Funny

There are subjects in which I have formal training and extensive experience in.

Grammar clearly not being one of them.

I kid. Sorry, I’m a sucker for low hanging fruit.

I will use slippery language for every statement unless you are family or you are paying 100$/hr 4 hours minimum. And then I will phrase in terms of "the trade offs and decisions that are available to you and why"

Lotta potential positions you could take with regards to that system, y'know. cracks epistemological knuckles, what ya got? How do you decide how much weight to attribute to a fact you heard someone else tell you? Who? In what context? That stuff doesn't, I believe, have a pithy answer

I think a problem might be that even if you have an internal rating system, it's still a spectrum and the other person doesn't know what that percentage of confidence you have is. If you're 95℅ sure, maybe you still want to communicate that it isn't 100℅ since assuming you're 100℅ sure might cause problems.

Things change all the time, even if it's part of your field of expertise. Today, gorillas are technically monkeys and Pluto isn't a planet, but lots of people are sure those aren't true.

Same. It's like a warning that I am possibly not correct.

The names have nice abbreviations, Alle, Ali and Gen

I once had a (male) boss tell me (female) that to be successful as a leader in our engineering industry as a woman, you have to be a bitch. He was trying to encourage me to be less polite and more confident, but he also made it clear exactly what he thought of those confident women. I think he was trying to be a good mentor but it fucked me up, because I don’t consider myself a bitch, nor do I want to be one. It took me a long time to realize he was wrong, and that I can be a kind person and confident at the same time.

On the flipside, I was once given feedback that I’m “too direct” in emails and it came across as rude. What I realized was, it wasn’t the directness, it was the lack of friendly communication around it. You can say “I know the answer to your problem, do this thing” as long as you add in “Hi so-and-so, thanks for the great question! Here’s my brief reasoning, so I recommend you do this thing.” One is “bossy”, the other is friendly and acknowledges the recipient is an equal asking for advice, instead of an underling who should obey you because you said so.

It is just admitting that you are able to be wrong, because most humans can't handle someone stating something, being corrected, and then accepting the right answer without an ego based conflict.

That's exactly why I (a man) do it. Because I'm trying to be polite about you being wrong and before I put your nose in it, I'm giving you a chance to acknowledge your mistake.

It's diplomacy, but yeah, apparently some men are still extra salty when the messenger is a woman. Go figure.

Not really. I do it a lot as well. It gives you a space to backtrack if you need/want to.

Personally this is something I do with my parents because if I make them feel bad for being wrong I'm the bad guy

It’s like using “just” in emails. Guys don’t do it, but women are seen as bitchy or bossy if they don’t.

“I’m just checking in about the progress on [x]”

Versus

“I’m checking in about the progress on [x].”

The latter feels much more direct. Women will tend to use the former while men will tend to use the latter. Because for guys it conveys authority; I’m checking in on this, you should have an update. While for women they need to downplay their authority; I’m looking for an update, but don’t mind me. Because if women stop using “just” they’re suddenly seen as demanding, bossy, too authoritative, etc…

Here's what I think is going on, a lot of the time: Some people who come from harsh environments or harsh families think that they have to constantly sort of push people around, to show that they can't be messed with. And they react very badly to being "pushed around" themselves, in their mind. Wven if it's not that at all, just someone who knows more than them telling them something. It comes from having to jostle for position in a harsh and unfair environment. They have almost this survival instinct where they can't ever be on the bottom of the pile, and they'll start fighting against anything they perceive as putting them there, even if it isn't. And I feel like there's a lot of overlap between that mentality and the "business" mentality in some white-collar settings.

It doesn't even have to be sexist, although it can be. It's more just a hyper-reaction to anything that comes across as threatening to their authority or their position. I think some people with that mentality will seize on gender if they need to, as the reason for why some particular person can't possibly be "above" them in the hierarchy and needs to get back in their place. But they might seize on some other reason just as readily if the "threat" is a man. The only type of people they won't do that to is people who can sort of "hold their own" in terms of combatting with them for dominance. Those people, they'll be comfortable with, because when they try to put them down unfairly they'll stand up for themselves firmly and so they regard them as "an equal" where everyone else by default is not.

In other words I think it comes from insecurity and causes a needless pain in the ass in a business setting because it makes them hard to work with. Although, I don't know, maybe if you asked them about me they'd tell you all about how I'm the one that's hard to work with.

That's so 🔥!

There’s a non zero chance I’m in the matrix and nothing has ever really happened. I will never be 100% sure of anything.

It is a nice hedge for when you can't be bothered to spend time looking things up to support a claim and don't want people asking

This is me 100%.

Though I'm probably right, I'm fine with being wrong. I don't want to spread untruths. I'd rather learn the true thing and try not to forget it.