> I think I personally would still prefer to receive one of the old style messages, but that's probably just because I better handle people angry with me than disappointed.
That's actually not that unusual. I actually found this email a lot harsher, in a certain sense.
When you losing your temper and swear at people, it's scary and intimidating because the hindbrain recognizes that behavior as, "this person is very likely to hit me". And since hindbrains are hindbrains, this reaction still happens even if it's over the internet. But you also end up making a big fool of yourself and leading people to discount what you're saying out of hand, because obviously you're angry and worked up. People losing their temper are hilarious from a safe distance, which is among other things the basic premise of Lewis Black's entire career as a comedian.
When you calmly and methodically communicate using only facts and logic, you do lose the hindbrain "this guy is going to hit me" reaction. But you get something more powerful. Heated anger indicates an unresolved problem. That's why you're all worked up--you have a nice little adrenaline rush going because you've detected a problem and you're fired up to go fix it. Being calm, even cold, is much more final: it indicates that everything is resolved. This approach completely disarms the defense mechanism of saying "Linus is just a dick" or thinking that he only said what he said out of anger.
That's actually not that unusual. I actually found this email a lot harsher, in a certain sense.
When you losing your temper and swear at people, it's scary and intimidating because the hindbrain recognizes that behavior as, "this person is very likely to hit me". And since hindbrains are hindbrains, this reaction still happens even if it's over the internet. But you also end up making a big fool of yourself and leading people to discount what you're saying out of hand, because obviously you're angry and worked up. People losing their temper are hilarious from a safe distance, which is among other things the basic premise of Lewis Black's entire career as a comedian.
When you calmly and methodically communicate using only facts and logic, you do lose the hindbrain "this guy is going to hit me" reaction. But you get something more powerful. Heated anger indicates an unresolved problem. That's why you're all worked up--you have a nice little adrenaline rush going because you've detected a problem and you're fired up to go fix it. Being calm, even cold, is much more final: it indicates that everything is resolved. This approach completely disarms the defense mechanism of saying "Linus is just a dick" or thinking that he only said what he said out of anger.