You can dismiss the shitstorm associated with the phrase PUA by just calling it social skills or charisma.
Some thoughts and anticipated difficulties:
Should this be a forum, a blog, or a LW-style “community blog”? I think the LW structure might actually be optimal: there are top-level articles (which would contain advice) and long threaded discussions (which would contain personal experiences.)
What do you do about different levels? Some people need what I’d think of as “basic” advice (wear a clean suit to a job interview) and some people want something “advanced” (how can I make people think my ideas are awesome?)
A major challenge, I think, is when you can’t tell how you appear to others, or when you get too caught up in the moment to remember to make a good impression. Most social-skills advice is along the lines of “remember to do X, Y, and Z”—but how do you remember to remember? Someone who has cognitive insights could be very helpful here.
Scott Adams’ list is very corporate-focused. We might need to poll people to see how many of us actually need golf, tennis, and management techniques.
Scott Aaronson once began a series of posts called “Geek Self-Help,” though unfortunately he never followed up. The idea is that intelligent people have a strong tendency to discount motivational platitudes and self-help books, because those sound (and often are) stupid. But there is such a thing as healthy thinking—the opposite of self-destructive thinking. It’s just that you have to communicate it in a way that sounds insightful instead of lame. If anyone has insights of this kind, this would be a good place to share them.
I could, but every time I’ve tried to describe this without mentioning PUA people tell me to go to Toastmaster’s or take a leadership class. It’s the community + field-tests + feedback + iteration that I want. Shitstorm notwithstanding, I think this gets my intention across best. If the PUA part becomes too much of a distraction I might re-label it.
I have my own list topics/problems/thoughts that I cut from this just before posting. I’ll bring these up if no one else does.
I had the same thought: maybe a subreddit-like thing?
Good question. I would look to see how this developed with the PUAs, as I’m sure they encountered the same issue, but I’m not sure.
Yup. I think that there would need to be some kind of in-person component, I don’t think mastery is attainable via any online forum.
I agree that Adams’ list isn’t ideal, but it’s close enough that I went with it. If this thing happens, we should pick our own topics. I would indeed be a little dismayed if this went all corporate. And I fucking hate golf, there’s no way I’m learning it.
Interesting, I wish he’d followed up. I’ve had some insights like this while reading PJeby’s stuff, this would indeed be a good place to try and find more good stuff.
3 - It better be very focused, with a strong cultural element that says “do this or you are doing nothing”, on in-person practice and feedback, otherwise it will just be wankery—“social skills porn” posts that people read and write without ever learning anything. You know, kind of like Less Wrong is rationalist porn :). While I’m sure that lots of people read PUA without practicing it, there is a strong cultural tradition that PUA is all about “the field” and you can’t practice it very far without going into “the field”. If you don’t have that, you are doomed.
I have a long post about this coming up, with a pretty similar viewpoint to yours, just a more general goal, and similar technical requirements, we should talk.
Yeah, this could easily turn into really boring porn if it’s all talk (though I dispute LW being rationalist porn, I use things I’ve learned here every single day).
One of the key reasons I decided to risk the PUA fallout is to convey the tradition of getting out in the field that you mention. That’s also part of why I hesitate to suggest books. I know that I have a bad habit of preferring reading about doing stuff to actually doing stuff, and I suspect I’m not alone.
Look forward to your post. I’d love to chat, PM me for contact info.
Joining the toastmasters is actually a good idea for some of the items on your list. I did so in 2006, and it helped. But of course it is not a concept for all of it.
What do you think of the content on LW so far? There are great posts about Akrasia and Luminosity and other items.
If you have, i would like to see your recommended reading list.
I’m still on the fence about Toastmasters, I’ve heard mixed things.
There’s a chapter at my work holding an open house this week, I may go and give them a second chance.
I have some books in mind, but I don’t think this is the type of thing where any major gains will come from reading. Many of the authors I like (Cialdini, Carnegie) have already come up in this thread.
