Seek to Understand Rather than Persuade Others Perspectives

Summary

Host Jonathan Cuttrell begins with a thought experiment, asking listeners to consider the nature of perception and time. He explains that what we experience as ‘now’ is actually a slightly delayed, processed projection of reality, akin to a projector displaying an image on a screen. Our memories are similarly imperfect, more like degradable VHS tapes than perfect digital recordings. This foundational idea sets the stage for the episode’s core argument: our individual perception is the only reality we directly experience.

The episode then pivots to discuss why this understanding of perception matters, particularly for developers. Cuttrell uses the sponsor segment about Sentry, an error monitoring tool, to illustrate a practical example. The common perspective for avoiding bugs is test-driven development, but this is just one angle. A more robust solution requires multiple perspectives, as people are poor at predicting how things will go wrong. Sentry offers a different, complementary perspective by catching errors in real-time after deployment.

Cuttrell elaborates that every person’s ‘projection hardware’—their perceptions, memories, and future imaginations—is unique and differently distorted. Therefore, collaborating with people who have different perceptions statistically increases the likelihood of success. The critical error is viewing one’s own perception as the only valid one and applying it as a gold standard for rationality, which renders others’ behaviors seemingly irrational. This applies to code reviews, cultural issues, and even personal preferences like music taste.

The final recommendation is the core takeaway: instead of trying to persuade others to adopt your viewpoint, you should seek to understand their perceptions. Actively explore what their ‘projection’ looks like, what memories inform them, and how their experience of a shared situation differs from yours. This practice builds empathy, aids in mediating conflict, and enhances creative collaboration, making it a critical skill for career growth and effective teamwork.

Recommendations

Tools

Sentry — An error monitoring tool that provides a different perspective on bug prevention by catching errors in production in real-time, linking them to the specific code commit and developer, allowing for efficient fixes before users are affected.

Topic Timeline

00:00:00 — Introduction to the perception thought experiment — Jonathan Cuttrell introduces the episode’s theme and asks listeners to engage in a mental exercise. He shifts the focus from self-centered reflection to examining one’s vantage point and perception of the present moment. The goal is to understand that our experience of ‘now’ is a processed representation, not raw reality.
00:01:48 — The latency of perception and memory as projection — Cuttrell compares the brain’s processing delay to input latency on a machine. He expands the metaphor, describing reality as a ‘re-projection’ we perceive after the fact, like a projector displaying an image on a screen. Memories are likened to imperfect, degradable VHS tapes that change each time they are replayed, unlike perfect digital copies.
00:06:25 — Why perception matters for developers and problem-solving — The host connects the philosophical concept to practical development. He argues that our limited perspective affects everything from life’s big questions to small coding problems. Using the example of preventing bugs, he notes that relying solely on one perspective (like test-driven development) is insufficient; a multi-angle approach is needed for robust solutions.
00:08:49 — Sentry sponsorship as an example of a different perspective — The ad read for Sentry is framed as a practical illustration of the episode’s theme. Sentry provides a different, complementary perspective on bug prevention by monitoring errors in production in real-time, rather than just trying to predict them beforehand. This demonstrates the value of integrating multiple viewpoints to solve a problem effectively.
00:09:51 — The uniqueness of individual perception and the error of absolutism — Cuttrell explains that each person’s perception is uniquely distorted by their ‘lenses’ and ‘shadows.’ The critical mistake is treating one’s own perception as the only rational one and applying it as an absolute standard to judge others. This leads to viewing differing opinions as irrational, which hampers collaboration in coding, culture, and personal preferences.
00:12:56 — The core recommendation: Seek to understand others’ perspectives — The host delivers the episode’s key takeaway. Instead of trying to persuade others, the goal should be to actively seek to understand their perceptions, projections, and experiences. This practice of empathy is crucial for mediating conflict and enhancing creative collaboration, making it a vital skill for professional and personal growth.

