Finding a Way Around an Impasse

“[As for the misunderstandings between us], I suggest that the fault may not lie with ourselves but with our messengers. Let us bring them to trial, cut off their heads, mutilate their bodies, and live henceforth in perfect friendship.”

-Hattusilis III of the Hittites (letter to the King of Ahhiyawa, ca. 1260 BC)

I guess as long as there have been people, people have had a hard time communicating and have had an equally hard time finding ways around the hard time they have communicating.

It bears mentioning that neither the Bird and Babe nor its individual contributors advocate the aforementioned Hittite method of disagreement resolution. We prefer the twin modern approaches of either "Showering your interlocutor with condemnation until your voice is hoarse," or "Taking your ball and going home."