Groups differ alot! If you live in a big US city, you have many to choose from. If you decide it is not useful, I would like to understand why. It is—as was noted earlier—extensive practice.
It’s practice, but it’s non-field practice of a subset of the skills I’m interested in. It might have potential as one among several methods, but I don’t think it’s sufficient for what I’m after.
Inter-group variability in quality is a good point, I should be more careful to qualify my experience as particular to a single group and not Toastmasters in general.
As a side note it might be interesting to note when a group has important study points that you have already ingrained. TM is a point where some people learn to hold and structure meetings, which might or might not be something one already can do.
For the training of abilities I do not think that field experience is the only thing that counts. I would suggest to develop an accurate model of how to learn behavioral changes effectively, because so far there are way to many contradicting ideas.
The idea is that intelligent people have a strong tendency to discount motivational platitudes and self-help books, because those sound (and often are) stupid.
There’s a book, “59 Seconds” by psychologist Richard Wiseman, which examines a lot of common self-help claims by looking at actual studies. He shows how many are wrong or are actively harmful. However, the book also has quick tidbits of actually productive things one can do that are comparatively minor. People interested in these issues should read the book.
Intelligent people have a strong tendency to discount motivational platitudes and self-help books, because those sound (and often are) stupid.
Actually, the proportion of “actually stupid” to “just sounds stupid” is very, very low. The problem is that what you might call “action skills” and “satisfaction skills” do not operate using the same parts of the brain that “intelligent” (i.e. analytical) people are accustomed to using.
So, if you evaluate a statement using the machinery you’re most accustomed to thinking with, the sayings sound stupid, even when they’re not also phrased in new-agey or pseudoscientific ways.
I’ve found that most of my advances in personal development came after I realized that my intellectual bullshit-detectors were filtering out everything that was useful in the self-help field, simply because it wasn’t true.
IOW, if you ignore the truthiness of a piece of advice, and simply attempt to adopt the state of mind and mental/physical behaviors given, you will very often find that the stupidest, most nonsensical theories are shielding you from some incredibly useful practical advice.
I was once told “Believe in yourself”—yes, in those words—by a person I respect.
Knowing him, I know he must mean something genuine by it: there’s some kind of behavior that he figured out how to do that he thinks would help me. But how the hell do you “believe in yourself”? That phrase is opaque to me.
That’s sort of what I’m getting at. It’s not that I’m a condescending asshole who always thinks advice-givers are stupid. In fact, I know this particular guy is very bright. It’s just that you’d need to phrase it some other way before I’d understand “Oh! That’s what he means! I’ll just do that now!”
But how the hell do you “believe in yourself”? That phrase is opaque to me.
I take it to mean something like “The time for a lucid appraisal of your own abilities is prior to action, not in the middle of it. Once you find yourself engaged in real-time application of some skill or other, act as if your mastery of that skill isn’t at issue at all, rather than let yourself be distracted by assessments of the likelihood of failure, because they are likely to be self-fulfilling prophecies.”
Morendil’s given one meaning that’s useful; another one is, “assume that you’ll be able to handle the (likely) worst-case results of your actions, so that your decision making isn’t paralyzed by implicit fears.”
Btw, I used to think that doing these sorts of translations were all that was needed for self-help to be usable by geeks, but that’s not actually the case: being able to understand a piece of advice (like this one or Morendil’s variant) is not at all the same as being able to implement it.
In practical terms, the advice I’ve just given usually requires one to let go of many existing beliefs or fears, while the one Morendil gave is a skill that requires practice, and may also require letting go of the same beliefs or fears. In neither case is the mere understanding remotely sufficient to accomplish anything except a feeling of having insight. ;-)
(Btw, in general, when self-help advice says to “believe” in something, it actually means refraining from disbelief, i.e., you do not have to convince yourself of something that isn’t true, but merely refrain from questioning it, just like one doesn’t question the premise of a movie while enjoying it. Or, another way of looking at it, is that “belief” consists of thinking and acting “as if” that thing were true, i.e, “What would I anticipate and/or do, if I assumed that this were true?” Most other meanings of “believe” are irrelevant to implementing the advice.)
