I really like to establish connections between related ideas, so I'd like to throw out a couple of things that are on my radar screen that strike me as being very in harmony with this "be nice" conversation.
One is the area of complexity theory aka complex systems. And what is nature and what are human beings and human societies if not incredibly complex systems? Not an area I'm an expert in, but I
am really interested and I like to read about.
Coolest talk I've heard in a long while in this area I stumbled on by accident while looking for something else. Absolutely brilliant and thought-provoking. Keynote given by a professor of the philosophy of science at a UX (user experience, aka computer system usability or user-friendliness) conference. She's speaking about how in western thought, we feel the need for clean, definite, always-true facts, and that just ain't the way a lot of the world works. Among many other brilliant points and ideas. About a half-hour talk.
"Safe-Fail, not Failsafe" -- Alicia Juarrero
Truth and being right and facts have a way of shifting under your feet as your knowledge expands, and sometimes new and greater ways of doing things come along that make all of the above irrelevant. And more power to us if we can make a bunch of the world's current problems irrelevant! Seriously, from relativity to quantum physics to complex systems theory, it's clearer and clearer that a fact under one set of circumstances can be patently false or irrelevant under another. Thus our different experiences.
Anyway, I think being nice plays an important role here. From what I've seen, it can be surprisingly effective and really boost the collective ability of a group to think creatively, outside the box, brainstorm crazy ideas that gradually get whittled into workable ones, etc. It's a great group effectiveness booster.
In one of my other lives, I am involved in an approach called Appreciative Inquiry that's often used to bring about big changes, especially in organizations. The basis of it really throws people for a loop because, like complexity theory and sometimes the "be nice" rule, it challenges the whole way we are trained to think, reason and solve problems.
One of the things you specifically stop doing when using AI is solving problems! It freaks people out when you present it as an idea, just like some people here in the days of yore got freaked out by not being able to present "the truth" and "the facts" and call out when something or someone is "right" or "wrong." However, it works really well in practice, just like the "be nice" rule, and once you get going, you find that there really
are much better uses to everyone's time than analyzing problems, falsehoods, and what went wrong. So I find this aspect of AI to be really similar to the "be nice" rule: No finding fault with what people said, i.e.
no solving problems with them or their thinking.
But of course there are problems in life! you say. I can hear you. Don't we have to solve them? Maybe not so much. AI tends to simply seek out
loads of stories and practical examples of what has worked really well for people in whatever area you're inquiring into. Often a much, much better and maybe even paradigm-shifting solution emerges out of this inquiry that really does not share too many characteristics with all the "problems" we were seeking to solve previously. A lot of "problems" can be transcended completely by
combining a few focused, good ideas coming out of real, practical, workable life experience.
For instance, if a friend is struggling with smoke and soot problems, poor heating and high wood consumption in their open-hearth fireplace, one approach could be to look at rational, scientific, fact-based ways to solve each of those problems: better wood, chimney characteristics, etc. You could spend a lifetime studying the problems and making ever-more-perfect solutions. Your results would be dramatically better or worse according to whether you embraced or ignored the "right" facts and experience. And people could suggest incorrect formulas for calculating the draft of a chimney and you could tell them they're stupid. Unfortunately, this at best would be a tragic waste of everybody's time.
Alternatively, instead of focusing so intensely on "solving" those "problems," and searching for the truth and the right way to do what you have in front of you, you could just forget all the current "problems" and do some friendly, blue-sky, crazy brainstorming about the best ways to meet the person's goals -- efficient heat, enviro-friendly, very low waste products -- hmmm. That's what a few people in our orbit here actually did -- and come up with the paradigm-shifting designs of the latest and (so far) greatest rocket mass heaters.
So you suggest to your friend that they build an RMH where their current fireplace is and their goals are met better than they could ever have imagined, all without solving any of the problems your friend thought they had. Or yes, maybe you solved them, but really you transcended them. I.e., you set up a whole new system that takes care of many of those old problems automatically, by its very nature and elegant design -- the former "problems" have simply lost relevance and disappeared. Plus it was much more fun.
So to circle back to permies and being nice, it's just another way to suggest that the friendly atmosphere here is great for brainstorming, creative thinking and paradigm shifting. People do not throw out their precious crazy ideas, the ones that even if presently half-baked could somehow help lead to a really important breakthrough, if they think they are going to be called out, criticized, showed up and ridiculed. This is a "safe-fail" space, not looking to be a failsafe space, as Dr. Juarrero of the above talk might say.
Conversely, if people sense that they are going to get dumped on, they often adopt a defensive position. And this often leads to a long and largely pointless interchange of defense-offense, one-upsmanship, holier-than-thouism, that don't shift no paradigms or advance the conversation or the cause. Often, maybe usually, they miss the point entirely by narrowing the focus to a few points in the service of ego. Maybe a few points do get resolved, but the big picture often gets lost, and the ground-breaking totally different solution that was possible if only people would stop bickering and collaborate, never got thought about. These are the typical shortcomings of looking for "failsafe."
I'm new-ish here on permies and can say, happily, that much of the beginning of this thread seems like it's from another planet now. Isn't that great! And it seems that the people who come here and "be nice" do manage to fully express themselves, and even propose alternative ideas or solutions that they like better. And even even, two people can each keep a different solution that they like better or works better in their circumstances without either one being "right" and without anyone insulting anyone! So kudos to Paul, and also to Adrien, Burra, Cassie and others who have created and implemented some really workable and productive rules that allow us to enjoy this space so much and get so much value out of it.
Edited for typos
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