Kindness isn’t the opposite of rigor; it’s the medium that lets rigor travel. The kind argument does four things: it declares terms, trades examples, names constraints, and ends with the smallest runnable test.
stateDiagram-v2
[*] */} Terms
Terms */} Examples
Examples */} Constraints
Constraints */} Test
Test */} [*]
It sounds mechanical. It isn’t. It makes room for two humans to be correct about different slices of the same scene. It removes the blood sport and keeps the choreography. You can fight for the right nouns while remaining on the same side of the table.
I owe this to a hundred small rooms: kitchens, rehearsal halls, scrappy offices. Austen’s rooms taught me that courtesy buys you another paragraph of patience. Bourdain’s kitchens taught me that laughing during prep makes service lighter. Obama’s rope‑lines taught me that time, given freely for a moment, multiplies. Orwell taught me never to let a sentence say what a spreadsheet must say.
Try the kind argument this week on something small. You’ll notice the temperature drop and the throughput rise. It’s not magic. It’s a better factory.