Improving my social skills is going to be my number one priority for a while. I don’t see this subject discussed too much on LW, which is strange because it’s one of the biggest correlates with happiness and I think we could benefit a lot from a rational discussion in this area.
Discussion on lesswrong on that subject would most likely not be rational. Various forms of idealism result in mind killed advice giving which most decidedly is not optimized for the benefit of the recipient.
Stuff that breaks from the traditional narrative of “just be nicer and more confident” is particularly appreciated. (Unless maybe that is all it takes.)
Get out of your house, go where the people are and interact with them. Do this for 4 hours per day for a year (on top of whatever other incidental interactions your other activities entail). If “number one priority” was not hyperbole that level of exertion is easily justifiable and nearly certain to produce dramatic results. (Obviously supplementing this with a little theory and tweaking the environment chosen and tactics used are potential optimisations. But the active practice part is the key.)
Discussion on lesswrong on that subject would most likely not be rational. Various forms of idealism result in mind killed advice giving which most decidedly is not optimized for the benefit of the recipient.
I agree that when social skills are usually discussed, various forms of idealism tend to result in mind killed advice. The standard set of advice in particular seems to mostly ignore the fact that a) status exists, i.e. it is very possible to be liked and not respected, and sometimes the latter overpowers the former and b) some people genuinely have large personality flaws that make them unpleasant to be around.
I was hoping LessWrong would be able to avoid this idealism, as they do in most other areas, which is why I posted here. Do you think that LessWrong would be worse than average in this regard? Why? And do you think there is anywhere I could have a rational discussion about this stuff?
Get out of your house, go where the people are and interact with them. Do this for 4 hours per day for a year (on top of whatever other incidental interactions your other activities entail)
Like I said in another post in this thread, I don’t think it’s at all a given that if you socialize enough, you will eventually develop good social skills, and I think that reading a bit of stuff on the subject in the last month helped me about as much as all the social experiences I’ve had in the last year.
But something about the idea of making it a priority to spend x amount of time a day specifically seeking out social interactions makes sense and is appealing to me. I don’t know if four hours a day is the right amount—I will have to experiment, but I can very much see myself implementing something like this.
One problem with widely recommending this is that it seems to me like many, if not most people are not at all in a position to reliably be able to follow this advice. But I imagine someone with low to moderate social skills on a college campus probably can.
Like I said in another post in this thread, I don’t think it’s at all a given that if you socialize enough, you will eventually develop good social skills, and I think that reading a bit of stuff on the subject in the last month helped me about as much as all the social experiences I’ve had in the last year.
Sure, but it should be ~30 minutes of reading a day and ~4 hours of interaction a day. Practice is what leads to skill development, and unpleasantly enough, only hard practice (i.e. focusing on the parts you’re bad at, not the parts you’re good at) really counts.
Discussion on lesswrong on that subject would most likely not be rational. Various forms of idealism result in mind killed advice giving which most decidedly is not optimized for the benefit of the recipient.
Get out of your house, go where the people are and interact with them. Do this for 4 hours per day for a year (on top of whatever other incidental interactions your other activities entail). If “number one priority” was not hyperbole that level of exertion is easily justifiable and nearly certain to produce dramatic results. (Obviously supplementing this with a little theory and tweaking the environment chosen and tactics used are potential optimisations. But the active practice part is the key.)
I agree that when social skills are usually discussed, various forms of idealism tend to result in mind killed advice. The standard set of advice in particular seems to mostly ignore the fact that a) status exists, i.e. it is very possible to be liked and not respected, and sometimes the latter overpowers the former and b) some people genuinely have large personality flaws that make them unpleasant to be around.
I was hoping LessWrong would be able to avoid this idealism, as they do in most other areas, which is why I posted here. Do you think that LessWrong would be worse than average in this regard? Why? And do you think there is anywhere I could have a rational discussion about this stuff?
Like I said in another post in this thread, I don’t think it’s at all a given that if you socialize enough, you will eventually develop good social skills, and I think that reading a bit of stuff on the subject in the last month helped me about as much as all the social experiences I’ve had in the last year.
But something about the idea of making it a priority to spend x amount of time a day specifically seeking out social interactions makes sense and is appealing to me. I don’t know if four hours a day is the right amount—I will have to experiment, but I can very much see myself implementing something like this.
One problem with widely recommending this is that it seems to me like many, if not most people are not at all in a position to reliably be able to follow this advice. But I imagine someone with low to moderate social skills on a college campus probably can.
Sure, but it should be ~30 minutes of reading a day and ~4 hours of interaction a day. Practice is what leads to skill development, and unpleasantly enough, only hard practice (i.e. focusing on the parts you’re bad at, not the parts you’re good at) really counts.