Either way, that’s not feigning surprise. Odd to call it that. What they are saying is when you are surprised somebody didn’t know something, don’t let it show.
The reason we call it "feigning surprise", is that the surprise is pretty rarely genuine. It's an interaction people have more-or-less-unthinkingly practiced throughout their lives to keep the out-group separated from the in-group
This is a sharply negative interpretation of behavior of people who may be acting genuinely, if without social grace. I think few people shocked that you don't know bash are displaying that surprise as a way to keep you in the out-group - I think they are surprised.
I would argue that the real in-group/out-group behavior is excluding people who aren't naturally adept at being social.
People doing that are doing it intentionally, and they aren't going to follow your rule.
People who are open to listening are not pretending to be surprised in order to put somebody down. They are actually surprised and (perhaps) unintentionally hurting somebody. If that somebody is hurt, they need to ask themselves which hurts more, having somebody surprised you didn't know something (aka they think you are smart), or being unsurprised you are ignorant of something (aka they think you don't know stuff).
I think so. Maybe dang or tomhow could switch the link :)
The social rules work so well that I wish tech cos would just adopt these as baseline. They make interacting with other technical folks much more enjoyable.
I really enjoyed her talk "Making Difficult Things Easy"[1]. She's got a real talent for taking complex technical subjects, recognising the difficulties in understanding them, and explaining them back in a friendly way that doesn't mystify them. Almost the opposite of the modern IT industry.
I know she seems to be popular enough on HN, and I’ll admit I don’t know her in any capacity other than what posts I occasionally see here, which are innocent enough.
That said, her bluesky or mastodon profile leads with “I have DMs muted from people I don’t follow”, which just rubs me in such a wrong way. The vibe is “don’t be confused: communication is for me to give and you to receive, and NOT the other way around”.
I’m sure she has her reasons (presumably weird/angry onliners), but this - and in particular its digital real estate indicating it’s one of two facts you need to know about her - feels like the digital equivalent to checking out at the grocery store with headphones on: “I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you.”
Just makes me feel sad seeing things like that, and I don’t know that I resonate with being happy to share a planet with people with such world views. They certainly don’t seem happy to share it with me.
This is something that a lot of celebrities have to do (I have actually known a number, over the years).
One thing about living a life, where you share a lot of personal information, is that people tend to create close relationships that are entirely one-way.
In many ways, this benefits the celebrity, because they get rich/famous from it, but it can also lead to some fairly serious consequences. I was just reading yesterday, about some young lady that had to get a really toothy restraining order against a nutter that keeps trying to break into her house.
Many of these folks are really "people people," and the need to restrict access truly bothers them, but it's basically a requirement for their life.
On the other hand we can't even have DMs on Hacker News because the feature is considered hostile and disruptive and many people don't even bother to put contact information in their profile. Her rules for discussion seem no more limiting than HN's own guidelines, which are extremely tone policed.
I can't hold it against her - it isn't the 1990s anymore, the entire web has become an aggressively toxic space and one has to curate everything nowadays.
The concept of not feigning surprise may be related to the linked xkcd comic, but I don’t see any indication that it’s the “original”, and I downvoted several comments that seemed keen to steal thunder from the post by trying to frame it as just a rehash of a popular comic.
Either way, that’s not feigning surprise. Odd to call it that. What they are saying is when you are surprised somebody didn’t know something, don’t let it show.
So “feign unsurprise.”
The reason we call it "feigning surprise", is that the surprise is pretty rarely genuine. It's an interaction people have more-or-less-unthinkingly practiced throughout their lives to keep the out-group separated from the in-group
This is a sharply negative interpretation of behavior of people who may be acting genuinely, if without social grace. I think few people shocked that you don't know bash are displaying that surprise as a way to keep you in the out-group - I think they are surprised.
I would argue that the real in-group/out-group behavior is excluding people who aren't naturally adept at being social.
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People doing that are doing it intentionally, and they aren't going to follow your rule.
People who are open to listening are not pretending to be surprised in order to put somebody down. They are actually surprised and (perhaps) unintentionally hurting somebody. If that somebody is hurt, they need to ask themselves which hurts more, having somebody surprised you didn't know something (aka they think you are smart), or being unsurprised you are ignorant of something (aka they think you don't know stuff).
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> What they are saying is when you are surprised somebody didn’t know something, don’t let it show.
Thats about 50% of what they’re saying. The name comes from the other half.
Oops, yes! Thank you!
I think so. Maybe dang or tomhow could switch the link :)
The social rules work so well that I wish tech cos would just adopt these as baseline. They make interacting with other technical folks much more enjoyable.
related: https://xkcd.com/1053/
edit:rhplus beat me to it
I think there's an xkcd, with the same thing.
I really enjoy sharing a planet with Ms. Evans. She seems to be a genuinely decent person, and we could always use more of those.
I really enjoyed her talk "Making Difficult Things Easy"[1]. She's got a real talent for taking complex technical subjects, recognising the difficulties in understanding them, and explaining them back in a friendly way that doesn't mystify them. Almost the opposite of the modern IT industry.
[1] https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/10/06/new-talk--making-hard-things...
I know she seems to be popular enough on HN, and I’ll admit I don’t know her in any capacity other than what posts I occasionally see here, which are innocent enough.
That said, her bluesky or mastodon profile leads with “I have DMs muted from people I don’t follow”, which just rubs me in such a wrong way. The vibe is “don’t be confused: communication is for me to give and you to receive, and NOT the other way around”.
I’m sure she has her reasons (presumably weird/angry onliners), but this - and in particular its digital real estate indicating it’s one of two facts you need to know about her - feels like the digital equivalent to checking out at the grocery store with headphones on: “I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you.”
Just makes me feel sad seeing things like that, and I don’t know that I resonate with being happy to share a planet with people with such world views. They certainly don’t seem happy to share it with me.
This is something that a lot of celebrities have to do (I have actually known a number, over the years).
One thing about living a life, where you share a lot of personal information, is that people tend to create close relationships that are entirely one-way.
In many ways, this benefits the celebrity, because they get rich/famous from it, but it can also lead to some fairly serious consequences. I was just reading yesterday, about some young lady that had to get a really toothy restraining order against a nutter that keeps trying to break into her house.
Many of these folks are really "people people," and the need to restrict access truly bothers them, but it's basically a requirement for their life.
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She's not DMing you, is she?
On the other hand we can't even have DMs on Hacker News because the feature is considered hostile and disruptive and many people don't even bother to put contact information in their profile. Her rules for discussion seem no more limiting than HN's own guidelines, which are extremely tone policed.
I can't hold it against her - it isn't the 1990s anymore, the entire web has become an aggressively toxic space and one has to curate everything nowadays.
XKCD: 10,000 people learn something “everyone knows” every day:
https://xkcd.com/1053/
Hmm... the reactions to this post are rather revealing about the HN community.
One quite positive, and sharing an excellent link (thanks).
One neutral, and sharing the xkcd link I referenced (thanks).
A couple of anonymous downvotes. I assume because it says something positive about someone, and we'll have none of that, here, thank you very much.
The concept of not feigning surprise may be related to the linked xkcd comic, but I don’t see any indication that it’s the “original”, and I downvoted several comments that seemed keen to steal thunder from the post by trying to frame it as just a rehash of a popular comic.
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