[abanana]

People are afraid to sound too critical. It's very noticeable how every article that points out a mistake anywhere in a subject that's even slightly politically charged, has to emphasize "of course I believe X, I absolutely agree that Y is a bad thing", before they make their point. Criticising an unreplicable paper is the same thing. Clearly these people are afraid that if they sound too harsh, they'll be ignored altogether as a crank.

[1dom]

> Clearly these people are afraid that if they sound too harsh, they'll be ignored altogether as a crank.

This is true though, and one of those awkward times where good ideals like science and critical feedback brush up against potentially ugly human things like pride and ego.

I read a quote recently, and I don't like it, but it's stuck with me because it feels like it's dancing around the same awkward truth:

"tact is the art of make a point without making an enemy"

I guess part of being human is accepting that we're all human and will occasionally fail to be a perfect human.

Sometimes we'll make mistakes in conducting research. Sometimes we'll make mistakes in handling mistakes we or others made. Sometimes these mistakes will chain together to create situations like the post describes.

Making mistakes is easy - it's such a part of being human we often don't even notice we do it. Learning you've made a mistake is the hard part, and correcting that mistake is often even harder. Providing critical feedback, as necessary as it might be, typically involves putting someone else through hardship. I think we should all be at least slightly afraid and apprehensive of doing that, even if it's for a greater good.

[lo_zamoyski]

The fountain is charity. This is no mere matter of sentiment. Charity is willing the objective good of the other. This is what should inform our actions. But charity does not erase the need for justice.

[anal_reactor]

American culture has this weird thing to avoid blame and direct feedback. It's never appropriate to say "yo, you did shit job, can you not fuck it up next time?". For example, I have a guy in my team who takes 10 minutes every standup - if everyone did this, standup would turn into an hour-long meeting - but telling him "bro what the fuck, get your shit together" is highly inappropriate so we all just sit and suffer. Soon I'll have my yearly review and I have no clue what to expect because my manager only gives me feedback when strictly and explicitly required so the entire cycle "I do something wrong" -> "I get reprimanded" -> "I get better" can take literal years. Unless I accidentally offend someone, then I get 1:1 within an hour. One time I was upset about the office not having enough monitors and posted this on slack and my manager told me not to do that because calling out someone's shit job makes them lose face and that's a very bad thing to do.

Whatever happens, avoid direct confrontation at all costs.

[mike_hearn]

That's a legitimate fear though - it's exactly what happened in this case. "The reviewers did not address the substance of my comment; they objected to my tone".

[mgfist]

In general Western society has effectively outlawed "shame" as an effective social tool for shaping behavior. We used to shame people for bad behavior, which was quite effective in incentivizing people to be good people (this is overly reductive but you get the point). Nowadays no one is ever at fault for doing anything because "don't hate the player hate the game".

A blameless organization can work, so long as people within it police themselves. As a society this does not happen, thus making people more steadfast in their anti-social behavior

[mrguyorama]

You agree we had more shame before.

Certainly, you are aware we literally had more crime back then, right? Additionally, we heaped shame on people who did not deserve it, like women and black people and gay people.

So what the fuck good does that do?

You know what actually changed? White collar crime stopped being a thing.