Loehr talks about Real Self and Performer Self, that the goal in performance state is high positive energy, whereas in recovery mode one should, for example, acknowledge hunger and eat, acknowledge thirst and sleep, acknowledge exhaustion and nap....
I like this. It’s true that performing (not just socially; also music or sports) usually involves an unsustainable level of effort—reserves are tapped.
...which means what someone really needs to write is something that presents all the true/useful parts without a bullshit theory behind them? Even if that means just saying “I have no idea why this works but it does”?
A quick point on 3, it seems like a general rule of learning can handle this fairly well. More specifically the idea of using your conscious mind to direct your attention to conscious practice of one thing at a time. It would be much more trying to remember 3 things to do than one. If a person can remember just one, then they can practice that item deliberately until it becomes more unconscious. There’s always room to improve, but at some point it becomes more natural to do X than to not do X, and that leaves you free to focus on incorporating Y. Advice to “remember to do X, Y, and Z” might be better interpreted as “ultimately you’ll want to be doing X, Y, and Z.”
Not to say it’s not difficult to remember to practice things once I actually get into social skills. I usually forget to practice anything at all, but when I do remember to practice I usually learn something (I should consider making at a habit to ask myself if there’s anything I want to practice as I go into a social situation). Practicing with assistance is great as people can point things out and be sure to remind you, but “going solo” can also be very productive.
In regards to 1, while I think a sub-lesswrong would work alright, I do think you’d either want separate karma scores for the sites, or to have a separate site based on the same architecture. I don’t think it’s too controversial to suggest that people can do well on less wrong without having great social skills, likewise the advice of people who are accomplished socially might not carry over into great less wrong advice.
I’d be in.
You can dismiss the shitstorm associated with the phrase PUA by just calling it social skills or charisma.
Some thoughts and anticipated difficulties:
Should this be a forum, a blog, or a LW-style “community blog”? I think the LW structure might actually be optimal: there are top-level articles (which would contain advice) and long threaded discussions (which would contain personal experiences.)
What do you do about different levels? Some people need what I’d think of as “basic” advice (wear a clean suit to a job interview) and some people want something “advanced” (how can I make people think my ideas are awesome?)
A major challenge, I think, is when you can’t tell how you appear to others, or when you get too caught up in the moment to remember to make a good impression. Most social-skills advice is along the lines of “remember to do X, Y, and Z”—but how do you remember to remember? Someone who has cognitive insights could be very helpful here.
Scott Adams’ list is very corporate-focused. We might need to poll people to see how many of us actually need golf, tennis, and management techniques.
Scott Aaronson once began a series of posts called “Geek Self-Help,” though unfortunately he never followed up. The idea is that intelligent people have a strong tendency to discount motivational platitudes and self-help books, because those sound (and often are) stupid. But there is such a thing as healthy thinking—the opposite of self-destructive thinking. It’s just that you have to communicate it in a way that sounds insightful instead of lame. If anyone has insights of this kind, this would be a good place to share them.
I could, but every time I’ve tried to describe this without mentioning PUA people tell me to go to Toastmaster’s or take a leadership class. It’s the community + field-tests + feedback + iteration that I want. Shitstorm notwithstanding, I think this gets my intention across best. If the PUA part becomes too much of a distraction I might re-label it.
I have my own list topics/problems/thoughts that I cut from this just before posting. I’ll bring these up if no one else does.
I had the same thought: maybe a subreddit-like thing?
Good question. I would look to see how this developed with the PUAs, as I’m sure they encountered the same issue, but I’m not sure.
Yup. I think that there would need to be some kind of in-person component, I don’t think mastery is attainable via any online forum.
