Why Linus Torvalds Insults People | Prime Reacts
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2023
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My favorite Linus quote: „A computer is like air conditioning - it becomes useless when you open Windows“
💯
Related Stallman quote: "Computers need to be defenestrated, which means either throw Windows out of the computer, or throw the computer out the window."
Cap
Pathetic take, the bios is more than sufficient.
German quotes
When Linus says he was joking, he doesn't mean he didn't believe what he was saying. He absolutely did. He just means he tried to phrase his thoughts in the funniest way he could think of.
Right. He really thought the persons code submission was stupid. The EPIC insult was the funny hyperbole. It's like back in the 80s how people (mostly young ones obviously) would have insult competitions with each other to see who could be the most savage.
@@ChrisP872 There is no specific period for that kind of behaviour. It still happens today and am certain it begun when man became "civilized"!
@@ChrisP872 Rule of thumb: before competing make sure your opponent is aware of the cage match unfolding around them.
Being 'civilised' has it's price.
When everyone is expected to act politely you inevitably develop paranoia.
A person acting weirdly towards you, because they hate you and would gladly drown you in a nearest puddle, given a chance, or are they just absentminded worrying about something personal? You'll never be sure.
@@AntiCookieMonster This 100%. I have a friend who expressed this sentiment very well. He's incredibly rude with close coworkers all the time. But that rudeness acts like a barrier against serious harm-intended insults because they must reach a very personal level and the tone must be precise to actually harm. So the conversations are more relaxed even if they're often appearing more negative.
I'm not that rude with my coworkers but I had the exact opposite kind of person where they take everything very seriously and trigger on the slightest things. And it's a massive pain to not be sure how to phrase yourself without hurting someone. As an example I got complained at for not inviting him to speak on something in a meeting "I knew" he would have something to say about. He could have raised his hand, and of corse I knew he has strong opinions but I didn't know that the expectation was on me to make him talk. Frankly it's childlike but I can't pick who I work with.
Edit: To be clear: I'm stepping on eggshells around him and he's not often offended because of that. But this is just a clear example of how I know it's necessary to be stepping on eggshells around him and it's a burden.
Functional families are always preferred over families that treat people like objects.
functional families accumulate neither fame nor wealth because they lack inheritance.
underrated comment
ayy lmao
Family that treats you like objects are always after your inheritance. They lack class
So monads?
Linus is a guy who expects a trade of insults.
I'm not his dad to provide them.
This is an old interview, in the mean time he has changed his mind about this kind of behavior and tries to not react like this anymore.
@@frydacI mean it's kinda mandatory with these days cancel culture, he was lowkey describing the premises in this 10+ years old interview
@@heroe1486 heh I don't think that being a dick and insulting people has anything to do with cancel culture
@@heroe1486 no one is "cancelling" him he's just getting called out for being a dickhead spastic to what are mostly minor infractions.
being insulted by linus would be like being featured on south park. kind of an honor at this point lol. dude is hilariously savage
There are two respects here. Respect as a person, and respect as a software developer. You can absolutely tell someone their code sucks ass and needs to be fixed without saying you're surprised they made it to adulthood.
This exactly. And I think this sometimes misses the mark when it comes to how devs deal with each others work.
I feel like in this video prime really jumped around the idea of respect. It's not as complicated as he's making it.
Instead of thinking in the sense of giving/getting respect, how about the idea of not giving/getting disrespect. I actually side with the asker in this case. Linus was just jumping around this blanket idea Instead of saying just straight up owning it. People get a little too comfortable behind a keyboard and monitor sometimes.
Linux would never be what it is without him being honest and ruthless. It was the same with apple. They had good products when jobs was I've. Now it's downhill, every day products are worse. Linus steps down and need to find other way to run our modern world.
@@adriankalyou can be honest and ruthless about code changes without telling the person who made it that they’re a failure of a person who should have been killed.
@@emmetallen5685 also, insulting people isn't "doing the world a favor", in reality people don't get humbled by being insulted, they get pissed and more egotistical, it's even worse if they feel like it's not fair, which lets be real it's what happens in almost every situation. torvalds is saying "if you're not deem of my respect i'm going to treat you like trash", which i hear often, but i wonder how torvalds reacts when it happens to him in real life, when he messes something up and gets mocked.
This! Saying this kind of stuff is just counterproductive and childish. Also, I think a lot of people mistakes being honest with impoliteness.
Lack of respect is different from disrespect. You don’t have to respect someone, but that doesn’t mean they deserve active disrespect.
It's really pretty simple. Linus is a big shot with a big ego abusing people beneath him because he can. Story old as time.
Or that you would be somehow empowered to deliver it, as he presumes... lol
Usually when coders say such things which were brought up in the video for Linus saying to others, that happens when there is already enough history and problems with the coder who is being critizised. So it's not fair at all to condemn Linus for what he said without understanding the actual context where and when it happened.
@@krakulandia this, I think for him to get to that point he already noticed that the person who is standing in front of him has doubtful credentials. Or in other words plainly lied about their capabilities. You won't call that to a person who you already knew was inexperienced, you will just do it to someone who claimed was among the best or at least very good at something to then turn out to be mediocre, a "bluffer" you would say.
100% agree - but within the context of the video its fair to give a little criticism while remaining open to the possibility that a larger context may change that perspective
does a functional family implies the existence of a oop familiy?
yes
@@ThePrimeTimeagen my family is imperative
@@CEOofCulturalMarxismmy family is procedural
i'm sorry for saying sorry so much, ok??
I-I'm sorry for saying sorry too much
Don't be sorry, I'm already sorry for you
@@itellyouforfree7238 were all saying sorry, lol (sorry)
You nailed it with approaching everyone with dignity but leaving respect to be earned.
The distinction between this two is not clear--this is an oxymoron in fact. Dignity implies respect, it's in most definitions of the word. What would approaching someone with dignity lack as compared to approaching someone with respect? Semantically not clear.
@@plsreleasethekraken actually... both are respect;
But the target of them is different: one is the person, the other is their skills.
You can say someone is bad at programming... or coded something badly... without saying they should be retroactively aborted.
@@plsreleasethekraken The constitution of the current German state starts with the line: Human dignity is untouchable. Nowadays, the definition of respect is a bit blurry, but I like the distinction made here. Treating someone with dignity means acknowledging their worth, not as an individual but as a human being. Sticking to a certain baseline that you simply don't violate. Treating someone with respect means treating them better than necessary, because you believe in their particular worth as an individual.
@@plsreleasethekraken imo it's different between respect and dignity,
respect is privilege, dignity is right. that's why you can respect someone's dignity since it's not the same thing.
the confusion is there when disrespecting someone is viewed as violating a person's dignity. this is usually happen in the scene of royalty back then, and enforcing respect is the sign of tyrant. when in reality it depends on the ego of the person getting the disrespect. is your self-worth that small/ fragile that the words from people reduce it?
also getting their dignity violated will make people reduce their respect to them anymore. that holds true for like virginity and wealth. for example you got robbed and your house burnt down, now you are a homeless, you won't be as respected.
the two correlate but not always in line due to circumstances.
We need to rewrite "sorry" in Rust
Is there not a package already?
I began communicating with Linus in the VAX groups and on the BBS's way back in the early 90's. He's always had no filters.
silicon valley is full of assholes
.. and look where that's gotten him. I don't get how a ponytail w-nker looks at the most successful open source project and has the balls to say "you built it wrong". I'm the same way as Linus (acquired partially from him, in fact) and it's not that we have no filters, it's that we can't be bothered with it. Filtering is not worth the effort and the reduced efficiency of communicating exactly what you mean.
