One answer is that people who genuinely have a hard time understanding other ppl are selected for heavily.
To be clear I regularly have a hard time understanding other people, including on the internet, I don’t think it’s that unusual a state of affairs to be explaining.
Additional point: The nearby pattern of internet bait that I dislike is when someone says “I don’t understand how someone can say/think/do X” where this is implicitly a criticism of the behavior. I think I first read it pointed out by Julia Galef that it is not virtue to fail to understand someone, it does not make you superior to it. But I think honestly admitting you don’t understand someone’s behavior is a virtue and I believe is a very common experience.
Yep. From my perspective it’s pretty common to not understand or be able to easily empathize with minds that you interact with regularly (e.g. see Different Worlds by Scott). Especially in certain levels of depth, there are many people whose psychology confuses me, or people for whom I’ve puzzled over for a long time before understanding their basic attitude/mood in most interactions. I’d happily generate some examples if you find this surprising?
One answer is that people who genuinely have a hard time understanding other ppl are selected for heavily.
To be clear I regularly have a hard time understanding other people, including on the internet, I don’t think it’s that unusual a state of affairs to be explaining.
Additional point: The nearby pattern of internet bait that I dislike is when someone says “I don’t understand how someone can say/think/do X” where this is implicitly a criticism of the behavior. I think I first read it pointed out by Julia Galef that it is not virtue to fail to understand someone, it does not make you superior to it. But I think honestly admitting you don’t understand someone’s behavior is a virtue and I believe is a very common experience.
Really?
Yep. From my perspective it’s pretty common to not understand or be able to easily empathize with minds that you interact with regularly (e.g. see Different Worlds by Scott). Especially in certain levels of depth, there are many people whose psychology confuses me, or people for whom I’ve puzzled over for a long time before understanding their basic attitude/mood in most interactions. I’d happily generate some examples if you find this surprising?