Why doesn't anyone get what I mean?
I kept saving pieces about the same frustration: I said it clearly, and it still didn’t land. The first three explain why. The last two are about what works instead.
- Illusion of Transparency: Why No One Understands You
Yudkowsky uses Boaz Keysar's experiments to show that we know what we mean and assume others do too, so speakers overestimate how well they're understood, as Chamberlain did in his letter to Hitler.
- Information Compression
Wang's 2019 Scale memo argues companies slow down because people compress complex problems badly when handing them off, so the fix is shared context, vertical teams, and solving your own problems.
- You can't tell people anything
Explaining a new idea in words rarely works; people only understand once they experience it, which changes how you should pitch, demo, and teach.
- the world doesn’t move because you tell it to
signull argues people never change because they are told to, only when a story or vision shifts what they see, as in falling in love, lasting friendships, and leaders like Jobs.
- How to Capture Attention
How writing the Hacker News headline first, then building the release to match it, kept RethinkDB on top of HN and taught Akhmechet to write headlines that land.
Next path: Whose advice should I take?