I had to go hunting for the other thread, as I clicked on this one about fingers. My CFI, years ago, underlined that fingers is not a chat freq. So, I knew what to expect in Peter's post at the top...I've read most of that before.
But then I read the original thread. It was interesting watching personalities unfold. I've watched a few of these personalities on PoA for a while...I tend to be a lurker and only really post to say something. I also post only about half the stuff I write. It's interesting to come back to a thread and realize that I've got a draft that been sitting there for a while that I forgot about!
Everyone really engaging in the argument was right. And all those folks for were also wrong. There's a tendency to assume that there's a fairly black-and-white right and wrong. And we see our own actions as justified and others at friction with those as wrong. Not true, though. Everyone engaged had deficiencies in the way they were communicating. Everyone also had valid points. (Probably my deficiency in this communication is making it at all...why am I poking my nose in?)
I think about my dad when seeing some of these conversations. He was bright, perhaps brilliant. An EE by trade with specializations in low-noise, high-precision analog work. Lots of instrumentation and the like. He was a consultant, which was an odd choice for him: he was perpetually insecure about finances, so the uncertainty of consulting work made him unrelentingly stressed. He was a consultant because he was difficult to work with for long periods of time. Today, his personality traits would probably slot him somewhere on the spectrum: he was entirely blind to other's perspective or emotions. He wasn't mean, he didn't play politics, he was loyal and upstanding with strong ethics. But he was also stubborn, clueless, and unpleasant to talk to. To make it worse, because he was so intelligent, he was usually absolutely correct about whatever he was on about. I'm sure I take after him.
As pilots and aircraft owners, I believe we probably are more prone to such traits in various ratios. For a number of reasons, we tend toward being leaders used to getting our way. We tend toward being on the intelligent and forward side, used to being correct. We tend toward being quite wealthy and being used to not having to moderate ourselves. While generally valued traits, stick a bunch of people all with these same traits in a room and there will be sparks on occasion.
