@rysiek Lots of people these days are focused on "not"...

All posts Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦's posts Post Back to profile

@rysiek Lots of people these days are focused on "not" something. You propose a solution (whether it's politics, or technical, or culture whatever) and their reply is "not that." It's easy to say "not that". It's hard to say "we want this" and actually have a viable, workable solution.

When someone replies to my suggestion with "not that" I just immediately reply with "what do we do instead?" Frequently they don't know.

Nobody would live in a house if everyone said "not a cave, not a hut, not a hole in the ground, not a tree, not a bush..." You can't arrive at "I want to live in a house" by naming all the things you DON'T want to live in.

Like 14 January at 17:17 | Wall-to-wall | Open on infosec.exchange

4 comments

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@paco 💯

It is perfectly reasonable to say "not that" even if one does not have a good solution. But that has to be related to some specific bad outcome.

Saying "not that, just because I don't think it would work, but no I have no specific bad outcome I am concerned with, and no I have no alternative" is what gets me.

Esp. when it's delivered in an authoritative tone of "this will never work."

Again, if "this will never work", why even bother opposing it? Just sit back and enjoy being right!

14 January at 17:21 | Open on mstdn.social

RedFreljordian

@paco @rysiek Right but if you live in a house that is imperfect but someone suggests that you should live in a cave instead, "not that" is an acceptable answer. Not making progress is better than going backwards.

14 January at 18:07 | Open on mastodon.world

Clark W Griswold until 25-Dec

Let me try to connect your comment to mine. When this hypothetical person says "go live in a cave", even if your reply to them is literally the words "not that", the meaning is more than simple negation. You're going to DO something. You have reasons for doing it. So in our rhetoric we need to move away from negation. Maybe you'll continue to live in your imperfect house. Maybe you will leave your imperfect house and move into something that is neither that house nor a cave, that's what you will DO. Negating the suggestion of living in a cave doesn't say what you WILL do. But we know you will do SOMETHING.

Like when someone says "we will ban abortion" they do not usually identify the kinds of medical care that will be substituted for situations where abortion would normally be the treatment. Banning and negating can't lead to the thing we actually do. Even if we all agree nobody will live in caves, that doesn't mean everybody lives in houses instead of cars. They're going to live somewhere, and saying "not in caves" isn't useful.

@RedFreljordian @rysiek

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14 January at 18:44 | Open on infosec.exchange

RedFreljordian

@paco sure. But in most cases there is already a status quo, which is what people tend to mean when they say "not that". As in the situation is not great, someone proposes something and the reply is no that seems bad, I'd rather keep what we have even if I think it is still not great.

Ofcourse it would be even better if they did offer a valuable suggestion, but we can't all have ideas for everything and sometimes it is valid to just say no I do not want that

14 January at 19:03 | Open on mastodon.world