The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

Something that occured to me years ago is we have a quirk in English language that gets in the way of accurately emapthizing with each other, especially when trying to design things well (like products and experiences). We don't say "unwant", and we don't clearly differentiate between a lack of want and a repulsion or unwant or negative want.

Someone might say "I don't want x" or "I don't need x" and it's unclear if:

- they see no value in x

- they see small enough value in x that they don't care

- they see negative value

So much time and energy is wasted on misunderstandings that stem from this ambiguity.

It ruins products, is loses deals, it screws up projections, it confuses executives, etc.

It gets in the way of accurately empathizing with and understanding each other.

Because "I unwant x" means something extremely different than "I don't want x". Unwant implies some other value that x is getting in the way of. Understanding other peoples' values is what enables accurate empathy for them. Accurately empathizing with customers is what enables great products and predictable sales.

I think you mean https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/diswant, or “reject”.

"I don't care about x" clearly indicates a lack of want but is considered ruder than "I don't want x".

"unalive" is an empathetic mood.

Unwant could be too familiar, conjuring "unwanted".

Sure, but I have never heard anyone use this either. This is not common in discourse.

I also find the wiki description and your comment somewhat ambiguous. Even in this case it's hard to descern between absence of want or a negative want.

Edit: due to either my own personal misunderstanding or maybe cultural niche, "reject" is also ambiguous because it could mean an absence of want and not necessarily a negative want. However I just learned that in semiotics "reject" does mean distinctly a negative.

So yep, "diswant" is exactly what I've seen lacking.

Now the question is why don't people use it more?

I'll try.

Thanks for sharing.

This is somehow real as I'm not so good at English but as a native Chinese speaker it feels a little bit hard to find the word/phrasing to express what I want to, but I guess your target audience should be more clear on what you are trying to express since it's the native thought process that the audience be familier with.

To me personally, the same meaning requires a lot of extra work to be expressed in English rather than in Chinese.

> "unalive" is an empathetic mood.

Sure, I guess that's something people say. Though it's very new English.

In case I wasn't clear. By empathy I mean the ability to accurately predict how someone else will feel about something. For me to do this, I have to set aside my own values and beliefs, to know the other person's values and beliefs, and then use theirs to simulate how they may feel about something.

The point is I can't empathize with another person accurately unless I know their values and beliefs.

So to be empathetic is to be curious about other people's values and then accurately predict how they will feel about something.

So to me '"unalive" is an empathetic mood.' sounds something like "I am in an unalive mood (feeling apathetic and defeated), and people who can relate to my values beliefs and experiences will emapthize with me"

> Unwant could be too familiar, conjuring "unwanted".

This is a really interesting point on multiple levels. I've been so hung up on the ambiguity in the language I never even noticed the connection to "unwanted".

Given you brought this up and I assume immediately saw the parallel, when you think of "unwanted" do you think of an absence of being wanted (apathy, ignored, indefference), or a feeling of being repulsed (negative want, hate, disgust, fear, loathing, etc)?

I suspect that whether it's considered more rude will vary by culture, but yes I think "I don't care about x" is a way to specify a lack of want in contrast to a negative want. It's also probably the most common way, but still used rarely I find, maybe because people consider it more rude.

It seems what you're pointing out is coming out a lot in this thread. As a solely English speaker (with very little French/Spanish), it's actually a bit of a novel concept for me.

I'm curious though:

Do you find it particularly hard to differentiate or clarify between you having 0 want or negative want?

E.g. "I want x" = 5 want

But

"I don't want x" = 0 want or -5 want???

For me, I am inclined to go for "absence of being wanted" (repelling others through a personal fault I might not be wholly responsible for)

Using my intuition here :)

It would be convenient to have an unwant in common English. However plenty of children manage to express their utter -10 want of vegetables rather too well. ;)

I lived in thailand for a few years and one of their words/phrases stood out to me in situations like this:

Ow: want

Mai ow: don't want

These words are used eg. when ordering food or accepting/declining an offer at a checkout. Translated directly to dictionary English, they sound quite shockingly direct and rude - "would you like a drink? Don't want! How about bread sticks? Want!" - but after a while realized they were actually just very useful, special purpose words for making it known what you were interested in, with no other subtext.

It's funny how many gaps we have in English where there's just no good way to say something, at least concisely, and you don't even realize it until you see how other languages handle it. You'd think we'd have evolved it by now.

The same goes in the other direction, of course!

I think I've used the phrase 'I actively don't want X' to emphasize unwant before. In my work I do try to disambiguate between the things I care about and don't, especially when delegating to people.