Korva rescues the ideas worth keeping from podcasts. Each one becomes a Card.
Indirectness smooths ordinary interaction, but it becomes cruel and unjust when it keeps people from naming imminent danger clearly.
In Korean Air 801’s crash, junior crew recognized disaster but did not plainly say the aircraft was about to crash.
In a reported restaurant experiment, indirect bribes worked every time with the Manhattan maitre d's who were approached.
“Any idiot can do biology” is an expert humblebrag: self-deprecation makes high ability sound credible and leaves others feeling less capable.
“High net worth individual” is a euphemism for “filthy rich.” Notice what polite language makes disappear.
Signal the ask too late and the opportunity disappears. Signal it too early and rapport collapses.
An unspoken possibility stays deniable. Say it plainly and both people know that each knows.
Bribing a maître d’ can reward the employee while weakening the restaurant owner’s incentive to preserve fair reservations.
A fundraising dinner trades a very large donation for recognition and access to an intellectually prestigious community.
Indirect speech preserves warmth by avoiding a moment where one person exercises authority to reject or diminish the other.
Indirect speech makes listeners solve a relevance puzzle: what meaning makes these apparently nonliteral words fit the context?
People say they want candor and no social role-playing, then recoil from the discomfort of literal honesty.
Blaise Pascal said that if everyone spoke their minds, there would not be four friends in the world.
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