Episode Info

Podcast: Developer Tea
Author: Jonathan Cutrell
Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
Published: 2019-03-27T09:00:00Z
Duration: 00:15:05

References

URL PocketCasts: https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/developer-tea/cbe9b6c0-7da4-0132-e6ef-5f4c86fd3263/seek-to-understand-rather-than-persuade-others-perspectives/6f19b8e3-6a30-49db-b7d0-5124865a2c17
Episode UUID: 6f19b8e3-6a30-49db-b7d0-5124865a2c17

Podcast Info

Name: Developer Tea
Type: episodic
Site: http://www.developertea.com
UUID: cbe9b6c0-7da4-0132-e6ef-5f4c86fd3263

Transcript

[00:00:00] take a moment if you’re listening to this episode to do a little thought experiment

[00:00:08] it’ll take two or three minutes eliminate all distractions we’ve done this a few times

[00:00:15] on this show and i believe it’s really helpful to pause in your day and really focus on these

[00:00:23] on these mental exercises you’re listening to developer t my name is jonathan cuttrell

[00:00:28] my goal on this show is to help driven developers just like you find clarity perspective and

[00:00:35] purpose in their careers now in the past we’ve done exercises that focus on us as the person

[00:00:43] who is at the center of the story but today’s uh today’s exercise is going to focus less on

[00:00:51] you as a person and what you want or what you think what you feel and more on your vantage point

[00:00:58] what you see what you perceive so the thought experiment is very simple i want you to imagine

[00:01:07] this moment in time now imagine that you are trying to calculate exactly where in time

[00:01:18] this moment is happening as your brain experiences the current moment

[00:01:28] so what you see or what you’re kind of processing in your brain is not the real now this is kind of

[00:01:41] hard to understand but you can think about this as latency of an input on a machine imagine typing

[00:01:48] letters and then waiting for them to show up on the screen now typically we imagine that the

[00:01:55] latency that we experience in our lives is close enough to the latency that we experience in our

[00:01:58] lives is close enough to the present that it doesn’t really matter because everyone experiences

[00:02:03] the same kind of latency right so we can imagine that we’re actually living this very slightly

[00:02:12] delayed moment into the past but how is this actually possible how is it that we have both

[00:02:20] an experience of the past but an inability to go to the past to re-experience it

[00:02:28] we’re not able to visit the past but we’re constantly visiting the past it may finally

[00:02:37] occur to us that reality as we experience it is actually a re-projection of reality

[00:02:45] it’s taking in some kind of input from the world around us through the senses the various senses

[00:02:53] that we have and then we’re perceiving it

[00:02:58] after it happens and our perception experiences now and then uses our perception as kind of a

[00:03:09] backdrop you can imagine like a projector on a that’s throwing a picture up onto a wall

[00:03:17] and we see that picture that re-presentation or representation of reality on that on that screen

[00:03:26] that screen being our

[00:03:28] perception now imagine that that perception is manipulatable right you can change the color of

[00:03:37] the screen or you might move the screen further away or maybe the projection itself is manipulated

[00:03:46] you can move it in and out of focus people may be able to block parts of that projection

[00:03:53] with their hands causing shadows on it now not only is it

[00:03:58] a projection of reality that we’re experiencing rather than raw reality itself

[00:04:04] but we’re also able to remember previous projections

[00:04:11] we have these recordings in our brain these historical accounts but because our brain

[00:04:19] isn’t really experiencing raw reality instead it’s experiencing our own projections of reality

[00:04:27] but because our brain isn’t really experiencing raw reality instead it’s experiencing our own projections of reality

[00:04:27] Those recordings are more like videotapes than they are digital representations.

[00:04:36] With a digital representation, like a DVD, you aren’t going to see degradation of quality.

[00:04:42] Whatever is there is always there.

[00:04:45] But with something like a VHS, for those of you who remember VHS,

[00:04:50] you know that the more that you play the tape, the more likely it is to degrade.

[00:04:56] You can even record over the top of another tape.

[00:05:01] You can have dual recordings and one ghosts on top of the other.

[00:05:06] And as we replay our memories in our mind, we change them.

[00:05:11] We shift them.

[00:05:12] What is perhaps even more interesting is that we are a part of a much longer history.

