be accepted by an individual and to move on. It’s something I’ve struggled with in life. If you don’t identify it, you can risk overstaying your welcome. Which can lead to losing a trusted advisor status. It’s far better to keep the trusted advisor status and tackle the issue another time.

You don’t have to assume it, but you should be more than prepared for it to be the case

Well people love to try even though they always fail. It's a fun challenge to change someone's mind.

More than that, sometimes one side doesn’t want to accept something because everything they know about it says it’s wrong. Then they’re faced with evidence and reason prevails.

I usually have very strong opinions but try to hold on to them very loosely. It happened that I was convinced with evidence that I am right and refused to accept any alternative until new evidence slapped me in the face. At that point knowledge and discussion made me accept something I had previously thought preposterous, sometimes to the point of outright dismissing any conversation, this is how preposterous the proposition sounded at first sight.

What I want to say is that if you don’t know your audience, if you don’t know for sure your attempts are fruitless, it’s always worth a shot to use your knowledge in a discussion and let the other party digest that and see if it that moves the needle.

What a privilige it must be to be able to have a job where you can stand up and leave when your psyche can't handle it. Ever done tech support for ten hours a day? :)

When I lost my faith I was frequently engaged in debate by my friends and family. I was eager and willing to try and argue for the logical and moral necessity of atheism. It was never productive.

Eventually, when someone would ask me to engage in debate I would start by saying, "Is there anything you can think of that I could say that would possible make you lose your faith or decide I was right?"

The answer to this question was always "no, it is impossible for me to lose my faith". My next question was always "then what would be the point of debating?"

This was also never productive. But it was efficient.

Let us know how that goes, telling someone who is defending themself from you how they should "Be More Vulnerable!"

> You must be in a position to be convinced yourself, in order to be convincing.

This claim is demonstrably untrue.

Do you believe that a written argument cannot be convincing? Or do you believe that when you read a written argument, your beliefs can somehow be transmitted back to the author, even if the author is long dead, and be convincing in that author’s mind?

OK Nomad!