Designing This Life

There are a lot of similarities between computer networking and interpersonal communications.

I was reflecting on Postel’s robustness principle—Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send—and realized that the principle holds up equally well regarding interpersonal interactions.

In conversations with others (even just through body language), as long as one person can absorb negative input without returning it in kind (also known as noncomplementary behavior), that will prevent the conversation from going into a downward spiral. Of course if both can do it, all the better!