I agree that Adams’ list isn’t ideal, but it’s close enough that I went with it. If this thing happens, we should pick our own topics. I would indeed be a little dismayed if this went all corporate. And I fucking hate golf, there’s no way I’m learning it.
Interesting, I wish he’d followed up. I’ve had some insights like this while reading PJeby’s stuff, this would indeed be a good place to try and find more good stuff.
3 - It better be very focused, with a strong cultural element that says “do this or you are doing nothing”, on in-person practice and feedback, otherwise it will just be wankery—“social skills porn” posts that people read and write without ever learning anything. You know, kind of like Less Wrong is rationalist porn :). While I’m sure that lots of people read PUA without practicing it, there is a strong cultural tradition that PUA is all about “the field” and you can’t practice it very far without going into “the field”. If you don’t have that, you are doomed.
I have a long post about this coming up, with a pretty similar viewpoint to yours, just a more general goal, and similar technical requirements, we should talk.
Yeah, this could easily turn into really boring porn if it’s all talk (though I dispute LW being rationalist porn, I use things I’ve learned here every single day).
One of the key reasons I decided to risk the PUA fallout is to convey the tradition of getting out in the field that you mention. That’s also part of why I hesitate to suggest books. I know that I have a bad habit of preferring reading about doing stuff to actually doing stuff, and I suspect I’m not alone.
Look forward to your post. I’d love to chat, PM me for contact info.
Joining the toastmasters is actually a good idea for some of the items on your list. I did so in 2006, and it helped. But of course it is not a concept for all of it.
What do you think of the content on LW so far? There are great posts about Akrasia and Luminosity and other items.
If you have, i would like to see your recommended reading list.
I’m still on the fence about Toastmasters, I’ve heard mixed things.
There’s a chapter at my work holding an open house this week, I may go and give them a second chance.
I have some books in mind, but I don’t think this is the type of thing where any major gains will come from reading. Many of the authors I like (Cialdini, Carnegie) have already come up in this thread.
Groups differ alot! If you live in a big US city, you have many to choose from. If you decide it is not useful, I would like to understand why. It is—as was noted earlier—extensive practice.
It’s practice, but it’s non-field practice of a subset of the skills I’m interested in. It might have potential as one among several methods, but I don’t think it’s sufficient for what I’m after.
Inter-group variability in quality is a good point, I should be more careful to qualify my experience as particular to a single group and not Toastmasters in general.
As a side note it might be interesting to note when a group has important study points that you have already ingrained. TM is a point where some people learn to hold and structure meetings, which might or might not be something one already can do.
For the training of abilities I do not think that field experience is the only thing that counts. I would suggest to develop an accurate model of how to learn behavioral changes effectively, because so far there are way to many contradicting ideas.
There’s a book, “59 Seconds” by psychologist Richard Wiseman, which examines a lot of common self-help claims by looking at actual studies. He shows how many are wrong or are actively harmful. However, the book also has quick tidbits of actually productive things one can do that are comparatively minor. People interested in these issues should read the book.
I’ll see if I can get a copy...
Actually, the proportion of “actually stupid” to “just sounds stupid” is very, very low. The problem is that what you might call “action skills” and “satisfaction skills” do not operate using the same parts of the brain that “intelligent” (i.e. analytical) people are accustomed to using.
So, if you evaluate a statement using the machinery you’re most accustomed to thinking with, the sayings sound stupid, even when they’re not also phrased in new-agey or pseudoscientific ways.
I’ve found that most of my advances in personal development came after I realized that my intellectual bullshit-detectors were filtering out everything that was useful in the self-help field, simply because it wasn’t true.
IOW, if you ignore the truthiness of a piece of advice, and simply attempt to adopt the state of mind and mental/physical behaviors given, you will very often find that the stupidest, most nonsensical theories are shielding you from some incredibly useful practical advice.
I was once told “Believe in yourself”—yes, in those words—by a person I respect.
