Thursday, 29 June 2023

A cocktail of bad social skills: 3 dumb mistakes to avoid

Hi there guys, I would like to share with you an experience involving a cocktail of terrible social skills that I encountered at a business meeting recently - I hope that in talking about it, I can help you avoid this mistake in the future. During a meeting, it isn't uncommon for us to make small talk with the clients we meet but as we don't really know them on a personal level, we tend to discuss what is happening in the news to keep get the conversation flowing. A few days ago, I was at a meeting with two guys, let's call them Mr Aye and Mr Bee and the conversation turned to the Titan submersible which imploded near the wreck of the Titanic, killing all on board. This meeting happened just as the announcement was made that the vessel had a catastrophic implosion and there were no survivors. I am not an expert on submarines, like most people, I had followed the story in the news and I didn't know that much about it. Mr Bee took a real interest in the story as he had been in a submarine before as well as done some scuba diving, whilst Mr Aye hasn't really paid attention to the story. I guess he had better things to do than to care what happened to those five very rich people, but Mr Aye said something really quite stupid. He said, "if they were in a submarine, then why couldn't they just swim to the surface even if the submarine gave way?" Oh dear. Mr Bee rolled his eyes and explained that at the depth of 3,500 meters, the water pressure was so high that their lungs would instantly collapse causing instant death. In any case, given that the world record for 1,500 freestyle (held by Sun Yang of China) is 14:31, then even Sun Yang would take over 33 minutes to swim that distance of 3.5 km at that pace and Sun Yang was swimming in a pool, he was allowed to take a breath between strokes. Given a human can at best hold their breath for about two minutes without panicking, not only was what Mr Aye had suggested just totally implausible but it had made him sound quite stupid to have even suggested it in the first place. 

Mr Aye works in finance, he doesn't know anything about deep sea diving or submarines, that's fine as it is not the kind of knowledge he requires to do his job. But in voicing what is a really dumb opinion in front of Mr Bee, Mr Aye had made an error of judgment. I am willing to give Mr Aye the benefit of the doubt that he simply hasn't followed the story at all and wasn't aware of how deep the submersible was when it imploded, but why would he voice an opinion on a topic he knew very little about? I was there at the same meeting and I quickly realized that Mr Bee knew a lot more about about the topic than I did. so instead I simply asked him questions like, "why do you think the submersible imploded like that? What kind of insurance would they have had for this kind of risky mission? Will this stop other companies from running similar trips to view the wreck of the Titanic? Would you have liked to have gone on a similar type of deep sea expedition and what would convince you that it would be safe enough to do so after this accident?" Note that I didn't once try to express any kind of opinion, all I did was take the information that I had learned in the news along with what Mr Bee had said to formulate some questions. In doing so, I had contributed to the conversation whilst carefully avoiding exposing my ignorance on the topic. Thus the best case scenario is that Mr Bee simply ignores Mr Aye's ignorant comment and chalks it down to the typical awkwardness of small talk at business meetings with people you hardly know, but the worst case scenario is that Mr Bee could start to question Mr Aye's judgment in tying to voice a totally erroneous and downright stupid opinion on a topic that he knew nothing about (in front of an expert, no less). I don't want to guess what Mr Bee made about the situation and I didn't want to ask him about it (well, he can make up his own mind on Mr Aye) but I realized that Mr Aye's faux pas did leave me with a rather poor impression of him - please allow me to be clear, I wasn't judging him on his lack of knowledge of the effects of deep sea diving on the human body. I was just shocked that he felt that that it was okay to just say the first thing that came into his mind without considering how others might have reacted.

