Rowlf: Let me talk to them. Woof-woof. Woof-woof.
[guard dogs start to heel]
Rowlf: It helps to know a second language.
— The Great Muppet Caper
There has to be a way to connect with other humans. Sometimes it’s because you speak the same language, or appreciate the same art. Perhaps you can enjoy a meal together. One way or another, we have to recognize our commonalities before we can start to work on our differences. How many arguments have we had where we are speaking the same language, but no communication is happening? How many times have we dehumanized the other side, or had them do it to us, over one facet of our humanity?
Find that common link, and suddenly communication becomes not only possible, but trivially easy. Without it, we are just to two dogs barking at each other.
DaddyBear’s Den 
Geodkyt
/ September 16, 2014Had it occur professionally.
Two groups of people in a room, Navy and Coast Guard (mix of officers and civilain engineers), talking about a USCG ship being designed by the Navy (because the USCG contractor screwed the pooch most heiniously).
Discussion concerns a particular gun, and the capability to deliver “Warning and Disabling Fire” on demand, in rather high sea conditions. (The Coast Guard goes out in bad weather. . . who knew?) At the maximum allowable ship movements at which they are to be fully mission capable, a single life line passes throught the visual gunsight picture.
USCG ROE guy — “That is a NO GO for Warning and Disabling Fire!”
All USCG heads nod sagely, all USN faces look blank.
Squids: “But, you can radar shoot that gun! And the lifeline is just a moving linear transient across your gunsight anyway!”
Coasties: “No can do — need 100% visual or it’s a No Shoot.”
(Back and forth for half an hour.)
I had an epiphany (being from an Army background, with an ear in the civilian LEO community). I stood up.
Me: “Gentlemen, what we have here is a failure to communicate.”
(To USN side of room) “Gentlemen, when the Coast Guard says, ‘Prosecute a target’, they mean to haul the crew in front of a judge in handcuffs.” Light dawns on Navy faces, heads start sagely nodding. Coast Guard still looks puzzled.
(To Coast Guard) “Gentlemen, to the United States Navy, a smoldering oil slick is a ‘disabled’ target that has been successfully ‘prosecuted’.” Light dawns on Coast Guard faces.
Thirty seconds later, we had an approved engineering solution. All because we were suddenly speaking the same language.
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daddybear71
/ September 16, 2014Nodding sagely.
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