Isn’t unconditional praise empty praise? Is getting a trophy at “Everyone Gets A Trophy Day” meaningful?
What you’ve just said is isomorphic to a theist arguing that their holy book is holy because it came from a god, and that they know this because it says so in the book.
Be a rationalist. How do you know what you think you know? You believe in this “empty praise” concept, because it’s part of your framework for SASS allocation, and your brain defends it for that same reason. If you want to know the truth, you need to be prepared for the possibility that it may shatter all of your premises.
If your parents had offered you a different worldview, you would currently believe something else than what you currently do. And plenty of less-rational people than you are winning more at life than you, simply because they received a slightly-more functional set of SASS allocation rules by an accident of birth.
I’ve been arguing with my parents about the merits of video games since I was, what, twelve?
And yet, just by having that argument, you had to have accepted the core premise that pride should be based on accomplishments stemming from personal effort—you were only arguing about which accomplishments fit this description. Other families might place pride in knowing things, being a part of the family, showing loyalty, outsmarting people, knowing the right people, or any of dozens of other possible behavioral categories.
Um...
Sociometer theory is somewhat isomorphic to the truth, but it’s lacking in important distinctions. It ignores the fact that there are people who pride themselves in being nonconformists, or the actions of people who practically beg to be persecuted, and then wear their persecution like a badge of honor. In order to make sense of such behaviors, you have to understand that your esteem isn’t really measured by other people, except to the extent that you’ve been imprinted to measure it that way.
If a kid picks on you as a child, and your parents stand up for you, you learn that what others think may not be all that important. But if your parent teases you for being a crybaby, or tells you to ignore the other kids (and implicitly dismisses your fear), or tells you that you should just learn to fight back… you learn that your sociometer needs to be calibrated more from the outside than the inside.
In principle, a fully-developed human being would not require SASS from others, but rather give SASS to others. “Natural” schools of PUA, and charisma trainers of most other types already know this: making others feel important, liked, safe, and entertained is the best way to receive these values in return.
And you can’t genuinely give any of those things to other people, unless you know how to give them to yourself.
Okay, now I’ve read it. Oddly enough, I don’t have too much to say. (The fact that it’s almost 4 AM may have something to do with that.)
And plenty of less-rational people than you are winning more at life than you
I’m not so sure about that, mostly because I still haven’t figured out what it means to be winning at life. I don’t have a job, but at least I don’t have a job I hate. For a long time, I’ve been determined to avoid ending up living Thoreau’s “life of quiet desperation” or, to use a more recent metaphor, living in a Dilbert cartoon. And I’m not living in a Dilbert cartoon. I don’t want to be Dilbert, yet another cog in the corporate machine. I’d rather be Dilbert’s garbageman, the only person in the whole strip who isn’t stupid, evil, or a victim of someone who is. My brother currently works at Goldman Sachs, and he’s getting up early so he can spend all day putting numbers into spreadsheets and then go home and collapse into bed. I don’t know if I’d trade places with him. In the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, I sort of take the side of the grasshopper, or at least that’s what try to convince myself of.
Now, if I could only stop worrying about what happens when the axe eventually falls...
I’m not so sure about that, mostly because I still haven’t figured out what it means to be winning at life. … Now, if I could only stop worrying about what happens when the axe eventually falls...
You may not know what it is, but surely you know what it’s not. ;-)
What you’ve just said is isomorphic to a theist arguing that their holy book is holy because it came from a god, and that they know this because it says so in the book.
Be a rationalist. How do you know what you think you know? You believe in this “empty praise” concept, because it’s part of your framework for SASS allocation, and your brain defends it for that same reason. If you want to know the truth, you need to be prepared for the possibility that it may shatter all of your premises.
If your parents had offered you a different worldview, you would currently believe something else than what you currently do. And plenty of less-rational people than you are winning more at life than you, simply because they received a slightly-more functional set of SASS allocation rules by an accident of birth.
And yet, just by having that argument, you had to have accepted the core premise that pride should be based on accomplishments stemming from personal effort—you were only arguing about which accomplishments fit this description. Other families might place pride in knowing things, being a part of the family, showing loyalty, outsmarting people, knowing the right people, or any of dozens of other possible behavioral categories.
Sociometer theory is somewhat isomorphic to the truth, but it’s lacking in important distinctions. It ignores the fact that there are people who pride themselves in being nonconformists, or the actions of people who practically beg to be persecuted, and then wear their persecution like a badge of honor. In order to make sense of such behaviors, you have to understand that your esteem isn’t really measured by other people, except to the extent that you’ve been imprinted to measure it that way.
If a kid picks on you as a child, and your parents stand up for you, you learn that what others think may not be all that important. But if your parent teases you for being a crybaby, or tells you to ignore the other kids (and implicitly dismisses your fear), or tells you that you should just learn to fight back… you learn that your sociometer needs to be calibrated more from the outside than the inside.
In principle, a fully-developed human being would not require SASS from others, but rather give SASS to others. “Natural” schools of PUA, and charisma trainers of most other types already know this: making others feel important, liked, safe, and entertained is the best way to receive these values in return.
And you can’t genuinely give any of those things to other people, unless you know how to give them to yourself.
Okay, now I’ve read it. Oddly enough, I don’t have too much to say. (The fact that it’s almost 4 AM may have something to do with that.)
I’m not so sure about that, mostly because I still haven’t figured out what it means to be winning at life. I don’t have a job, but at least I don’t have a job I hate. For a long time, I’ve been determined to avoid ending up living Thoreau’s “life of quiet desperation” or, to use a more recent metaphor, living in a Dilbert cartoon. And I’m not living in a Dilbert cartoon. I don’t want to be Dilbert, yet another cog in the corporate machine. I’d rather be Dilbert’s garbageman, the only person in the whole strip who isn’t stupid, evil, or a victim of someone who is. My brother currently works at Goldman Sachs, and he’s getting up early so he can spend all day putting numbers into spreadsheets and then go home and collapse into bed. I don’t know if I’d trade places with him. In the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, I sort of take the side of the grasshopper, or at least that’s what try to convince myself of.
Now, if I could only stop worrying about what happens when the axe eventually falls...
You may not know what it is, but surely you know what it’s not. ;-)
Not reading this one yet. Haven’t finished my reply to the other one yet.