Hmm. My biggest alarm is that I don’t have enough friends and am not social enough. But this is accurate; I have not one single intellectual friend of the sort I want, and people ignore my writing. I think the reason I don’t act to rectify the situation is that I don’t know how.
Okay, but what about other alarms, ones I don’t notice so much? Well, I have an intense desire to be right (and not just appear to be right in the eyes of anyone else), and be knowledgeable… and so I frequent LW. I spend an unusual amount of time fretting over the accuracy and fairness of things I’ve posted earlier and often edit them days, weeks, or years afterward to provide more nuance and accuracy. I do this even at the risk of sounding boring and producing less writing, even though I think one needs a lot of writing to gain a following; might this interfere with my social life? Could be. Another alarm says I took a wrong turn to end up working on oil & gas software. I donate to clean energy efforts as a form of “offsetting”, but this has the disturbing opportunity cost of reducing my donations to other efforts. That alarm seems reasonable and I’m open to different opportunities.
But, maybe this post has exactly the problem you linked to: offering good advice to those who least need it.
This is harsh and may be completely off the mark, but I was trying to call attention especially to alarms where those close to you disagree. If friends and family agree that you’re not social enough, then that’s probably a true alarm that you’re facing.
Hmm. My biggest alarm is that I don’t have enough friends and am not social enough. But this is accurate; I have not one single intellectual friend of the sort I want, and people ignore my writing. I think the reason I don’t act to rectify the situation is that I don’t know how.
Okay, but what about other alarms, ones I don’t notice so much? Well, I have an intense desire to be right (and not just appear to be right in the eyes of anyone else), and be knowledgeable… and so I frequent LW. I spend an unusual amount of time fretting over the accuracy and fairness of things I’ve posted earlier and often edit them days, weeks, or years afterward to provide more nuance and accuracy. I do this even at the risk of sounding boring and producing less writing, even though I think one needs a lot of writing to gain a following; might this interfere with my social life? Could be. Another alarm says I took a wrong turn to end up working on oil & gas software. I donate to clean energy efforts as a form of “offsetting”, but this has the disturbing opportunity cost of reducing my donations to other efforts. That alarm seems reasonable and I’m open to different opportunities.
But, maybe this post has exactly the problem you linked to: offering good advice to those who least need it.
That sounds pretty rough.
This is harsh and may be completely off the mark, but I was trying to call attention especially to alarms where those close to you disagree. If friends and family agree that you’re not social enough, then that’s probably a true alarm that you’re facing.