This reminds me of the younger generation sometimes perceiving messages ending in a period as rude.

I'm also sometimes surprised by how effectively a simple statement like "I don't want to spend money on that" can shut down even a pushy salesman. Or even the simple "No." can work wonders.

Interesting: IME, it's the Americans who are called rude and overly direct. Go to Japan and give it a try, for example.

Edit: Reading your link: First, that's well-written and insightful; thank you.

However, it seems like a common (young, if I dare guess) frustration with human communication, especially among geeks (if I dare guess, here on HN, and including myself as one): Communication is not transmission of information, but a social interaction. You have to think about all these other things (where many geeks feel out of their depth), and in fact those other things are more consequential than the information (with which many geeks feel very confident). In other words, it sucks to have all the information, to be a master at it, and find that it doesn't matter so much.

Tip: Don't try to dismiss it; it's human nature and won't change; learn the skills. 'Skill' #1: learn to not objectify the other party (they aren't an endpoint device in your communication network), and the best tools for that: curiosity about them - about their unique universe in their mind, their own wants and perspectives, completely unrelated to yours - and compassion: they have a difficult life too. (Of course, that's just my perspective! :) )

> a lot of Americans interpret direct, no-wasted-word statements as aggressive or confrontational.

I think this can be said of the British too. Though we would probably make the mistake of interpreting it as rude rather than aggressive. As someone who doesn't communicate particularly directly, I often make this mistake myself.

Though I'm not sure which side of "the pond" is worse in this respect.

It's possible it's cultural. Sometimes strong, absolute rebuttals come across as someone just trying to shut down a conversation and deny. Other times a direct answer is just a direct answer. The problem is that context and tone are helpful here.

as a native, I can say this is absolutely true and also horrible for productive communication. particularly the pacific and mountain west is really rough.

Especially when discussing politics it can be confusing as hell trying to figure out what somebody really believes/wants because the tip toeing around egg shells can make the words impossible to decode.