Giving advice is one of those common human behaviors which doesn’t get examined much, which means a little thought might improve understanding of what’s going on.
The evidence—that giving advice is much more common than asking for it or following it—suggests that giving advice is more a status transaction than a practical effort to help, and I speak as a person who’s pretty compulsive about giving advice.
So, here’s some advice about advice, assuming that you don’t want to just raise your status on unwilling subjects.
Do what you can to actually understand the situation, including the resources the recipient is willing to put into following advice.
The idea that men give unwelcome advice to women, when the women just want to vent but can solve their problems themselves, is an oversimplification. There are women who give advice (see above). There are men who are patient with venting. I think the vent vs. want advice distinction is valuable, but ask rather than assuming gender will give you the information you need.
I have a friend who I’ve thanked for giving me advice, and his reaction was “but you didn’t follow it!”. Sometimes it helps to give people ideas to bounce off of.
Pjeby (if I understand him correctly) has been very good about the way people can reinterpret advice in light of their mental habits—for example, hearing “find goals that inspire you” as “beat yourself up for not having achieved more”.
Eliezer on Other-Optimizing—it’s from the point of view of being given lots of advice (mostly inappropriate), rather from the point of view of giving advice.
Rationality and advice
Giving advice is one of those common human behaviors which doesn’t get examined much, which means a little thought might improve understanding of what’s going on.
The evidence—that giving advice is much more common than asking for it or following it—suggests that giving advice is more a status transaction than a practical effort to help, and I speak as a person who’s pretty compulsive about giving advice.
So, here’s some advice about advice, assuming that you don’t want to just raise your status on unwilling subjects.
Do what you can to actually understand the situation, including the resources the recipient is willing to put into following advice.
The idea that men give unwelcome advice to women, when the women just want to vent but can solve their problems themselves, is an oversimplification. There are women who give advice (see above). There are men who are patient with venting. I think the vent vs. want advice distinction is valuable, but ask rather than assuming gender will give you the information you need.
I have a friend who I’ve thanked for giving me advice, and his reaction was “but you didn’t follow it!”. Sometimes it helps to give people ideas to bounce off of.
Pjeby (if I understand him correctly) has been very good about the way people can reinterpret advice in light of their mental habits—for example, hearing “find goals that inspire you” as “beat yourself up for not having achieved more”.
Eliezer on Other-Optimizing—it’s from the point of view of being given lots of advice (mostly inappropriate), rather from the point of view of giving advice.