I find the PoliMath tweets kind of fascinating (in terms of psychology) because by the last tweet, he’s expressing a reasonable, concrete complaint that I think most people would agree with:
my 8 year old daughter still cries b/c the last time she saw her best friend was when she was 6.
That girl’s parents wouldn’t even let them play together outside and masked, even this summer
The burden placed on the children here is large, and two children playing outside (even unmasked, but especially masked) is extremely safe. I completely sympathize with him here.
But for some reason that led to the hyperbole in the first tweet:
no one is going to admit they were pro-masking for kids in 10 years
Regardless of his feelings about kids and masks, this is not even complaining about the same position as what prompted the thread! His underlying motivating scenario is completely lost.
If I had only read the first tweet, I would have wrote him off as completely insane and blocked him (and in fact I think I do have him blocked on twitter). But thanks to your summary here, I can see this is more a case of being bad at communication.
A takeaway lesson as a listener: absurd hyperbole can conceal legitimate grounds for frustration.
A takeaway lesson as a communicator: to be more persuasive, identify the specific, concrete scenario that you believe is being handled incorrectly, and present that instead of vague generalities.
I find the PoliMath tweets kind of fascinating (in terms of psychology) because by the last tweet, he’s expressing a reasonable, concrete complaint that I think most people would agree with:
The burden placed on the children here is large, and two children playing outside (even unmasked, but especially masked) is extremely safe. I completely sympathize with him here.
But for some reason that led to the hyperbole in the first tweet:
Regardless of his feelings about kids and masks, this is not even complaining about the same position as what prompted the thread! His underlying motivating scenario is completely lost.
If I had only read the first tweet, I would have wrote him off as completely insane and blocked him (and in fact I think I do have him blocked on twitter). But thanks to your summary here, I can see this is more a case of being bad at communication.
A takeaway lesson as a listener: absurd hyperbole can conceal legitimate grounds for frustration.
A takeaway lesson as a communicator: to be more persuasive, identify the specific, concrete scenario that you believe is being handled incorrectly, and present that instead of vague generalities.