@@paulie-gwhat is even the logic here?
Do you believe Linus wants people to die (since he supposedly communicates exactly what he means)?
Reduced efficiency.. as in, potentially losing people and creating a toxic environment because you can't be bothered to behave decently (or rather actively go out of your way to be abrasive)? Is that your idea of productivity and efficiency?
And you pride yourself on adopting his arguably weakest character traits?
Can you provide any evidence that suggests this actually helped in any way with where he is now?
@@SimonVaIe No, he communicated that he thought the interlocutor was a) being stupid and b) he was p-ssed. Doing so publicly also stimulates the sort of people who strive for peer validation in a social hierarchy (who also happen to be the majority in large open source projects, since there's no pay). The sort of people you would be 'losing' are not worth having as they don't fit the culture.
You know full well that history has no subjunctive mood and running a decades-long test on something like this is untenable. But here's an example that's as close as you're going to get: BSD. It was already mature and popular when Linux first started and had a lot of cache and tradition. FreeBSD, the variant that strives for wide adoption, is nowhere near the size of Linux. It's difficult to control for the effects of their respective licenses, but if the assertion that Linus' work environment was so toxic it would drive away a lot of valuable contributors were true, we'd see them driving progress in FreeBSD. Surprise, we didn't and we don't. FreeBSD even has a CoC now and is actively recruiting the many kernel developers who identify as attack helicopters and demand an 'inclusive environment'. Strangely, they only seem to be interested in working on the CoC, not on the actual kernel.
What did you say to him?
What Linus is doing is how basically Finnish work culture dynamics work in general, but in somewhat exaggerated way. I've seen countless of times when people from USA were visiting Finland for work related things and were scared during meetings when Finnish people were so direct and "brutally honest" (as they said) when discussing topics with their superiors and peers. The USA people said that they would be fired on the spot if they interacted like that with their bosses or peers. It's normal in Finland to discuss the topic directly without sugarcoating it, so we get quickly to the real issues and get them fixed. And usually no-one gets offended in the process. It's just that people from other countries aren't used to such directness and not self censoring the discussions. In my experience that is exactly the reason why Finland is so good at cutting edge technology development.
Finns should consider themselves lucky that not many Brazilians work for them. They would leave those meetings without any teeth
@@HitBoxMaster fighting someone over words is cringe lmao
@@KoopstaKlicca
It may be cringe, but it's the "brutal reality", unfiltered.
Really shows what cultures are civilized and what culture is poor
@@dallysinghson5569 glad I don't have to live in those hellholes
8:26 in college a member of a semester project burst into lab and berated me about how he just spent the last 6 hours debugging my stupid code. It was a real eye opener that I still think about 4 years later. It was just enough public shame to make me realize I needed to be more thorough and be able to learn my tools so I would never be shamed like that again. He apologized later for the outburst and all was well, but it scared me to death in the moment.
I've been on the other side... its pretty triggering ngl, its good that he told you because it really takes some effort to actually go and tell someone this
@@Entropy67 LMAO. It takes real courage to be a bully
I actually think this weird "respect must be given" culture causes outbursts like that. If you keep holding shit in out of societal pressure then when you finally do decide to cut your losses and speak your mind you're gonna have a lot more to say.
It's a similar thing with most parts of life honestly. Just a few decades ago you taught your kids that it was better to have a broken nose and put an asshole in their place then let them go on unimpeeded, now you teach your kids to keep defaulting to authority. That's all well and good, until you actually need to deal with a *_real_* problem. When every second is life and death, police are mere minutes away. This is bad for the person refusing to take action or anyone who they might have taken action to help (for obvious reasons) but it's also bad for the person who would have action taken against too. (not in all cases obviously, but as a rule of thumb) There is a quote that has always stuck with me, "you can always tell whether or not someone has been punched in the jaw by how much shit comes out when they open it". Talking shit, and subsequently getting hit, doesn't just tell you "hey yeah I didn't appreciate that comment you made" it also tells you "not fun is it? Maybe don't talk shit and be a bit more civil next time". In other words, this obsession over civility has a cobra-effect of prompting people towards incivility since otherwise civil people will be pushed and pushed until their breaking point, and otherwise incivil people won't ever have their trajectory corrected and be given a stark reminder that "oh shit, yeah, I actually live in a society with like, other people, and consequences for my actions".
This isn't just faux-psychology either, there are a few schools where the worst-of-the-worst kids go and they have no rules. And, despite having no rules and being filled with all of the worst students who have already been expelled time and time again, those kids get their fucking act together. Why? Simple, they actually were allowed to live with the consequences of their actions. Tehy did talk shit, they did get hit, and after enough times they realized getting hit fucking hurts.
Again, to be clear, not all forms of violence or insults or whatever else is/are acceptable, two highschoolers getting in a fight isn't the same as a mafia member curbstomping someone's skull into the pavement, but it is to say that an obscession with civility can frequently lead to the opposite result. While insults, fights, etc. are distasteful and not the best solution, they are an intrinsic component of social interactions. When you take away tools from those otherwisde willing to be civil, you only give an advantage to those with no concerns as to their civility. World peace sounds good, until you realize North Korea, China, Russia, etc. exist. Dictators won't be voted out of power, so do you really want to stop all coups, wars, etc.? Well great in favour of your cushy fantasy now millions or even billions of people will be born and die under tyrannically oppresive regiemes where even the concept of a human right has never touched their malnourished brains.
TLDR: Conflict is an intrinsic component of any large scale human interaction. It may be an ugly component that we'd like to ignore and demonize so we don't have to accept it, but the reality is it's part of human nature and the more you suppress it the more it will fester. There will always be unacceptable examples of it that should be treated with the condemnation they deserve, but if two drunk fucktards in a bar want to knock a few teeth out that's up to them, and hopefully they'll both learn dentist apointments are cheaper than hospital visits next time they notice a cavity.
@@Entropy67hope you have gotten help. That’s crappy behaviour
I was kind of that guy. Someone sent in his part last minute and it barely hit outdated requirements. I spent the whole night rewriting all the stuff until it worked. He started a heated discussion afterward about why I removed some of his genius coding ideas.
I don`t have a problem if someone isn`t perfect with his tools. We all learn every day. But you need to know and communicate when you have a problem and better deliver the first buggy work early so others can build on it. In my case, I could have told him weeks before that part of what he is spending a lot of time with is kind of neat but unnecessary.
My default is that disrespect should be earned. By default, I treat everyone with respect and they have to do something to change that. I feel that the whole idea of "people need to earn my respect" is immature and a way to hide behind being a jerk.
I’m the opposite
Totally agree
In that case, the (btw. never named) person earned the disrespect by doing something really stupid.
There's two kinds of respect. Basic respect, which I give by default, and "true" respect which is earned. When I say I really respect someone it means I hold them in high regard.
Another commenter used the word dignity for basic respect which I think is more apt. Treat everyone with dignity unless they refuse to do the same for you.
@@robonator2945 My brain cells just diminished reading this. You must be a funny guy to work with.
In this context, credibility is earned
Be assertive and polite
As in the Ten Commandments of egoless programming: Critique code instead of people - be kind to the coder, not to the code.
agreed with this take
@@ThePrimeTimeagenI’m out of energy trying explain bad code to so many…
If you live long enough and work on code all day, things can get personal. You can be machine-like and only judge code but I wouldn't do it and neither would Linus apparently. Also, if Linus saw my code, he'd think I should have been aborted as well and from the code perspective, he is probably right.