Knowing him, I know he must mean something genuine by it: there’s some kind of behavior that he figured out how to do that he thinks would help me. But how the hell do you “believe in yourself”? That phrase is opaque to me.
That’s sort of what I’m getting at. It’s not that I’m a condescending asshole who always thinks advice-givers are stupid. In fact, I know this particular guy is very bright. It’s just that you’d need to phrase it some other way before I’d understand “Oh! That’s what he means! I’ll just do that now!”
I take it to mean something like “The time for a lucid appraisal of your own abilities is prior to action, not in the middle of it. Once you find yourself engaged in real-time application of some skill or other, act as if your mastery of that skill isn’t at issue at all, rather than let yourself be distracted by assessments of the likelihood of failure, because they are likely to be self-fulfilling prophecies.”
You can see why people prefer the short version.
Yes—I agree strongly with this analysis.
Morendil’s given one meaning that’s useful; another one is, “assume that you’ll be able to handle the (likely) worst-case results of your actions, so that your decision making isn’t paralyzed by implicit fears.”
Btw, I used to think that doing these sorts of translations were all that was needed for self-help to be usable by geeks, but that’s not actually the case: being able to understand a piece of advice (like this one or Morendil’s variant) is not at all the same as being able to implement it.
In practical terms, the advice I’ve just given usually requires one to let go of many existing beliefs or fears, while the one Morendil gave is a skill that requires practice, and may also require letting go of the same beliefs or fears. In neither case is the mere understanding remotely sufficient to accomplish anything except a feeling of having insight. ;-)
(Btw, in general, when self-help advice says to “believe” in something, it actually means refraining from disbelief, i.e., you do not have to convince yourself of something that isn’t true, but merely refrain from questioning it, just like one doesn’t question the premise of a movie while enjoying it. Or, another way of looking at it, is that “belief” consists of thinking and acting “as if” that thing were true, i.e, “What would I anticipate and/or do, if I assumed that this were true?” Most other meanings of “believe” are irrelevant to implementing the advice.)
Loehr talks about Real Self and Performer Self, that the goal in performance state is high positive energy, whereas in recovery mode one should, for example, acknowledge hunger and eat, acknowledge thirst and sleep, acknowledge exhaustion and nap....
I like this. It’s true that performing (not just socially; also music or sports) usually involves an unsustainable level of effort—reserves are tapped.
Also,
hunger : eat
exhaustion : nap
thirst : ?
:)
...which means what someone really needs to write is something that presents all the true/useful parts without a bullshit theory behind them? Even if that means just saying “I have no idea why this works but it does”?
FWIW, PJ Eby has attempted to do this, somewhat:
http://dirtsimple.org/
http://naturallysuccessful.com/
http://themindhackersguild.com/
For reference: http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?cat=33
A quick point on 3, it seems like a general rule of learning can handle this fairly well. More specifically the idea of using your conscious mind to direct your attention to conscious practice of one thing at a time. It would be much more trying to remember 3 things to do than one. If a person can remember just one, then they can practice that item deliberately until it becomes more unconscious. There’s always room to improve, but at some point it becomes more natural to do X than to not do X, and that leaves you free to focus on incorporating Y. Advice to “remember to do X, Y, and Z” might be better interpreted as “ultimately you’ll want to be doing X, Y, and Z.”
Not to say it’s not difficult to remember to practice things once I actually get into social skills. I usually forget to practice anything at all, but when I do remember to practice I usually learn something (I should consider making at a habit to ask myself if there’s anything I want to practice as I go into a social situation). Practicing with assistance is great as people can point things out and be sure to remind you, but “going solo” can also be very productive.
In regards to 1, while I think a sub-lesswrong would work alright, I do think you’d either want separate karma scores for the sites, or to have a separate site based on the same architecture. I don’t think it’s too controversial to suggest that people can do well on less wrong without having great social skills, likewise the advice of people who are accomplished socially might not carry over into great less wrong advice.