A problem is that any attempt to improve attractiveness will lead some people to declare that you are evil or otherwise defective.
Screw them.
In fact, its possible that LW rationality is training people to have bad social skills. “How to change your mind” might just be how to look like a weak-willed person who won’t stick to their guns, or if you change your mind about politics, it makes you a traitor.
To whom? Screw them.
You can’t please everyone and trying to is a waste of far more than just time.
You worry about that all-important status when you fear losing it.
Want to win? Then focus on winning, not on not-losing. You need to if you want to be seen as high-status, anyway. Fear of loss is low-status, so is worrying about what others think.
Navigate the minefield, sure. But do it from a position of strength, not of weakness.
Of course. There are two relevant terms that I learned in another language, one way to translate them would be to “seek success” or “avoid failure”. Seeking success is pursuing your dream job, avoiding failure is fearing you will not be able to pay bills so accepting any job. Seeking success is far better, but if you are not blessed with sky high testosterone and are thus timid and not driven, you cannot really do much more than avoiding failure. It is not exactly a choice you can make, it is more about what you are. Of course you can try to slowly change what you are i.e. work on developing courage. Wanting to win is in itself a keyword used by the success oriented, who believe they can be / can do better than others. The failure-avoidant want to not prove worse than others, and thus seek to lose, not win. It takes a really lot of working on courage to go from one to another and it is not clear what methods develop this kind of courage best.
Maybe this (courage or self-confidence methods) would deserve a top level.
Screw them.
To whom? Screw them.
You can’t please everyone and trying to is a waste of far more than just time.
Yes, but it is pissing against the wind of a huge part of human biology where status withing the tribe is all-important. Don’t expect this to be easy.
You worry about that all-important status when you fear losing it.
Want to win? Then focus on winning, not on not-losing. You need to if you want to be seen as high-status, anyway. Fear of loss is low-status, so is worrying about what others think.
Navigate the minefield, sure. But do it from a position of strength, not of weakness.
Of course. There are two relevant terms that I learned in another language, one way to translate them would be to “seek success” or “avoid failure”. Seeking success is pursuing your dream job, avoiding failure is fearing you will not be able to pay bills so accepting any job. Seeking success is far better, but if you are not blessed with sky high testosterone and are thus timid and not driven, you cannot really do much more than avoiding failure. It is not exactly a choice you can make, it is more about what you are. Of course you can try to slowly change what you are i.e. work on developing courage. Wanting to win is in itself a keyword used by the success oriented, who believe they can be / can do better than others. The failure-avoidant want to not prove worse than others, and thus seek to lose, not win. It takes a really lot of working on courage to go from one to another and it is not clear what methods develop this kind of courage best.
Maybe this (courage or self-confidence methods) would deserve a top level.
I applaud this attitude, and I think the first step should be for people to get enough self-confidence to say “screw them”!
Where will the self-confidence come from? I prefer the Nike slogan: “Just do it.”