If the coder is the root cause of bad code and doesn't listen to criticism of the code, what else you have left other than just banishing that person from working with you?
@@Asto508 no, you write a salty blog post and move on with your life.
"Why are you such a jerk?"
"The political correctness, tho!"
a lot of people are pointing out that they'd rather have honest feedback than have low quality feedback which does not teach them anything. I agree with this. However:
"Yeah I think you could write the code better"
"That is some dumb code change it"
"You should work on some other part of the project, I don't think you're a good fit for working on this specific part"
is quite far from
"I'm surprised you're capable of breathing without thinking about it. I didn't think your brain would be able to handle that" and while I'll admit that's kinda funny (and yeah, sorry not as funny as the one Linus came up with) it's not really constructive criticism.
Now am I demanding people take time out of their day to be very constructive about every wittle thing I did wrong? No of course not. But one should also realize that not everyone appreciates their creative insults, especially if they're not close.
Do I wish I could've told certain coworkers "your 'solution' is so bad, error prone, and easily breakable in a refactor it made me wanna jump off a bridge because then I'd be free from working in the same industry as you"? I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But I don't think that would've helped anyone.
they try to normalise throwing out frustration and sick overuse of hierarchy structures,
it's a sick type of competition
I'm against tolerating weakness, and using weakness to own adventage what is opposite to this
civilization was placed between fascism and communism not preserved by taking less evil side 😂
such wording has always a goal, a psychological attack is used to win something
in Japan you can't fire somebody from job
so you move him to worse jobs and do everything so that he would resign himself
not sure how competition works in USA but I see this country as a place of strong competition expecting you do give 100% everyday
despite it being one of most physically unhealthy and drugged nations in the world
so this guarantees incapability of many people to give 100% daily
and small group feeling like Gods because of being in better position
judging everyone with own standards thinking well I could so they could too
that's why wokeness was born there
as for many the barrier to cross to normalcy is enormous
IT is seen as Olympus and it has it's sideeffects
@@szymonbaranowski8184 "despite it being one of most physically unhealthy and drugged nations in the world" indeed, along with China, and North Korea, and Iran, and the UK, and Ireland, and France, and most of Subsaharan Africa, and Afghanistan, and India, and frankly Japan (if you include mental heath).
There is something about the USA's free flow of information that makes the bad as visible as the good, in the other countries I mentioned national face is strongly protected by restricted access to statistical data and low to no media coverage of culturally embarrassing events and trends.
Moreover wokeness is just a new flavor of the same thing that was inside the soviet union, the ccp and the axis powers. The core of it wasn't born in the USA.
It is a phase of a sweeping totalitarian paradigm. In America this phase is stretched out for a much longer period of time because individual freedom exists and sovereign states, counties and districts isolate the legal infection to mostly collectivist areas like large cities and high population states. Top down power which usually makes this infection rapid is actually quite difficult to obtain in the USA due to the intentional decentralized design described by the Constitution and authoritarian limits set in the Bill of Rights.
I think you are mostly correct though.
You're missing the context. Linus doesn't do this in response to one bad patch. He's only ever done it in my time on LKML in response to an act of monumental stupidity (by kernel engineering standards) followed by refusal to acknowledge it.
@@paulie-g fair enough. I did not know that. Linux is his baby and if someone does something really stupid to it and then refuses to acknowledge what they did is stupid, I understand why he said what he said lol.
Thanks for context :)
@@shakibrahman Exactly. If you take responsibility, it doesn't happen. If you fix your sh-t, it doesn't happen. If you understand you were wrong, it doesn't happen. It could happen because of a bad patch, but only if it's the last one of many f-ckups. It's a kernel. It's the kernel that runs the world. If it crashes, bad sh-t happens. People are expected to take their work on it seriously and bring competence. If you can't, you need to find a project that's more appropriate for your level. Not every coder can work on the Linux kernel. Not every kid who loved Lego can grow up to be a rocket engineer. The world isn't fair, I'm not pretty enough to be a model (not now anyway), someone else isn't good enough to work on hard/critical code.
Linus changed his tune over the last couple of years, I think he even went into anger management classes and has claimed to have reformed a bit..
yeah, i want to watch that next
i am trying to figure out if "reformed a bit" is a computer science joke.
Electroshock therapy to flip the assHole bit from 1 to 0 ?
adult autism diagnosis
@@myhops he did a refactor
In Bavaria we have a saying: Not being scolded is praise enough.
poor Bavarian kids
raised for perfect workers but not parents
@@szymonbaranowski8184 Funny. Bavarians are said to have an anarchist streak. There once was the Bavarian Soviet Republic, you know? Only for a month, until it was demolished by fascists and social democrats, no less. But still, Bavarians don't like authority very much. Unless it's our dead king Ludwig II. Probably because he left us pretty much alone and was more concerned with building castles and listening to opera than with ruling.
@@pillmuncher67 Do Bavarians still speak in their own language or you get assimilated in German? I've heard your accent is completely different!
Sorry I'm not European but once I saw a lot of negative comments from other Germans about your accent. Are they aggressive towards you?
Only a German from Bavaria would phrase it like that. To every other non-bavarian german it's simply a common german phrase...
@@sarfaraz73 No, aggressive is not a word I would use. Maybe bewildered is a better description.
The Bavarian dialect is still spoken, in the rural areas more than in the cities. It's, in fact, not just one dialect, but a group of closely related and easily mutually understandable dialects, Im from south western Upper Bavaria, close to where the Bavarian Swabians live, and it shows in some of the words I use and how I pronounce certain things, In eastern or lower Bavaria people speak slightly but recognizably different.
The Swabians dialect comes from the Alemanni, Germans who had their ancestral home at the mouth of the river Elbe (they're called Elbgermans) and who settled along the river Rhine. The Bavarians, OTOH, are a German tribe that emerged in the wider area of what today is Southern Bavaria, Austria and South Tyrol. Where the ancestors of the Bavarians came from is not clear, they may also be descendants of the Elbgermans, some East Germanic tribes, maybe the Boii from Bohemia , local Celtic tribes and Roman settlers, all mixed together. Both Bohemia and Bavaria have their name from the Boii. The original name of the Bavarians was Bajuvari, the men from Boio, today Bohemia in Czechia. "vari" is an old Germanic word that we still use in words like "werewolf", the wolf man. Also the Latin "vir", man, is a cognate. There are some remnants of Latin in the Bavarian dialect, but that may well be because Bavaria has always been deeply Catholic and Latin was an still is the language of the Roman Church.
We have a lot of diphthongs that were lost in other Germanic dialects, and we also have a lot of words that other Germans don't recognize. What you have to understand is that it's not like the dialects are local aberrations from the German language, but that the High German language was created from a set of different dialects that already existed. High German, BTW, gets its name from the high places where it was spoken, in the center and south of Germany, as opposed to Lower German that was spoken in the low planes of the north, so it's a geographical marker and doesn't imply some social stratification.
Through time, and through the more standardized written language (Thanks, Luther), the dialects became more similar to each other. But the Bavarians, obstinate as they are, still insist on keeping their dialect alive, other Germans be damned. Langfocus made a video on TH-cam where he compared standard German and Bavarian. Look it up, it's not very long,
I think there is a cultural component missed here. It's about how humor is used in Scandinavia (and Finland), where you don't joke about real problems, but you joke about trends that might become a problem.
That is to say, if I think a friend is really fat, I will not comment on his weight, but if a normally sized friend is gaining weight, I'll tell him he's one sandwich away from his own event horizon. That way he gets a chuckle from the absurdity and a small nudge.