[00:05:21] That between the infinitely small,

[00:05:25] whatever,

[00:05:26] that is,

[00:05:27] and the infinitely large,

[00:05:29] whatever that is,

[00:05:31] we are discreetly somewhere in between.

[00:05:35] The matter, the elements, the materials that make up our body,

[00:05:40] have been around for much longer than the memories that we have that we can replay.

[00:05:48] Now, with all of this,

[00:05:51] the whole point of this thought experiment,

[00:05:54] of thinking about time,

[00:05:56] and our place in it,

[00:05:57] and our memories,

[00:05:58] and how we replay them,

[00:05:59] and even the future,

[00:06:02] the imagined future that we have,

[00:06:05] which we kind of play similarly to memories.

[00:06:09] All of this is to reinforce the simple reality

[00:06:13] that our perception is all we have to experience.

[00:06:19] Why does this matter to us as developers and as humans?

[00:06:25] We are going to talk about that in a little bit.

[00:06:25] We’re going to talk about that right after we talk about today’s sponsor.

[00:06:28] We’re talking about perspective in today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:06:32] The fact that what we experience in our life is mostly limited by our perspective.

[00:06:39] And that goes for life’s big questions, but perhaps most importantly for today’s sponsor,

[00:06:45] it goes for the small questions too.

[00:06:47] Like for example, how do we avoid shipping bugs in our code?

[00:06:52] And most of us have this program knowledge in our mind.

[00:06:56] We immediately jump to writing tests, right?

[00:06:59] Test-driven development is the answer to all of our code’s problems.

[00:07:04] But the truth is that that is only one perspective.

[00:07:08] It’s only one part of the solution.

[00:07:11] If you really want to attack the problem of shipping bugs into your production code,

[00:07:18] you have to come at it from multiple angles, multiple perspectives.

[00:07:22] The truth is, people are really bad at predicting how things will go wrong.

[00:07:27] We’re very good at looking back and evaluating how things went wrong,

[00:07:32] but we’re not very good at predicting it.

[00:07:34] So writing tests is an exercise in predicting what may go wrong.

[00:07:40] It’s also very difficult to predict how people will interact with your software.

[00:07:44] And it’s even more difficult to continuously do this as your software changes.

[00:07:51] So I better get started.

[00:07:51] But the best way, a better way, a more cost-effective way, especially,

[00:07:55] is to rely on something like Sentry.

[00:07:58] Sentry will report to you the moment an error occurs.

[00:08:03] So you can fix it before your users see it.

[00:08:07] So you shouldn’t be relying on your users to tell you about this.

[00:08:11] Because realistically, many of your users will probably leave

[00:08:14] before they will do you the courtesy of telling you about errors in your code.

[00:08:19] Sentry not only provides information about the

[00:08:21] error and the full stack trace, but it also gives you a link to the code that was committed

[00:08:28] that is the source of the error.

[00:08:30] As well as the user who is responsible for that code.

[00:08:35] So you can track it down and get it fixed as efficiently as possible.

[00:08:40] Go and check out what Sentry has to offer.

[00:08:42] Head over to sentry.io to get started today.

[00:08:45] Thanks again to Sentry for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:08:49] Now, if you listen through the ad read,

[00:08:51] you actually can see one of the reasons why perception matters.

[00:08:57] Different perceptions, even at relatively small scales,

[00:09:01] like solving a given problem in your code,

[00:09:05] having different perceptions is critical to finding a good solution.

[00:09:12] The reality is all of our perceptions have different distortions.

[00:09:16] We have different lenses, different shadows on that projection.

[00:09:21] We have different memories, those tapes have been played in different ways and damaged

[00:09:26] in different ways.

[00:09:27] And we have different projections about the future.

[00:09:30] All of that kind of projection hardware, if you want to call it that, is different for

[00:09:36] each person.

[00:09:38] And so it’s critical that because some parts of our projections and our perceptions are

[00:09:45] better than others, or they’re more effective to whatever we’re trying to accomplish than

[00:09:50] others.

[00:09:51] If we balance those perceptions together with other perceptions, especially perceptions

[00:09:56] that are different from ours, then we’re going to have a higher likelihood, just statistically

[00:10:02] speaking, a higher likelihood of success.

