zptdooda's Journal: got in trouble early

Seems I should brush up on my social skills a tad. If you have any advice I'd appreciate it. Here's my situation.

I've just recently started posting after a long time just reading here. But it didn't take long for me to upset someone. And how.

I was surprised to receive this pointed rebuttal, to what I'd meant as an innocuous comment. I want to blame it on there not being quite the range of parenting books available in my formative years. Anyway I apologised and considered the dynamics of what had just happened.

Perhaps I should stick to uncontroversial topics until I've integrated myself in a bit more here and learn how to behave.

The part of the rebuttal that gave me pause was that I was "just trying to feel superior to everyone". I thought about this a fair amount and hope it isn't true for a number of reasons.

That goal would run counter to my world view and how my mind seems to work. Although it is an insidious beast.

But it at least inspired my current and first sig: esteem isn't a zero sum game.

It's true that I have hurt a number of friends' feelings before - usually by saying some form of goodbye forever. But also by arguing logically and assuming that the discussion was egoless.

I use that term when I think about discussions with my housemates from university. We'd state and rebut a topic on end as if it was in the middle of us. Before us but separate. Comments we made were aimed at discerning what was in front of us. Well that and breaking the silence of lounging on the back patio with our beers.

Maybe that's all that's missing at Slashdot - the beer! If I'd be able to hand everyone a beer before my posts, folks'd have a better idea where I was coming from.

Well maybe there's some misdirection there too though, which'd lead to a whole other entry for another day:

You see I'm Canadian but drink Kilkenny.

Relax

[Skjellifetti]

My father, a physicist by training, died a couple of years ago. He did not have the best of social skills either, but at his wake, a friend of his came up to me and said that the one thing he liked best about my dad was that when you argued with him, no matter how stupid your position, dad never made you feel stupid for having held it. He always found a way of showing you why the argument you were making was bogus without making you the target. He managed this even when the topic was in the taboo categor

Re:Relax

[zptdooda]

It sounds like your dad was very knowledgeable and wise, and that he was an experienced teacher.

I imagine a physicist would have amassed enough evidence of their own intellect that after a point they wouldn't have to prove this to themselves.

Thanks for the lesson and demonstration.

Yup

[Anonymous DWord]

I'm with the above AC on this one. Don't worry about it. Slashdot's the land of the knee-jerk reaction, and it's pretty easy to attack in text. Just move on, and wait until we start talking about Iraq!

Re:Yup

[Saint Aardvark]

Ditto. Keep 'em coming!