I think Linus is using humor in the same way. He expects the recipient to know that, of course, he does not wish him wiped from existence, but to still convey that a particular patch was a stupid idea.
And yes, this use of humor with hyperbole is far from universal.
As a Norwegian I agree to an extent. Also having lived in Italy not for almost 8 years, in a culture that is far less direct than the Norwegian one, I certainly think the Scandinavian directness and sometimes dark humor is a part of it, however, there is being direct, and saying things as they are, and then there is pure bullying and just mean spiritedness. You can say someone isn't very good at their job, or suck at it even, but the whole retroactively aborted remark, that's just him being an asshole.
So yeah, he is direct, but he is also a rude asshole that seems full of himself at times.
And it's not just scandinavia, it's central europe too (Germany, Switzerland etc.). This kind of humor is an european thing and it might not be obvious to foreigners.
One sandwich away from his own event horizon lmao, that was good.
The comedy you just described doesn't extend to saying colleagues are incompetent. You can diss your closest friend but a NORMAL Scandinavian wouldn't think of making an exaggerated joke to someone they just met who's submitting a PR.
@@mikinovak7019as a Swiss person hard disagree. Being direct to someone (not in a rude or insulting way) is a big nogo here. People here hate face to face confrontation a lot and they'd rather just shit talk you a ton as soon as you turn your back. Germany though (well depending on the region) can be very direct (example would be the Ruhrgebiet)
Not giving respect doesn't mean insults are in order.
"I'm sorry but" - the most British way to address someone
I think of giving someone you're newly aquinted with the benefit of the doubt is a kind of respect. You're respecting their human dignity. From there, they can either lose that respect, or solidify it. Edit: continued watching, and this was said almost exactly.
The problem with the question of implicit respect is that everyone operates on different definitions of respect, as far as I've seen.
I know of two definitions, the first:
"a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements."
The second:
"due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others."
I think the first OBVIOUSLY shouldn't be given implicitly. But the second is tougher. I think disregarding someones rights is criminal, and disregarding peoples feelings/wishes/traditions off the bat for no reason is not something I agree with. I think the second type of respect should be given immediately, but can be taken away just as quickly (except due regard for rights, of course).
The first is earned, the second can be broken.
I feel like your definition of respect is exclusively the first
EDIT: I see you get into this at the end. I would say the second definition of respect IS the same as being courteous.
The definitions of Courteous is: "Polite, RESPECTFUL, or considerate in matter"
Acknowledgement vs Respect.
Not thought about at all vs Consideration.
Respect is earned, decency should always be given! (not disagreeing with most of his stuff being yourself and honest to yourself enables the best of your and finding people that understand u and your weirdness is always the way)
to be frank, both of those occasions the people who were given these insults, really worked on pissing Linus up.
Courteous literally means: "polite, respectful, or considerate in manner."
one time my english teacher was like "you aren't sorry! did it make you feel sorrow??" I think about it all the time
That is a grade A take, and the best one I've ever heard: "Sorry" = "made to feel sorrow". Brilliant.
In the end, it was a good move from the guy, saying sorry beforehand, because it was connected to the discussing afterward.
So he chooses a different way, to bring up and talk about controversial topics ...not being too offensive, but bringing them up, reflecting them, making a standpoint. It was a dialogue in the end somehow.
Wouldn't insulting others even jokingly end up making people hesitant to expressing their thoughts?
Seems counter productive.
The discussion is about this: should people be hesitant at all? Like, one should not have such low self-esteem so that a joke would make him hesitant whatsoever. These people should learn how to relax socially, and learn how to feel intimacy with others on a level you can make fun without this unreasonable fear, you know? It looks like we are accepting this psychological illness as the normal, which is actually counter productive if we want a synergic team working together, where we need more intimacy so we can feel free to criticize and make fun, there's no need for fear, this is not like a war, it's just work, it's a safe place, you're not going to be hurt or killed
@@_Akhilleus_
But everyone's line is different.
The markers your mind uses to characterize someone as confident could be the very same markers another might use to judge them arrogant.
Because we are each just the accumulation of our previous social interactions which make us sensitive and blind to different things.
So rather than coming up with an arbitrary standard, it's better to take people as they are which is much harder to do.
Linus's behaviour is really just laziness.
Different people respond to different things and learning who responds to what is much more difficult than just projecting your own views onto the world and expect others to abide.
@@robrick9361 I just don't get why so much fear and insecurity
@@_Akhilleus_ I believe everyone should exercise the stoic way of living. I see a lot of people being too sensitive about simple things.
One should endure these displeasurable Linus' statements, but this fact doesn't matter for the matter of whether these insults should exist or not.
I would endure them, but with displeasure; I "feel" way more than the majority of people, and I'm sure I'll be like that till my death, but I know what should be done even if I feel beaten in the head, I won't go "eye for an eye" (there's not point into following a thoughtless thought), I won't attack back; I'll try to manage the best course of action that should be taken, I'll feel the utter urge to disrespect whoever disrespected me, but I won't disrespect back.
The most curious thing about Linux I've seen is the fact that the Linux kernel development started to adopt the conduct of not using the words "Master", "Slave" and "Black-list", "White-list"; I see a reason to disapprove an offense that was created for the purpose of inflicting damage, but not words that can be associated with something "offensive" and aren't themselves an offense.
@@unknown-qp8pk I see most people making confusion about what is an insult from what is unacceptable behavior. What Linus does is far from unacceptable behavior. It's like what Chris Rock does, and people tend to react like Will Smith. And this ends up trivializing real unacceptable behaviors like racism and prejudice for example, which is way different than joking around
sorry for asking this but could you please link to the source of the video you are using/reacting to
there is a reason we have "sorry" and "excuse" me as different words, and Prime is educating us on it for no charge.
Totally agree about respect being earned.....but there's a big difference between not respecting someone and being cruel. Cruelty is just not necessary to get a point across and in my opinion is not deserving of respect itself
8:46
There is a difference between "Your code sucks and you need to fix this" and "You should be retroactively aborted". A world of difference in fact.
It's the same 😂
"Respect should be earned" does not mean "disrespect should start first".
The word you're looking for is courtesy, as in common courtesy. A lot of people don't understand what respect is and say respect when they mean courtesy. Courtesy is being polite to strangers as a common default practice. Respect is holding someone in higher esteem for their achievments. It's a distinction that causes a lot of talking past each other.
This.
No, respect has multiple definitions, one of which is similar to common courtesy (Google/Oxford defines it as "have due regard for"). The problem is that people hear respect and think of the definition you're talking of, and try to argue as if that's it's only meaning.
But saying courtesy is definitely less confusing.
@@ITR "Due" implies being is owed a return proportion to their work, which includes both being rewarded for work and being unrewarded for no work.
@@oldsoul3539 Sorry, I should have kept the entire quote:
```
have due regard for (someone's feelings, wishes, or rights).
"I respected his views"
Similar:
show consideration for
show regard for
take into consideration
```
It's not inherently tied to work, even if the context it's used to when talking about contributions is work.
@@ITR I meant "work" in the vaguest "you did something" sense, you don't get respect for doing nothing. Note in the examples there's an element of judgement or weighing value involved, you are deciding to respect their beliefs based on the merit of the beliefs even if you don't agree with them. Courtesy has no judgement involved, it's just having good manners.
I will say, when Linus said "he was being honest", he wasn't backpedaling, it's just how it is.