[00:10:05] But this isn’t just about, you know, collaborating with people who have different perceptions

[00:10:10] from you.

[00:10:11] It’s also about changing the way that you understand other people’s perceptions.

[00:10:18] You see, if you take your perception.

[00:10:20] And you apply it to another person, then their behavior may seem irrational.

[00:10:28] The problem that we have is that we apply the concepts of rationality to perception.

[00:10:37] In other words, we see something as black and white that is actually not necessarily

[00:10:42] black and white.

[00:10:43] This happens all the time in code.

[00:10:46] It happens all the time in cultural issues.

[00:10:50] It happens in pretty much every area of our lives.

[00:10:55] Perception is incredibly important to both understand and respect for the people around

[00:11:02] you.

[00:11:03] The critical error that people make, and this isn’t just developers certainly, but people

[00:11:09] in general, the critical error that we make is viewing our perception as the only perception

[00:11:15] that exists.

[00:11:17] And then applying that perception.

[00:11:19] As if it is kind of a gold standard of rationality or of decision making.

[00:11:25] We can see this at play.

[00:11:27] We can see these different perceptions at play when you think about anything that involves

[00:11:32] taste.

[00:11:33] Preference.

[00:11:34] The kind of music that I like may be different from the kind of music that another person

[00:11:40] likes.

[00:11:41] And the reasons that we like that music may be different from each other.

[00:11:45] Now, hopefully we can all make the leap.

[00:11:49] That my preference in music shouldn’t be held in my mind as the best preference in music.

[00:11:58] That my definition of what is a good song can and perhaps should be flexible and different

[00:12:06] from what another person’s definition is.

[00:12:10] Now, if this is true, then we should be able to apply similar things to other parts of

[00:12:16] our perception.

[00:12:17] And in very few cases.

[00:12:19] When we are developing software.

[00:12:21] Do we come upon a situation where somebody’s opinion is absolutely rationally correct?

[00:12:30] We need to understand that our opinions will differ and that we have to learn to collaborate

[00:12:36] through our differences.

[00:12:39] If we continue to hold our opinion as if it is absolutely correct, as if it is inarguable,

[00:12:46] then.

[00:12:47] We.

[00:12:48] need.

[00:12:49] our.

[00:12:50] power.

[00:12:51] our. ability.

[00:12:52] to collaborate.

[00:12:53] So.

[00:12:54] my. recommendation.

[00:12:55] for this episode.

[00:12:56] coming out of this.

[00:12:57] after doing this exercise.

[00:12:58] Hopefully you see that perception is a very strong part of your life.

[00:13:02] It’s almost everything that you experience.

[00:13:05] So my recommendation is.

[00:13:07] for you to.

[00:13:08] seek.

[00:13:09] to understand.

[00:13:11] the perceptions of others.

[00:13:15] Seek to understand their viewpoint.

[00:13:17] is their projection? What is playing from their memories? How do they experience what you are

[00:13:27] also experiencing through your perception? And how do those things differ? This can help you

[00:13:33] drastically with mediating conflict, but it can also help you when you are in a creative

[00:13:40] collaboration mode. Seek to understand the perception, the experience, the viewpoint

[00:13:46] that other people have. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:13:53] This is a difficult topic. It’s one that is hard to grasp entirely. And sometimes even if we

[00:14:01] understand and agree with these things, they’re hard to implement. So I wish you the best as you

[00:14:08] move forward in your career and you try to understand and understand what you’re doing.

[00:14:10] You build up that empathy for other people’s perspectives. This is really critical to growing

[00:14:18] in your career. So I wish you good luck on that trip. And I would love to hear from you your

[00:14:24] experiences with this endeavor. You can email me at developertea at gmail. You can also reach me

[00:14:31] on Twitter. My personal Twitter is at jcatrell. Of course, the Developer Tea show Twitter is

[00:14:37] at developertea. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:14:40] Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Sentry. Go and get a new perspective on your errors

[00:14:46] by installing and enabling Sentry. Head over to sentry.io to get started finding those bugs

[00:14:53] before your users do today. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, enjoy your tea.

Vox

Explorador