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1/ I really enjoyed interviewing @xuenay about his writing strategy for bridging different perspectives. My writing has improved a ton from integrating this strategy!

So how does @xuenay do


2/ Like with all of these models, this is inspired by interview @xuenay but not necessarily endorsed by him. There's a necessary translation process that goes from his head to my head to paper!

3/Let's first talk about beliefs and motivations. What's his primary motivation to start this process?

For him, it's a process of seeing people disagree, and feeling a visceral sense of frustration at people talking post each other.

5/ For him, it's almost a proprioceptive sense of two different shapes. One person is saying circle, and the other is hearing square. It's really important to make these shapes match up!

6/ There are two underlying values here. The less salient one is wanting a sense of admiration from others. It's really nice to get praise for creating good explanations that unify two viewpoints.
🧵 The conversation surrounding this is confused in ways that really backfire. For example, you often hear that the Founders more or less "wanted gridlock to be the norm," for it to be "hard to get anything done," to guard against radical change.


Naturally, this tends to lessen the public's respect for the whole system. It doesn't sound very attractive, or at least sounds like a particularly inefficient way of guarding against radical change. "They wanted to force compromise," is better, but also backfires.

It confuses the public into being mad that everyone "can't just get a long and compromise," like it's a matter of personal attitudes and conflict is a sign something is wrong. A more invigorating and accurate framing:


We've basically inverted this framing into something very demoralizing. "Congress isn't supposed to do anything," rather than "Congress is gunning for a showdown." And we're so confused that one of the impeachment charges against Trump was "Obstruction of Congress."


The point is that the branches were supposed to be actively tactical, and were given a set of tools to use against each other. Not "do nothing."
This is so true! I imagine everyone accumulates a story that serves to make this point, but I'm afraid I can't resist sharing mine... 1/


Once, long ago, my manager came to me on a Friday afternoon: "Are you going to be here on Monday?" 2/

Now, this is the 1990s: to work from home, you needed a modem (!!) -- and at the time, I owned no computer so even that wasn't happening. So I was emphatically going to be there on Monday, if for no other reason that I had nowhere else to work. 3/

"Yes, of course I'm going to be here on Monday."
"Okay, we need to talk Monday."
"Is there something wrong? Can we talk now?"
"Let's talk Monday." 4/

My early-twentysomething self was (obviously?) very anxious, so I immediately went to the office of the senior engineer in the group (and my mentor), Jeff Bonwick to see if he knew of anything that I might have screwed up... 5/
AWW ❤️ It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

If you see someone cool having a horrible time on the internet, reach out. It's a time when someone's whole world is crumbling, and the real goal isn't just harassment. It's isolation; cutting people off.


Melinda's experience is also a great example of the "Don't scream" principle.

e.g. If somebody's kidnapping you & trying to hustle you into a car and they say "Don't scream," why are they saying that? It's bc they need silence to get away with the crime.

So you should yell.

It's funny. They'll tell you exactly how to beat them, if you listen.

If you have a moment, read through the thread & screenshots of all the threatening emails.

Notice anything odd? They're not so much threats, as they are orders. Do this! Don't do that!

Let's lay aside the sheer windbag-itude of issuing orders, in full seriousness, to strangers on LinkedIn when you can't even spell properly

There's a reason lots of people's response to Melinda speaking harsh truths about white-dominated rural areas

was to issue orders to STOP.

And orders to "make it right" by groveling on platforms where even more angry white nationalists would discover her.