In Finland, unless you're in a formal setting, if you do a shit job, be prepared for your job to be cursed at.
I was raised to say sorry all the time, I constantly feel like I have done something wrong
Are you English too?
@@marksmith2540 nope
@@deadlyecho Well, now you know, there's a whole country of people out there who feel just like you do ;-).
@@marksmith2540when English/British people say sorry it isn’t always an apology. Sorry can be used to get someone’s attention much in the way y that ‘excuse me’ can be used. Also it’s not just an English thing multiple cultures have this dual use of their version of sorry too.
I guess it just fell out of use in that way in the North America. so perhaps that’s why you misunderstand when British people use sorry that they are always apologising for something. They’re not.
@@PhotonMonkeygames Oh, I know. I'm an Englishman :-). But, a good explanation.
If a dude that looks like that taks to me in that way, simply because of a technical disgareement, he better be working remotely.
"don't believe respect should be given, should be earnd" - great way to get shot in the street tho.
Decency and respect are not the same. Both can be earned or lost, but best not to default to extreme ends of either.
when the one in the audience talked about respect, they were imprecise, but everyone knew what was being talked about, linus, consciously or not, moved the goalpost and instead of taking seriously about his verbal abuse, he reframed the conversation to focus on the kind of reverence/admiration that is also associated with the word respect
if he treats politely and with human decency only people he reveres, there’s still no justification for being such an asshole to other people
judge the actions, not the person, criticize the code, not the coder
Pretty much spot on. From what I read of his stuff, it isn't about earned respect, or not tolerating the ignorant, it was about how he acts so abusive it comes off as unprofessional and/or immature. It's almost like that petty coworker who calls you out over simple errors and acts like you nearly deleted the entire database.
I genuinely believe he has developed a bit of narcissism due to his founding of Linux and Git, to the point he believes he can very harshly insult people for the sake of it.
Procedural programming vs object oriented programming amirite
It is a form of respect for someone like Linus to even acknowledge you, let alone go on a tirade of verbal abuse against you. You've managed to say something that he clearly cares about in some way. In some sense that is more respectful in my view than the alternative, which would simply be not to engage at all.
If I am taking the time to get in a heated argument with somebody, I am demonstrating that I care about what they think in some way. I don't argue with very junior programmers that I don't think would be worth the time or that I suspect may not understand what I'm saying.
Sure, he could do well to drop some of the insults. But I'm glad Linus is willing to step up and throw some shade once in a while, even if I don't agree with his opinion on a particular technical issue. That's what I always expected of my own mentors. It's the people that ignored me that really hurt the most ego wise.
"Could I have a very heated argument with this person" is a very good indicator of a top quality junior hire. It's why I always try to lay out some hot takes in an interview. Bad programmers don't have well formed opinions that they'd be willing to go to bat with in an argument. Good programmers always have some, and some of the best will flat out disrespect you and make you look like a fool before they are even hired.
I had two tech leads when I first started in code, one was super nice and respectful.He took the time to explain and made sure everything was being made correctly. The other one was an abrasive dick who liked to make you feel like shit for a simple mistake. Both were good coders, but I consider the nice one as the best teacher I had and I still think about the things he taught me. The mean guy left the company short after and I was so relieved.
"In Open Source just find [other] people you like [to work with]". And that's the story of how we got 56 different projects that all try to do the same thing and do it all badly.
And it's okay, because you can use whatever open source software you prefer
11:40 But what do you understand by "respect"?
I think the default state is - be kind and respectful towards people you don't know. And I think that constitutes a "respect".
Then someone can :
- gain your... I don't know, admiration? Extra respect? Not sure how to phrase it.
- or on the other hand someone can loose your respect.
But the default state is having a respect towards someone. Just as you said - you assume they are capable and you are treating them as such. You are respecting them until proven wrong.
Maybe the issue is with English language, because "being respectful" towards someone does not mean exactly the same thing as "having a respect". In my simple mind both of this things should have the same meaning, but I guess in reality it is something different.
Best bosses and coworkers I've ever had were like Linus. I think I'm also like Linus. Heres the best thing - the opening insult was fucking hilarious and if someone said that to me in a PR review I'd laugh my ass off and use it on my friends.
100%
The intent and overall relationship with the said person matters. Also, it matters if you're willing to take insults and burns, not only give them. A boss who "roasts" people all the time and then gets mad and starts foaming whenever someone claps back is just an a**hole with a superiority complex.
> and use it on my friends.
Why not your coworkers and subordinates?
@@bobbycrosby9765 oh I do.
Linus has the perfect perfume against incompetence: Eau d'Abrasif.
Good one 😂
Linus seems to be one of those people where I would go out of my way to irritate them, just for the sake of it.
just write bad code. in C++. That would irritate him.
this is a bright red flag for identifying a gamma
How does that make your day/life better? I have never understood this argument
he is as bad as that guy from Microsoft with talk how getting autist working his ass off unknowing how exploited he is is a perfect employee they look for 😂
it's this level of sociopathy
except Linus do not hire anyone so it's voluntary while in corporation it's like officer in prison....
@@Jeppelelle Some people are really amusing when they go all tilty.
I'd love for him to try and say it in person.
If words alone can bring you to violence then you need more self control or class.
@@ChrisP872 No, it would've just been very funny to hear this overgrown penguin looking soft spoken short bus sounding ass to talk all that trash.
@@ChrisP872 I'm not defending social media snowflakes at all but come on how could you say "words alone", that's how it's always worked , go threaten someone and see if they won't react to your words, you may even be in your rights, like always you just gotta find a balance but words still hold a meaning.
@@ChrisP872 have you ever heard the (legal) term “fighting words”? Only very recently did our terminally online culture hellbent on insulating people from the consequences of their actions decide that words could no longer provide just cause for violence.
@@exmachina2600give me an example of fighting words
If you Google the definition for respect, you get two very distinct definitions, one in regards to politeness and another towards admiration. I think the core of the argument is that these two get confused quite easily lol
The guy should have said "be considered and polite" just to be considered and polite towards those using the other definition.
polite can mean different things depending on culture as well
in one culture it means to show good manners, basic civility
in other it means obeying all written or unwritten customs and laws under threat
of punishment, exclusion
without exceptions
admiration and envy are two sides of one coin depending on persons perception of the
same thing constructive or destructive
good will or bad will
similar with respect
for one person is something granted basic
standard anyone has
for other it's something elevating, sign of being higher
expected, possessed, prohibited from taking away
acknowledged in comparison, stating objective difference, dividing
standard or achievement
first perspective is against differentiating because it lowers value of standard in
comparison, is offence to all lowered by
claiming hierarchy
so guess I guess another definition exists and it's contradictory
There's also the meaning "to fear", which is kind of an offshoot to "admiration" or feeling awe.
I really wish he would have just said "because I'm an egotistical prick but I'm working on it".
For me giving people respect is the number one way to move up through the world. Respect doesn't need to be earned but should be able to be lost very quickly.
That sounds a lot like kissing ass.
There is respect and there is respect. The basic respect, i.e. the basic concession of dignity, is usually not something you have to earn.
But then there is this "TOTAL respect" that some people confuse with the first thing, i.e. demanding that every crap that their "technically less skilled mind" (to say the least) comes up with has to be accepted as the greatest gift to the world. THAT last thing is what Linus refuses to offer. And he is right.
I think theres a difference between insulting a human and saying "ok this code is shit". Respect should be earned sure, but treating someone how you would want to be treated should be the norm.