There is this other thing that I have noticed about Mr Aye that I'll never tell him (nah, I don't know him well enough to open that Pandora's box - that's not my problem to solve) but it is another mistake that he makes. As I am writing this, I just approved a comment by Amanda when she references a Youtube video and my reaction was, hey I have seen the exact same video! Turns out that both Amanda and I like to watch educational videos on Youtube and I'm embedding the video that she referenced below as a good example of a video from that genre. Note that the narrator of the video is extremely articulate in the way he narrates the video - the video is tightly scripted of course but the execution of the narration is always perfect. But of course, if he does make a mistake, like if he has an awkward pause in the middle of a sentence then he would just go back and record that sentence again. I call this the BBC documentary voice - whereby you sound very authoritative because your delivery reminds people of BBC documentaries they have watched and generally, if we watch a BBC documentary on any topic from forensic science to nutrition to green energy, we tend to trust the content as we trust the BBC to be a reliable source of information. Here's the thing about Mr Aye - he does have a lot of technical knowledge when it comes to what he does but he lets himself down when he does any kind of sales pitch or presentation because he simply hasn't mastered this kind of 'BBC documentary voice' when it comes to the way he speaks. This is not about the accent that we have when we speak (as that's a whole other topic altogether), rather I'm referring to the ability to speak without any kind of hesitation or meaningless fillers such as "I mean, erm, well uh, you know, like" which does make one sound rather inarticulate and less trustworthy. This really isn't such a difficult skill at the end of the day as many Youtubers and social media influencers have learnt how to speak this way as they realize how much of an impact that could have on their audience becoming more receptive to the messages that they are delivering. 

This is something easily observed when you watch the news - during a live interview, most people often struggle a bit as they formulate the answers to a question they have just been asked. Even politicians don't perform well as they are trying to do two things at the same time: they are starting to offer an answer (to avoid an awkward silence) whilst thinking of the rest of the answer in their heads. This is the ultimate test of multi-tasking and some people do that better than others. This is easily handled in a casual conversation. Say I am talking to Mr Bee about deep sea diving and I don't quite know what to say as it is not a topic I am familiar with, what should I do in this situation? Allow me to use an analogy from basketball. Even if I am in possession of the ball, I have to evaluate whether or not I have a decent chance of getting close enough to the hoop to try to score a goal. If I do, then I would need to plan what the best strategy to employ to get as close as possible to maximize my chances of scoring effectively. If not, the sensible option would be to simply pass the ball to a team mate who is in a better position to be able to score that goal. If in doubt, you're probably better off passing the ball. Thus in this situation, I would "pass the ball" over to Mr Bee before I run out of things to say and just stare blankly into space mid-sentence. So in this case, I would use a simple question like, "you seem to feel very strongly about this - can I ask you why please? Might this be because of a personal experience? Have you witnessed this before?" In passing the ball over to him, not only am I relieving myself of the need to come up with what to say next, I am also buying myself more time to think about where the conversation is headed and work out how I feel about the topic should he then pass the ball back to me by asking me a question. Furthermore, I am flattering Mr Bee at the same time by making him think that I respect his authority on the subject and thus I want to hear what he has to say on the topic. Those who lack this vital skill can feel too nervous to take part in group conversations as they think they will embarrass themselves when they don't know what to say, when really, all they have to do is just pass the ball if that ever happened. 

Finally, the last social faux pas was committed by Mr Bee this time. I was explaining to him that there are two kinds of people out there. The first kind are those who will look up to someone like him and say, "wow Mr Bee is an expert in what he does, I'd love to be able to work with him so I can learn a lot from him." Then there are those who might be intimidated by someone who is clearly very intelligent, "oh no, what if Mr Bee realizes that I'm not as intelligent as him, what if he looks down on me, I don't dare to work with someone like that. I'm better off working with people who are either less intelligent than me or at least of the same intelligence so they won't look down on me." Mr Bee's reaction to that however left me shaking his head, he said, "oh I would never look down on you Alex, we just have very different skills. You can do loads of things I can't do." I rolled my eyes and thought, firstly, this wasn't about you - I was talking generically about how people would react when they meet someone who is clearly a lot more intelligent but furthermore, this wasn't about myself either. It was a case of listening comprehension failure - if he had been listening carefully enough to what I had been saying, then the obvious question would have been, "so which category do you belong to Alex? After you attracted to people who are smarter than you or intimidated by them?" But when Mr Bee made that mistake, I did then question all our previous conversations - how much information did he actually absorb in those previous conversations then? Was this just a one-off or is he such a bad listener with a short attention span that his mind would simply wander off mid-conversation and stop listening? How many times has he done this before to me then? Fortunately, I don't have to work with Mr Bee as I can imagine just how incredibly frustrating it would be having to work with someone who struggles with basic listening comprehension like that - this isn't rocket science at the end of the day, you just have to shut up and listen.

