Sure. I frame it in terms of PUA because that’s where I learned most of those skills from, with a tiny role for Toastmasters. But that’s an accident of personal history.
What do people think of this? The commenters here are correct that a post on social skills, or one on self-presentation, or one on human mating behavior, need not mention PUA or seduction at all. Would such posts be appropriate for Less Wrong?
There have been a number of highly regarded “instrumental rationality” posts about how to effectively achieve one’s goals. These are mostly clustered around productivity (akrasia, et al), but not exclusively. I can’t see why posts about how to effectively socialize would be off-topic.
That said, there is enough reflexive “Dark Arts” rejection around here that you might get more community support if you turn it around and frame it as how to best resist the techniques that other people might use to effectively socialize with you, and instead remain isolated and uninfluenced.
That said, there is enough reflexive “Dark Arts” rejection around here
Well the posts that deal directly with the darkarts don’t get anywhere near this negative a reaction. As such I believe the issue is not dark arts per se but rather that they are discussed in a way that by implication lowers the status of women.
The two questions to ask yourself are 1) whether your post can avoid the bad stuff involving PUA which is offputting to so many people, and 2) whether your post will have enough good stuff to be interesting/useful/relevant.
Most of the criticisms and “nay” votes here have been about question #1. If you can successfully avoid that minefield we can move on to question 2. I think there could be a lot of interest (and even if there isn’t, it’s not a big deal). Posts on social skills or self-presentation fit with LW themes of instrumental rationality & self-improvement (as seen in the akrasia posts). They could also fit the theme of self-awareness (as seen in the Luminosity sequence) - in this case, being aware of the impression that you make on other people and the impact that your behavior has on the interaction. There has also been (highly upvoted) expressed interest in social-skills-related content, both in the comments here and in the More Art, Less Stink post.
If you want, you could post a one paragraph summary of a possible post to get feedback on whether people are interested. You could also try asking yourself questions like “Would people outside of the target PUA demographic of young men find this post interesting & relevant?” and “Is this post relevant to many different domains of life, not just dating?”
Sure. I frame it in terms of PUA because that’s where I learned most of those skills from, with a tiny role for Toastmasters. But that’s an accident of personal history.
What do people think of this? The commenters here are correct that a post on social skills, or one on self-presentation, or one on human mating behavior, need not mention PUA or seduction at all. Would such posts be appropriate for Less Wrong?
There have been a number of highly regarded “instrumental rationality” posts about how to effectively achieve one’s goals. These are mostly clustered around productivity (akrasia, et al), but not exclusively. I can’t see why posts about how to effectively socialize would be off-topic.
That said, there is enough reflexive “Dark Arts” rejection around here that you might get more community support if you turn it around and frame it as how to best resist the techniques that other people might use to effectively socialize with you, and instead remain isolated and uninfluenced.
I’d be saddened if that turned out to be true.
Well the posts that deal directly with the dark arts don’t get anywhere near this negative a reaction. As such I believe the issue is not dark arts per se but rather that they are discussed in a way that by implication lowers the status of women.
The two questions to ask yourself are 1) whether your post can avoid the bad stuff involving PUA which is offputting to so many people, and 2) whether your post will have enough good stuff to be interesting/useful/relevant.
Most of the criticisms and “nay” votes here have been about question #1. If you can successfully avoid that minefield we can move on to question 2. I think there could be a lot of interest (and even if there isn’t, it’s not a big deal). Posts on social skills or self-presentation fit with LW themes of instrumental rationality & self-improvement (as seen in the akrasia posts). They could also fit the theme of self-awareness (as seen in the Luminosity sequence) - in this case, being aware of the impression that you make on other people and the impact that your behavior has on the interaction. There has also been (highly upvoted) expressed interest in social-skills-related content, both in the comments here and in the More Art, Less Stink post.
If you want, you could post a one paragraph summary of a possible post to get feedback on whether people are interested. You could also try asking yourself questions like “Would people outside of the target PUA demographic of young men find this post interesting & relevant?” and “Is this post relevant to many different domains of life, not just dating?”
I wouldn’t have any problem with posts like that.