There is a middle ground between respect and contempt; you don't need to respect people unless they deserve it, agreed! but, you don't need treat people with contempt either. you can choose to ignore people who don't match with your level of intelligence or choose not to associate with them. disrespecting people for no reason is nothing but arrogance.
Benefit of the doubt doesn't even mean that you must assume the person is capable. The rule is actually less strict:
It means that until you are perfectly sure they're incapable(and the burden for proving this to yourself is on you) you should never assume they're not capable - so they may still be capable.
So you could think: "This person still can be capable, although I'm tempted to judge quickly".
This contrast between what's possible, and what we automatically expect really shows the value of the high standard of the benefit of the doubt.
It is analogous to positive thinking, which can be criticized when done excessively, but contains the truth that you limit your perception of positive things if you're not open to their possibility.
This is why duels need to be brought back. You can only make those insults when you expect others won't do something about it.
I lean towards constructive language. Sometimes the most constructive language is the most shocking, and it kinda hurts. That might be why there are times when rude language is warranted, and isn't mutually exclusive to respect. However the vast majority of the time it seems that things are better communicated and understood through kind language. People get defensive and stop listening if they're constantly being bashed.
Meh, I don't think there is any justification for being a prick. You can criticize someones work but childish insults aren't really ever called for.
That wasn't a childish insult. That was an EPIC insult. If I was on the receiving end of that one I'd think Damn I f*cked that one up and have a good laugh.
But I'm one of those people that is immune to virtually any insult.
Agreed. Telling someone they should kill themselves because you think their code is bad is just 2 or 3 steps too far.
I agree with Prime in that respect should be earned. But that doesn't mean you have a free pass to be disrepectful to other people. There should be a neutral level of respect for other people where you can give criticism without resorting to telling people to kill themselves or insult their intelligence
If someone disrespects you, then sure. Insult them back. I doubt many people would disagree with that
@@ChrisP872 it is just childish. It basically paints the person as one lacking control or posture, like some deranged old man that is slowly losing their mind and can't help but piss themselves during a lecture.
@@BanAaronHmm, when did Linus say to someone to kill themselves? That's way too far
Although I think insulting someone's intelligence in the most excessive way possible is fine, as it is often taken lighter, because you can't honestly believe that you are that stupid, but you did fuck up.
All in all it depends on the tone as well, repeating words someone has said is meaningless to me without context.
@@xSyn08 I believe people are interpreting linus' comment that the person should be retroactively aborted as a KYS.
Where's the full conference recording?
If you insult people you might encounter in reality, you should be able to fight.
this is just generally good advice for not getting punched in the face
I had a very hard time figuring out what respect meant growing up, because whenever I got in trouble my father would scold me for not respecting him or tools or the house, or whatever, and it seemed like a pretty blanket term for just not doing what he wanted.
That being said I did eventually come to the conclusion that respect is a combination of polite, courteous, and attentive - also "right-action" but thats a whole thing in itself which changes its definition depending on your surroundings. Respecting authority for example, would be being polite, loyal, courteous, and attentive to the authority figure. You give them no offense, are attentive to their demands, and are courteous to their needs.
respect can be very complicated.
> it seemed like a pretty blanket term for just not doing what he wanted
That's how bullies and abusive individuals use respect. Linus says he comes from a troublesome family and I think that's perfectly reflected in his unhealthy stance on respect. He thinks it means submission, admiration and condescension. Anyone emotionally healthy can see that respect is not about political correctness, softness or going woke. Is baseline human decency. Be polite, see the human first, acknowledge no one is perfect, we can all make mistakes, and we all deserve dignity. For healthy people cruelty is unnecessary. For some emotionally traumatized or neglected people, cruelty is mandatory, to receive it or dish it to others, and they don't feel comfortable unless cruelty is present in all their social interactions. They're hurt and you can tell.
@@Leo0718 There is respect as in basic human decency (treating people with respect) but there's also respect as in valuing or thinking highly of someone or their actions or opinions. I think the first one you should just do by default when interacting with people you haven't met before. It's just being polite. The second one needs to be earned.
And the fact that the same word is used for both is just really annoying.
Respect and mind-reading are not synonymous nor interchangeable. FK anyone who goes off because of being "disrespected", FK em and their fantastical delusions.
Respect has two meanings: #1. Treat someone politely as a human, #2. Submitting to someone as an authority.
Your father and Linus use the second meaning. If you look the word up in any dictionary, you'll find they've separated the two meanings.
So it's not complicated at all.
I don't really like the term respect for the same reason. I found myself in similar scenarios and they could never actually explain what respect is
it just seems like an arbitrary list of rules that are made up on the spot so I don't "respect" the concept of respect. manners is in the same boat
I can be sorry for something i willingly do. If me doing it is more important than making you feel good, i will do it, i will just feel bad about it. So apologizing for asking something you believe will inconvenience the other party is perfectly valid. It just means that you need the answer more than not hurting his feelings.
@13:50 what did prime say here...
can someone tell me what he is refering to?
I don't think respect is earned, I think trust is earned. I think the view that someone needs to earn your respect is a cheap excuse to be rude, selfish, or lazy. If you have a new intern, you should totally treat that person with respect for their humanity, their prior work experience, etc. But no, you shouldn't entrust them with the same information or responsibility as a senior engineer. Your respect for a person can certainly grow over time, but I don't think it should start at zero.
I agree everyone has a slightly different definition of respect, but mine is coming from the fact that I think most people would say that Linus was 'disrespectful' to the guy who he said should be dead.
Exactly, trust is earned. Respect is lost.
It should definitely start at zero - not above it, not below it, but at it. A really horrible PR earns negative respect
there are two kinds of respect:
- seeing somebody as a human person
- thinking of somebody as being competent (this one is also required to be in a position of authority)
Respect - a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. So you first have to develop your abilities and achieve something - aka - earn.
this is fking gold, this video is why i still lurk the nets, god bless you primeagen and linus
"I won't change because I'm powerful and I don't have to"
It's in the word. Respect have two part : "re" meaning back, and "spect" meaning looking.
Respect someone litteraly meaning looking back at his previous achievement.
You can't be respected if you have nothing to "looking back".
You need to take into account that the guy has been working in C for >40 years, where the compiler constantly tells you that you are a dumb to your face.
He is desensitized.
And some times it doesn't even tell you that and proceeds to fuck you in the ass during runtime...
You're confusing C with Rust. In C, segfaults tell you that you're dumb.
Linus just doesn't suffer fools, and he deserves to be like that, considering he's the benevolent dictator for life for a project that pretty much runs the world as we know it
13:50 who is he referring to? could not parse that, english is not my native language.
Sorry means that you feel bad/sad; it literally comes from the word sorrow.
There's a difference between respecting someone and treating people with respect.
I think Linus (and Prime) is (are) conflating respecting someone, with Treating someone With respect.
Thank you @Flip, audio post processing wroked so guod whithut anuy problllms whtsoever... :D
You do give someone respect off the bat in a respectable environment. You need to treat it like a coworker. Not to be excused.
Linus comes from a culture that is direct. Tech is geared for people that are direct. There are so many people getting involved in tech that aren't really well-oriented towards it and they want all of this "soft touch" stuff. This is why we have Developer Advocates that stand up at conference and speak a bunch of words, cheerlead, and say not much of anything at all. Some of it is valuable... being introspective about a community is not bad. Are we generally creating challenges for ourselves as a community because we create bad working conditions? Sure, let's think about it and look at it from a craftsmanship perspective. Support craftsmanship and the things that make it possible. We can be direct about it, though.
And to continue on with the honesty... some people aren't cut out for this type of work.