So those were the three social skills faux pas that I encountered that day: Mr Aye insisting on talking about a topic that he knew nothing about, Mr Aye refusing to 'pass the ball' even when he is clearly struggling to form his next sentence and Mr Bee's epic listening comprehension fail. I am not even going to try to fix the problem with Mr Aye and Mr Bee's lack of social skills - they didn't ask me for help and I certainly wasn't going to go out of my way to say, "you have a problem and I'm going to fix your poor social skills." No, instead I just silently judged them (then bitched about them on my blog) but they will go on having those poor social skills. What do you think? Have you ever met people like Mr Aye And Mr Bee? Do you think that people like Mr Aye and Mr Bee are even aware that they have made those mistakes or are they blissfully unaware, because I didn't say anything to them? Do you think that people actually make a real effort to improve their social skills or do most of them convince themselves that they are doing quite well in that department? Would you say anything to your friends if they had awful social skills? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading. 

20 comments:

  1. @LIFT, I am no submarine or diving expert, but I see two major flaws in Mr Aye’s logic:
    1) At such depts the human lungs cannot hold in the external pressure so you can’t hold your breath.
    2) Something called bends aka decompression sickness (DCS) when dissolved gases (mainly nitrogen) come out of solution in blood which can be fatal if you ascend too rapidly.
    I have also watched that EE video before.
    As for listening comprehension problem, I have been facing that daily while calling all the bank’s support line. I feel that although they spoke English, they do not understand the language at all and are just human robots who are reading out a script and not there to understand and answer my question. But I guess if they had any ounce of English comprehension skills they wouldn’t be working at a bank’s back office.

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    1. Humans can usually hold their breaths for about 2 minutes under normal circumstances and even if we were to put aside the issue of the extreme pressure and the need for decompression sickness, the sudden implosion of the submarine meant that they were just chucked into the deep sea 3.5 km beneath the surface of the ocean. Even if they weren't instantly killed (which for the record, they were - hence at least they didn't suffer before they died), there was just no way they could have made it to the surface in time before they ran out of air.

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  2. I think Mr. Aye could've gotten away with it if he pitched his idea as a joke by prefacing his opinion with "my opinion is probably gonna sound dumb because I know nothing of deep sea diving or submarines, but I think blah blah blah..." Because if it is dumb, then people can say "yeah that is a dumb idea because in reality it would blah blah blah... hahaha"... or if it isn't dumb then people could say "no that's not actually inaccurate, but the people aboard were too stupid to blah blah blah...hahaha" In academia we have to pitch ideas all the time, 90% of which won't work, so you learn quickly how to get away with pitching bad ideas. And self-depreciating humor goes a long way.

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    1. I think context is everything - amongst friends, say if we were to sit down and have a coffee together Amanda, I'd be quite relaxed about saying anything without worrying too much about the consequences even if I did say something misinformed. But Mr Bee is someone quite important in the industry (and whadaya know, I might be doing something with him after all, long story) and with a potential business partner, I will always default to being a bit more formal and cautious to avoid putting my foot in my mouth. There's little or no reward to simply tell him the first thing that pops into my head and sometimes, there's that little voice in my head which reminds me, "don't say that, nobody wants to hear it." I risk coming across as a bit cold and formal in such meetings but that's just the business mode I default to and I think it's very professional. I'm a totally different character when I am joking and relaxed with my friends like you.

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    2. Oh I didn't realize this was a formal business meeting. I thought it was an after hours cocktail party or something similar. In formal meetings even casual talk isn't always welcome because time is of the essence. But yeah if I met Tim Cook or Michael Bloomberg in a business setting I'm not gonna risk saying anything stupid because their time is precious. There's a time and place for business talk, cocktail party talk, and casual talk. But Mr. Bee's listening comprehension was quite callous. I think if it happened one out of every 20 times, nobody's attention span is perfect so there is an acceptable error rate, but it doesn't give a good first impression to fail on the first incident.

      Are you looking forward to working with Mr. Bee?

