Re: General advice beyond Org

[tomas]

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On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 01:10:06PM -0700, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:

[...]

> For anyone who's paying attention to US politics (I hope it's not
> ruining your day) [...]

There are so many ways to get one's day ruined... ;-)

> positions that are held for emotional reasons only get stronger the more
> you attack them.
> 
> Knowing nothing more about your adviser than what you've written in this
> thread, it sounds like it might be an emotional issue for her (as it may
> be for you, and certainly is for many of us here!). Meaning, she's
> likely to respond to any perceived "attack" by doubling down.

<old guy's rant>

I read that between your lines, but I think it's worth being stressed:
mainstream discourse has for a long time painted "emotional" (as
opposed to "rational") in a negative light. Since we perceive better
those emotions that are not ours, we tend to misuse that to detract
our opponents ("they are irrational") -- this verges on intellectual
dishonesty, and has IMO helped to reach the situation we have these
days. It's an echo of the reaction to the Age of Enlightenment that
Romanticism was.

The sensible (heh :) way out, IMO, is to accept that the "other" has
as much right to her emotions as we have, and that our position only
*seems* more rational to us, because we can't see our emotions as
well as we can see the "other's". Or something.

That doesn't mean to give up on one's position, nor to give up on
convincing the "other" -- but it includes (and that's the painful
part :-) accepting the possibility to be convinced by the "other".

</old guy's rant>

> So it might be time to try out the Daoist playbook and "do without
> doing".

Very much this :-)

>        That's not helpful advice without more specifics, but my
> understanding of the approach is that you create the conditions
> conducive to the result you want, rather than forcing the result itself.
> So that might mean providing a useful FOSS-based service to your fellow
> students, or helping people understand your workflow in a non-pressuring
> way, or... otherwise convincing people that it was their idea to begin
> with.

Good idea. I'll steal it :-)

Cheers & thanks
- -- tomás
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