And yes... we should use the right words. Respect is not courtesy. Respect means that you value someone's capabilities and skills or what they do for you. That is very different than being courteous and polite. You aren't always even courteous or polite to people that you respect. Maybe you get into shouting matches and cuss at each other, but at the end of the day you may completely respect them. Not that it is a healthy situation... but it is all possible.
He is from Finland right? It's as far from direct culture as it can get...
he is defending own isolated castle where he decides who he feels comfortable with and he will totally destroy you if he finds you incompatible and in any way uncomfortable to him for any irrational reason possible
and it's fine
as open source let him find this crazy personal space
it's not normal
world of technology is by definition inhumane and deformed virtual reality
because technology shapes people to own
conditions not serves human adapting to them as it supposed to be in civilization
Linus is patology that found own pathological normalcy in other fitting pathology
rationalising it doesn't change nature of the things while obscurs it to people who should be aware of it
humane person will expect humane approach everywhere, they should be aware
they step into distorted reality
like being employed to a IT work camp on short-term visa should be aware of risk he will get so mentally pressured that he may jump from rooftop for sake of family in case of being threatened with being fired for nothing important
He isn't direct though. He used a 2 sentence insult to say something he could say in 3 words.
@@bobbycrosby9765 I don't know how much directly you want him to express his displeasure with someone. It seemed extremely direct and illustrative. Not saying it is good behavior, but that IS indeed direct.
he literally stated that he was being "hyperbolic"...a form of irony extremely open to misinterpretation which is a big reason this entire thing has become a issue, its literally the opposite of directness.
@@titoa.7260 Just as ThePrimeagen was stating... you're concept of "direct" is off. Being hyperbolic is not the opposite of direct by any stretch. It is exaggerating a point for emphasis... in fact, it is probably more direct that just stating "I think you're a waste of resources" because it is making it extremely clear.
You can't totally pick your coworkers
8:32 my issue with this perception is it seems like simplifying into mocking extremes. It sounds to me like "OK, to be rude, because the only other option is to be super nice is calming and not saying hard things". I strongly disagree, we still can tell hard things to each other and at the same time not be rude nor insensitive.
You don't have to be respectful, just civil. The formal term is civil discourse. You can look it up. It can be argumentative, but it'll remain civil. It can include debate, but it has to be factual. It won't involve ad hominem attacks - this being something that Linus in the given example did fail. etc.
Let's be honest he got annoyed and decided to offend the person, that's it. He could be brutally honest just saying: bro you're incompetent, go find another project to work in. That would be acceptable. Anyhow just one more Rhino in tech.
You're right. Saying "you're incompetent" would've been acceptable. (In private. Not something you normally do in text in public as a boss.)
But to offend someone because they're not as good as you at programming is fucking low. Especially when done in public.
@@BenRangel Nothing low about it. Maybe his insult helped that person grow some character.
This "Rhino in tech" has done more and will continue to do more for the world's technology than you and a billion other soydevs will in your entire lifetime combined.
are people too sensitive these days? yes
does some of what Linus says go too far? also yes
these are not mutually exclusive. He should apologize.
Regarding choosing people around you, prefer composition over inheritance.
I somewhat agree, I see respect as a spectrum, like not everybody gets the same amount but everybody deserves a baseline of respect, that is what you call being civil, it's respect but is just baseline respect. So under that semantic everybody deserves respect, but not everybody deserves the highest lever of respect. I think this is what you were also saying but worded differently.
Imagine being lucky enough to be insulted by Linus. That’s S tier
I said it was "dumb" when the Angular team cited Svelte stores as a source of inspiration and some people really hated that. I grew up in a culture like Linus and as I contribute to open source and TH-cam I am learning that other people are much more sensitive than I am. My mom called me retarded, my brothers called me everything, and I understand that those are just words, and not only just words, but words coming from an emotional state of mind, and the person who said them doesn't even have to apologize and things will be back to normal in 5-30 minutes.
I tried being careful to say _that_ was dumb instead _you_ are dumb, and people still heard it the 2nd way.
Anyway, what I've learned is to just be more specific. Citing Svelte stores as an inspiration isn't actually dumb: It just exhibits profound disconnect from the everyday work Angular developers do; profound lack of awareness of the passion for RxJS in the Angular community; lack of technical understanding of the actual limitations of Svelte stores; and a sloppy understanding of the difficulties of using RxJS in Angular, leading to the conclusion that when people say RxJS is hard they actually mean RxJS itself is hard, and not that _RxJS in Angular_ is hard, which is what most people actually meant. Forcing developers to learn RxJS, but not giving them any convenient way to do so, sort of borders on cruel. Angular is headed in a much better direction with signals and better RxJS interoperability. But it still feels like there might be some sort of partially blind determination to "protect" newcomers from RxJS. It's not going to suddenly endear a ton of new people towards Angular; Angular is never going to out-React React or out-Solid SolidJS. RxJS fits within Angular's niche way better than promises or some other weak async primitive. It actually scales, and that's supposed to be Angular's strength.
So in the end it's a lot better to just be more specific. It's more satisfying to me, because instead of mindlessly acting out on emotion, I can hopefully communicate the actual sense of awe I get when I see someone make the actual decisions they make.
"I tried to be careful to say that was dumb instead you are dumb, and people still heard it the second way" Well no shit, you are criticising someone's decision that was made by them. It's really not that deep. All you have to do is swap "dumb" with "not the right decision" but instead you choose to use a word that places your intelligence above someone else.
@@DN-fr2ez I make dumb decisions. But I'm incapable of interpreting something as stupidly as you have and some other people have.
@@mfpears there we go again, more personal insults. You must be hard to work with.
@@DN-fr2ez everyone makes dumb decisions sometimes, but some people are emotional oafs, and I avoid working with them. Where do you work?
I think what people would benefit from remembering is that people like Linus Torvalds often have a very specific personality or intelligence-type.
Genius levels of logical-mathematical intelligence, but emotional intelligence at levels that might be low enough that they could very well be somewhere on the spectrum.
Honestly, every video I've seen of him gave me the vibes that he probably has ASD, but maybe I am just projecting here.
"Multiple intelligences"
is unscientific copium
Still, it's very very easy to learn that you shouldn't say these things. It's five year old level stuff. If you do it anyway, it's becsuse you're abusive and just don't give a shit.
5:30 100% yes. My job is frustrating at times, because of customers or tools or slipups or just bad luck, but my boss has my back. He's a great project manager. His time is limited, but I enjoy talking to him. Without him, I could still do my stuff, but it would really, really suck at times.
I always love the "respect" argument.
Is it respectful to waste other people's time with your ignorance / stupidity? In my experience it is very common for people to not put in equal effort and then expect others to just accept the externalities of their lack of effort. We live in a time when more information is available at one's fingertips like never before and yet don't put in half the effort some of us had to put in when that wasn't the case to understand / solve a problem.
Wasn't like the guy who got the comment rolled off his couch and tried adding his name to Linux without looking up a single thing. He had put in enough effort to try understanding Linux to the point of submitting code - a pretty huge effort.
Maybe he wasn't the best programmer but is that reason to humiliate him in public? I can't think of any reason to humiliate a college like that - it's not like slight incompetence or slight lack of elite effort makes them the scum of the earth.