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    3. Well let's put it this way - in my line of work, I deal with clients with complex needs when it comes to investing their wealth. The deal we looked at today involved a 25m euro investment into a project and when there are complex cross-border transactions, you need innovative solutions to make it tax efficient. It is all about structuring complex investments and transactions - if it sounds boring, then yes it is very boring. I have a client in Luxembourg who is handling a complex transaction and Mr Bee happens to provide one such structure that the lady in Luxembourg could potentially use - thus it was literally, Madame Lux, may I present to you my friend Mr Bee. Mr Bee, Madame Lux is a good friend from Luxembourg working on a particularly complex transaction at the moment. I then literally sat back and did little, Madame Lux explained her challenges, Mr Bee proposed some possible solutions to her situation, Madame Lux said I like this one, can I get more information on how you could do this for me? And that's it, easy money for me because if Madame Lux uses Mr Bee's solution, then I get a cut as an introducer. Welcome to my world, it is ridiculously easy to make money. Madame Lux trusts me and she knows I will never introduce crap to her, I'll only bring her good solutions. I like Mr Bee's solutions and he is good at what he does though as explained earlier, his lack of social skills (ie. he's a bad listener) irks me a lot. But that's when I just go into work mode - think about how a receptionist at the hotel front desk is always friendly and polite even with the most unreasonable and rude guests, it's called customer services. I do slip into that customer service mode when dealing with people like Mr Bee. I don't hate him but I am not fond of him either - he's just one of many people I have to deal with in the work context.

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    4. Wow that's very easy money, but you probably invested a lot of effort beforehand to get the trust of both Madame Lux and Mr. Bee to be able to broker such a deal. I'm aware of these kind of "tax geniuses" who help big corporations or investors lower their taxes by being experts in international finance laws. Even my dad likes to complain about tariffs and paperwork required to move money and goods across borders, the government always wants to take their cut. Considering those 25 millions are in Euros, the EU would probably tax the hell out of that investment by default.

      Oh so you don't have to directly work with Mr. Bee, instead you are recommending him to a client to do a job they don't currently have a solution for. Well money is money, we don't have to be friends with our coworkers. Haha almost everyone in a white collar job is in "customer service mode", but Mr Bee must be really good at his job to get away with less than perfect social skills. By the way, I may have to hire a web developer soon. But part of me is very lazy and would prefer to recommend someone I already know to my boss than to put out a job ad and conduct interviews of total strangers, because it takes time away from other things I need to do.

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    5. Oh it's not a done deal yet but it's looking hopeful - fingers crossed. But actually, to win the trust of both Madame Lux and Mr Bee, that was all done via third party. For Madame Lux, we have a mutual friend in Brussels, so Mr Brussels told Madame Lux, "Alex is the best, I have known him for a while and I know he is very good at what he does." Since Madame Lux and Mr Brussels are good friends, she trusts his recommendation and his judgment. So it's not like I had to start building that relationship from scratch, it started off at an accelerated pace the moment we were introduced, thanks to Mr Brussels' endorsement of my abilities. As for the taxation issue, the government doesn't tax your investment! That's actually completely wrong and untrue. Let's run through a case study and work out what the tax is due.

      Ms Amanda is a super rich lady and she invests $10 million in a start up. In scenario A, she makes a small profit of 500k in the first year. So is she taxed on a) $10m b) $10.5m or c) 500k. In scenario B, she makes a loss of 500k. So is she taxed on a) $10m b) $9.5m or c) Zero whilst trying to claim some kind of tax rebate after having made a loss. In both instances, the answer is c).

      So going back to the case I raised, 25m euros were invested. We don't know if they will make a profit or loss on it (though we're hoping they'll make a profit, but that will be confirmed like a year or two from now - you don't see results immediately of course). The tax bill will be on the profit, not the amount invested. So if the project makes a loss, then the tax bill will be a big fat ZERO euros.

      But what Mr Bee is proposing is this: if the 25m euro deal does make a big profit (and we hope it will), then we wanna structure it in a way that the investors don't get hit with a massive tax bill at that stage and that structures are put in place at this early stage to prevent that from happening by taking advantage of some legal loopholes to minimize the tax burden.

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    6. Wow you know a lot of people in business who can introduce you to other people. Ahh okay, so they only tax the profits of investments. I wrongly assumed there was some kind of wealth tax in the EU, but upon googling only a small handful of countries implement a net wealth tax similar to a property tax but including all assets and not just property.

      This sounds similar to how you structured your own company to reduce your own taxes, but I don't know if that 25 million investment would show a profit in terms of a payable dividend, or in the form of an increased stock price. But if it's a private company then private valuations are open to interpretation, unlike a publicly traded company. I dunno how private valuations are even taxed, or if they are even taxable. If the profits are in dividends I guess the shareholders don't have to take out the money all at once if they don't need it urgently.

