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.

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.

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???