@@BenRangel I'm not going to discount the fact that Linus could have been in a bad mood or what not but bad / stupid design is bad / stupid design and if they really understood the code and the problem it is very unlikely Linus would have gotten upset. I manage numerous OSS projects. Sometimes I have people attempt to do their research but do it half assed or aren't willing to put in the effort to understand the code or step back and understand bigger pictures. These same people can also be annoying about whatever it is they are pushing for and waste massive amounts of my time. I can understand why Linus would snap at people. The kernel is managed by many people. If you got to Linus, not through them, then you've gone out of your way to reach him (breaking the normal kernel dev etiquette) or he happened across it and it was so bad he felt like speaking up... which isn't too often. Either way... I'm not going to feel too sorry for you. You put yourself out there without taking the time to get your shit vetted and happen to get in front of Linus who is limited on time... expect "feedback."
I've happened to be on a mail thread with Linus that made news due to a bug report I made. The fix, done by others, was sloppy and not fully tested. It lead to a released kernel that could panic in a somewhat regularly used code path. This was by known people in the space. Linus flipped. And rightfully so. Linux runs on billions of systems and worked on by thousands or more people. You fucking stuff up can cause massive amounts of aggregate time to be spent cleaning up. Time that could be better spent not chasing after bugs introduced by willful ignorance or laziness.
You don't have to fall down on one knee to show respect. Decent behaviour with kind words is enough. I understand it is not always possible to be like that especially when you're frustrated but to limit your words and speak in a manner which will help both you and the listener is what makes us humans. It is our innate primal instinct to judge people for any number of factors, but to control your thoughts and giving them the benefit of the doubt differentiates us from animals.
expecting humanity in machine world expecting human machines :)
Agreed. But unless the other person replying is not a bot, I expect humanity. Though I get your point, kindness is a scarce resource.
If you have to make sure that someone understands, that he or she wrote horrible code "kind words" won't get that done. These will just make sure the coder will have a really hard time to figure out how bad his/her code really is...
If you have actual human lives on the line and then you have a colleague who is totally negligent on the work that you are cooperating on, respect is the last thing you should be thinking of as a responsible human being.
Yes, I agree, the idea of respect is wildly overloaded in this context.
Also, treatment should not be solely dependent upon respect. And if you have any self respect, your treatment floor will be higher than petty insults and hissy fits.
In this way, I see linus and gates as very similar.
Respect isn't always earned. Sometimes it's necessary to prevent "dysfunctionality" (of a family, work, community, etc.)
Sadly people confuse respect and dignity all the time.
it's easy to wave the moral flag when you're not in the guy's shoes. linus is maintaining a piece of software that literally runs the internet. he can't afford lollygagging and stupidity
All the more reason to have some professionalism.
@@psyjax2- Professionalism... I think it's also professionalism to listen to substance over tone when someone communicates.
@psyjax2 you could call the way he was irritated about it professionalism. That's how much he cares about this stuff. Yet, yes, he probably shouldn't be so mean.
@@fullserstorm83 You can be irritated, and call someones work out as being sub-par, without resorting to school yard nonsense.
@@Omnifarious0 Nah. There is nothing high-minded here. Just a guy who's got a giant ego being an edgy jerk cuz' he can get away with it.
I respect Linus for his work. I don't respect him as a person (for how he treats people). Pretty simple to make that distinction. I imagine he is smart enough to also know the difference. But he just doesn't care - and that's the really sad part. You don't have to be a dick to demand excellence.
"i'm sorry" also means "i regret that i'm going to have to do something i wish i wouldn't have to" (make you an inconvenience by certain question in this case)
and on PRs, any mean thing converts automatically into honest and respectful, as soon as you use a format: "i think this approach may be problematic in situations A and B, because reason1, reason 2, reason3".
It may be that people do or don't deserve respect, but the question is always, why should you be the one who can judge that? I find there's almost never good arguments for this.
Also there's a difference between disresprect and respect.
I'd appreciate if Linus just told the other person: "I'm fucking pissed off at you I don't want to work with you". That's honesty, but there isn't an insult in this. It is totally possible and valid to be angry without being hateful.
Tbh I still doubt Linus told that to some random person submitting code for the first time. It was probably in a heated discussion where the person insisted with Linus that their thing didn't suck, or something of that nature. You only say that kind of thing when you've lost your patience to talk to a person, or when you're fed up with people suggesting the same stupid feature over and over, or something like that. It's doesn't come out of the blue. Offended people always leave out the most relevant details.
Yeah thats what I think too, cause ive met people like the complainer here, and they never see what they did.. its always the other persons (Linus in this case) fault.
Context was that shit code made it all the way to Linus, which means several maintainers had to give their blessings. The insult is primarily directed at the fact these maintainers let absolutely dogshit code pass without question, and Linus has since publicly apologized about using personal attacks in this manner (even going as far as banning it which created its own controversy). He still shits on bad code.
6:57 That could also be seen as gaslighting / invalidation. I dont think he is paddling back, it is more like "I am not sorry for my deeds, but your _perception_ of them". You know, he did nothing wrong - you just interpreted it wrong... Sure.
no he did not say that /s
6:45 I think he meant being honest about his feeling in the moment, the insult itself is quite obviously a hypoerbole as he states later, but I definitely made a double take at that exact moment too 😅
To add to the whole respect discussion. I think its decent to start off at 0 when you meet someone new, and allow it to stay there for a little while as you get to know eachother and establish some sort of baseline for your interactions. From that point you can both earn respect and disrespect, where respect is represented by a positive number and disrespect by a negative number - it can evolve over time and should be allowed to do so, just like you can lose respect you have earned you can also earn back respect you have lost. I think Linus' point of being able to choose who you interact with and not being overly sensitive is just fine, as long as you still allow people to earn back respect in one way or another. But I also think his original insults, because honestly thats what they are were disrespectful - thats not starting at 0, its fine to objectively say that something you made is shit, but I understand how people would react to the way he put it unless it was someone whos been earning disrespect from him over time. So while he himself has earned a lot of respect over time I think its completely fair to both criticise him and confront him over that, which imo speaks positive for the guy asking the questions in this video - he didnt ask in a disrespectful way and allowed Linus to answer as he wanted. Of course, Linus original statement was funny af but that doesnt excuse it, and makes it more akin to bullying then actually telling them they submitted bad code. Im in full support of the latter though...
it's hilarious when people with poor social skills calls poor communication "honesty". No, it's just you suck at communication. Steve jobs made this popular. Most of this is comes from lack of self awareness and lashing out at others when something triggers negative emotions. It's all subconscious.
So much of this is deep seeded insecurities. Even though Torvald doesn't need to prove anything, his subconscious still clings to it and lashes out when it gets triggered. Saying you don't care is just a defense mechanism to mask one's own insecurities.
there's a conflation between respect and compassion. Respect means I hold a person's opinion in higher regard. Compassion means before I open my mouth, I take a few seconds to consider someone feelings first. They aren't mutually exclusive
no, just no
you noted another definition of respect under different name
and yes these two are contradictory
and that's from where whole confusion comes from
probably we always had opposite cultures competing most of time meeting in half
but it's a great observation
problem is most people hold only one definition more dear to them
this discussion is exactly about making order in meanings and right proportions to things
PS We became civilised by learning to keep feelings away from judgements
expecting respecting feelings is as bad as using psychological attack directed at feelings
So people with poor social skills just shouldn’t be allowed to communicate? That doesn’t seem very practical. I would argue that it’s up to people with good social skills to do a better job at finding the intention/meaning of what was said rather than being distracted by how it was said.
Part of good social skills is dealing well with people that have poor social skills.
Genuine social conflict should really only happen when both parties have poor social skills.
If all software engineers were like you, we would have absolute trash because everyone would be focused on feelings.