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    7. Nooooo Amanda, even in the most left wing European countries like Sweden, a wealth tax is a total non-starter. It's the act of killing the goose the lays the golden eggs. Only the most crazy left wing extremists would even suggest that as it simply would NOT work. Let me explain why it is so hideously stupid - yes you tax people when they make money (such as when a worker receive wages - that is income tax), you also tax people/businesses when they make profits (that's another good time for the government to reasonably ask for a form of tax, such as capital gains tax). When people go out and spend money like when we go to the mall and buy a new pair of shoes, then we pay VAT/GST on consumption which is again, something we have become accustomed to. But when we invest in a business, that's a good thing that the governments really desperately want rich people to do! The government would be like please please pretty please we are begging you, please invest in these local businesses and help us stimulate the economy. Instead of taxing the amount of money invested in these local businesses, the government is doing the complete opposite of what you suggested! They are often offering generous tax rebates, subsidies and other grants just to reward these private companies/individuals who are doing the government a massive favour by investing in the local economy. Without these private companies/individuals investing like that, the government would have to find money to do the same thing to invest in these areas and so the government really fucking what private companies to do that so they really don't have to find the money to do that.

      So when someone does you a favour and you're so incredibly grateful, do you:

      1. Say THANK YOU I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! And reward them for doing something so incredibly useful and helpful, so they will continue helping you.

      2. Say FUCK YOU and hit them with a massive tax bill, ensuring that they fuck off and never ever help you again? Duh, can you see why this is so obvious?

      This kind of private investment to stimulate the economy is so vital for the economy to be healthy, to stimulate economic growth and generate jobs. So you need to say thank you not fuck you to the private investors who are doing this vital function.

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    8. The only people I have met who are advocating a wealth tax are those who are working class, stuck in poverty and basically want a Robin Hood to go around robbing the rich and redistributing the money to the poor. It's literally an attitude that is like "Why am I so poor whilst others are so rich? Why can't the government just take some of that money from the rich people and give that to me without me having to do anything to work for it?" That's the kind of talk that I hear from poor, working class people who don't understand that if they want to get rich, they can do so but they have to earn it. If a government wants to stay in power, it has to manage the economy sensibly so the ministry of finance has got to be run by intelligent people who understand how to reward behaviour by the business community that is conducive for stimulating economic growth. Remember, that if you treat the business community badly in country A, they'll simply move their money to country B and invest there instead and country A's economy would be crippled if they get a bad reputation for treating investors badly - thus a wealth tax simply doesn't work. It's not that I'm so right wing that I don't believe in taxing the rich, but I'm simply looking at cause & effect here within the economic system. So how it works is that the ministry of finance (or whatever you call the department that manages the economy) does what is conducive for business, they then allocate a pot of money to a different ministry for social care (or whatever you call the department that takes care of poor working class people) so they have money to spend on the poor, to appease the working class voters. You do not mix the two department up by letting that most uneducated poor working class voters dictate the policy on business - that's the only way you would end up with a wealth tax that will only destroy the economy by driving away the very people who can help stimulate the economy and create much needed jobs.

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    9. Same thing I hear in Singaoore! The opposition are trying to propose a wealth tax to try to win the boomer and working class votes!!
      Now I am as left wing as the come back I think the only thing a wealth tax accomplishes is capital flight, not more tax revenue.

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    10. Oh so you're saying that taxing investments or wealth would be counter-intuitive because rich people investing (often using private wealth), is a job creator. I was googling how Europe's taxes differ from the US, and I'm shocked that the 40% income tax bracket is reached at lower income levels than the US. So it's more like everyone working is taxed higher in general, to create a central pot of money. But at the same time more people seem to benefit. For example, in Germany a worker making 80k euros/year pays 30k euros/year in income tax. But university is free, and for people who don't go to university the government also subsidizes apprenticeships to be a plumber or roofer. In America, taxes vary by state, but in new york which taxes a lot, you need to make 100k to pay 30k in income tax, and in texas which has no state income taxes you need to make 125k to pay 30k in income tax. But also I notice they have way less income inequality in Germany, to be in the top 1% of earners in Germany you only need to make 150k euros/year in 2018, while in the US you have to make about 300k usd/year to count as a top 1% earner. I guess there is no need for a wealth tax if there is less income inequality such that everyone just pays the same high taxes in Europe.

