I can definitely see where you’re coming from. No doubt I’ve got a lot to go through/learn before continuing on. I think that’s been the main theme from most responses here—I’m not properly modeling normal people well enough to create material that’s very persuasive.
Instead, it seems that I’m assuming some frames of mind that are not typical.
Also, I can see my writing style doesn’t work for people, though I’m not sure how indicative of an average response the feedback here is (perhaps less so?).
So obviously I’m lacking at least two things to make an effective case here. It’s always helpful to get feedback like this, as telling me it’s good when it isn’t won’t help me improve.
I believe I can say that I’ve very likely underestimated the amount of effort needed to get typical people into a new mindframe. Hopefully I can improve the way I write about these things to argue more persuasively.
The writing style is … potentially appealing to a certain sort of nerd. But I’m the sort of person who reads here and I stopped after the first paragraph, which has a geology joke, followed by a too-self-aware pun, then ends on the explicit statement that no one really understands handshakes. The typical mind does not know what the Mohs scale is and intuitively grasps social interactions, or at least it thinks it does.
“those pesky social interactions no one seems to get the hang of” comes across (to me) as signaling a lack of social competence and fluency then typical-minding it onto your readers, which signals low status and low awareness of self and others. Or, dropping our local jargon: “I am autistic and I have not noticed that most people aren’t.” You cannot hold yourself out as an expert to be listened to after undercutting yourself that much.
That feels a bit harsh but I’m going with it. As you say, you are assuming some frames of mind that are not typical. It is not just that you are not properly modeling normal people well—it sounds as though you believe you have a great model of normal people while the presentation demonstrates the opposite.
What you’re saying here in this reply suggests you think the problem is one of communicating with typical people, not understanding them. The problem is not (misunderstanding people) → (communicating badly). Okay, it may also be that, but more so (misunderstanding people) → (what you’re telling them is wrong) because you are trying to “fix” a mind that you don’t appear to understand.
Okay, so the ideas and messages that I was trying to get across (which I believed aren’t getting through due to poor communication skills) may be further hampered because the ideas and messages themselves are flawed, as they aren’t designed to persuade a typical mindset anyway?
If that’s what you mean, I can see that as a deeper problem I’d have to address before moving on, because no matter what improvements I’d make to my communication style, the root ideas would still not be effective.
Hi,
I can definitely see where you’re coming from. No doubt I’ve got a lot to go through/learn before continuing on. I think that’s been the main theme from most responses here—I’m not properly modeling normal people well enough to create material that’s very persuasive.
Instead, it seems that I’m assuming some frames of mind that are not typical.
Also, I can see my writing style doesn’t work for people, though I’m not sure how indicative of an average response the feedback here is (perhaps less so?).
So obviously I’m lacking at least two things to make an effective case here. It’s always helpful to get feedback like this, as telling me it’s good when it isn’t won’t help me improve.
I believe I can say that I’ve very likely underestimated the amount of effort needed to get typical people into a new mindframe. Hopefully I can improve the way I write about these things to argue more persuasively.
The writing style is … potentially appealing to a certain sort of nerd. But I’m the sort of person who reads here and I stopped after the first paragraph, which has a geology joke, followed by a too-self-aware pun, then ends on the explicit statement that no one really understands handshakes. The typical mind does not know what the Mohs scale is and intuitively grasps social interactions, or at least it thinks it does.
“those pesky social interactions no one seems to get the hang of” comes across (to me) as signaling a lack of social competence and fluency then typical-minding it onto your readers, which signals low status and low awareness of self and others. Or, dropping our local jargon: “I am autistic and I have not noticed that most people aren’t.” You cannot hold yourself out as an expert to be listened to after undercutting yourself that much.
That feels a bit harsh but I’m going with it. As you say, you are assuming some frames of mind that are not typical. It is not just that you are not properly modeling normal people well—it sounds as though you believe you have a great model of normal people while the presentation demonstrates the opposite.
What you’re saying here in this reply suggests you think the problem is one of communicating with typical people, not understanding them. The problem is not (misunderstanding people) → (communicating badly). Okay, it may also be that, but more so (misunderstanding people) → (what you’re telling them is wrong) because you are trying to “fix” a mind that you don’t appear to understand.
Okay, so the ideas and messages that I was trying to get across (which I believed aren’t getting through due to poor communication skills) may be further hampered because the ideas and messages themselves are flawed, as they aren’t designed to persuade a typical mindset anyway?
If that’s what you mean, I can see that as a deeper problem I’d have to address before moving on, because no matter what improvements I’d make to my communication style, the root ideas would still not be effective.