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    11. Allow me to respond by pointing out one aspect of this kind of investment - if you're a rich person with 25 million to invest, there would be a big range of options for you across different industries in different countries. It would make you be in a position of power whereby you're like the king & queen in the royal court, you'll have a beauty parade whereby all those seeking your investment will pitch you and promise you why this will be such a good investment decision for you. So if option A is in a country where they will tax the person or company investing that kind of money at the point of investment, it represents a very bad deal for both the investor as well as the company receiving the investment - the investor will then say, "that sounds like a bad deal, let's look at the others first". Then the next person will rush in and say, "not only will my government offer you massive tax breaks, they will also throw in all kinds of perks just to persuade you to invest in my country! We love foreign direct investments - we say thank you instead of fuck you when you invest!" Any kind of taxation on the investment process in country A will drive investors to countries B, C, D etc instead who will be like, "don't invest in country A, they're a bunch of crazy communists who hate rich people and want to appease their working class voters, they don't understand how business works but we do, so invest with us instead." If you need any kind of government initiative to address inequality, you need a pot of money to start with so you can start funding programmes that help the poor. That means having a thriving economy and having pro-business policies, because without that, how the heck are you gonna help the poor - where are you gonna find the money to do so? You can't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by taxing activities like investment which is the oxygen that the economy breathes - instead, you need to encourage such activities and like I said so many times before, say thank you instead of fuck you when someone does you a massive favour by giving you something you really really need.

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    12. Is that kinda anti-wealth agenda what's sorta happening in China right now where the big tech companies have been targeted by the government (not sure why, could be political), so they started laying off people and there is now a youth unemployment crisis? In America they're very pro business like you describe, where states compete for big companies to build new headquarters and offer lots of tax breaks and even take on some of the investment costs to construct new buildings. There was a case where Disney recently pulled out of their plan to build an office in Florida after the "don't say gay" bill, and their fight with Ron DeSantis. Although Disney is a very capitalist company, being associated with Florida would kill their image as socially inclusive even if they were offered tax breaks.

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    13. @Amanda if videos online are to be believed, the tech embargo and relocation of massive amounts of factories to Vietnam has causes massive unemployment and huge economic impact to China. Which is also why I'm not seeing the return of PRC tourist to SG. They have no more money...

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    14. Well Amanda, in China, the government often prioritizes politics over economic growth and business interest for two reasons: the government is always trying to consolidate more and more control over the people in order to strengthen their grip on power as it is a Communist system - they want to stamp out any form of dissent and for them, the big tech companies are there to serve the government, the CCP otherwise if big tech only serves to enable free speech and encourage dissent or even just expose the Chinese public to a wider range of views from abroad, then the CCP views that as a bad thing that must be stamped out or at least controlled. That's why they prioritize their grip on power over the business interests of the big tech companies. The second reason is a certain confidence over their ability to innovate - yeah we stamp this out, but we're Chinese, we're smart, we'll find a way to reinvent ourselves and overcome these short term problems. It's the same kind of thinking in Florida, DeSantis is assuming that the economy in Florida is robust enough not to depend so much on Disney, so he is willing to make a sacrifice for political gain, whilst betting on the economy being able to reinvent itself without the help of Disney's participation.

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    15. Well that really sucks for young people in China to live under such a self serving government. I heard it's so bad people above 35 are considered "used up" and too old. LGBT teachers have been suffering after Ron Desantis' "don't say gay" bill was signed, but at least they have the option of packing up and moving to a blue state, the young Chinese can't leave China as easily. Gosh I still remember my time in high school where kids would speculate which student or teacher was secretly LGBT but in the closet. We shouldn't have to go back to that. When I set foot in university, friends would tell me "so and so is an out and proud gay/lesbian/bisexual person, but not to their parents." With the supreme court striking down student loan forgiveness, affirmative action, and abortion protections, the liberals in the US are worried gay marriage might go next. I asked some friends why this is happening under a democrat president, and they said it's the legacy of trump putting more conservatives on the supreme court. It just took time for them to use their power, and only when they wanted to stay relevant while under a blue president.

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    16. @Amanda, newsflash: PRCs with the means have been running away to USA, Canada, Australia, UK for the longest time. Those without come to Singapore. We are dumping ground for tier 2 PRCs or those who refuse to deal in English (stubborn ppl).

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  3. I recent did some reflection and came to an epiphany: communication is more about listening and active listen than it is talking.
    The reason I have been so frustrated with all the back office support of late, is simply because they refuse to listen and find out my problem. So much easier and faster to copy and paste a script or FAQ of a website than actually communicate!

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