This is a complicated post and was confusing to work out; you should consider more instructions.
something like: ”I am looking for advice on a few times where I seem to follow various existing algorithms that should lead to success in different circumstances. But sometimes the general advice conflicts with itself.
I have formatted the sub-posts to this one with—general area; then specific question; then an example.”
Sometimes you can win so big, that you need not say anything. Other times, you DO need to say something to be noticed. The problem is, nobody exactly LIKES a braggart. The question is, how do you find an appropriate weighting between these two? Does this change if you’ve already managed to win big in one different field?
For what it’s worth, Nassim Taleb and Eric Raymond both do quite a bit of bragging, and they both have fan bases. I don’t know about Taleb, but Eric also has friends.
Depending on situation, you might ask (or even hire) someone else to do the bragging on your behalf.
Have someone else say “You should all pay attention to Arshuni, the most awesome person in the world!”, then act like “Oh, you are embarassing me, I am just an ordinary person”, then have them list your specific achievements like “Arshuni is always so adorably humble, but in fact he achieved X, Y, and Z, isn’t that awesome?”, and then you conclude it like “I think anyone could have done the same thing (there are many other people who have Nobel price, too), and I also wouldn’t be able to do it without a bit of luck and a lot of help from my good friends (not that I am bragging about also having great social skills)… but please let’s change the topic now, and focus on the original issue of our meeting here...”
Must be done with some tact, and adjusted for specific culture or subculture, but I think many successful people do this. I think the typical solutions are (a) have allies who do this service for you, and in return you do it for them on a different day; or (b) hire professionals: art critics, or PR agencies; in addition to money, you could also pay them by flattery or sex.
You can really save someone a lot of time, effort, or pain. Or help them improve.
OTOH, sometimes you ARE wrong, unsolicited advice does not always come across well, and… well, you probably gave them advice because you care about them, but also, being the guy who always knows better (whether true or not, rarely matters) does not help your relationship.
I think giving advice only if asked, and otherwise, rewarding good behavior is A solution. But for example non-alcoholist me thinks I would prefer people to take a more interventionist approach, if I were to regularly take drinking to an excess.
I think the supposed best strategy would be to be known to be a vengeful person, who ruins you if you cross him, but only if it is really a valid reason, so people are not afraid to enter a social relationship with you. (only hating for the right reasons)
OTOH, do people actually differentiate at this level? If I hear someone dealt sweet revenge, I am not sure my next question is necessarily going to be ‘was it for the right reason?’
When it comes to revenge I would focus more on what’s good for my own emotional health than about how it looks like to outsiders. Don’t invest too much effort into image management. Having good emotional health results in many situations where you look good without you having to manage your image.
In telling stories about acquaintances, should I be explicit with names?
It helps follow the story, makes it more personal, and follow up stories paint a better overall picture. On introductions, ‘Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you!’ is great, too.
On the other hand, sometimes you end up telling stories that may be slightly embarrassing for some concerned. In being explicit with their names, you may end up making the recipient less likely to open up to you (or I would assume so: I don’t remember if I ever decided to be less open to someone merely because that, even after being surprised by hearing a story back from a third person. OTOH, I did definitely think deeply about my relationship with people who have a habit of shit-talking people behind their backs.)
Any other considerations? Which would you consider more appropriate?
Depending on what level you are playing at. The safe strategy is to mention specific people only if the story reflects unilaterally positively on them.
Because even if you think the story reflects on average positively for them, you are at risk that they will calculate the averages differently than you (e.g. the embarassing part may be their very sensitive spot), or more likely, that the story may reach them in a modified form, where the embarassing parts are remembered and exaggerated, while the positive parts are left out. But still the person will say that ‘this is the story you told them’, and upon confrontation it will be awkward to explain that “yeah, I kinda said that, but not exactly like this, and also I said this and that” when the target person is already angry at you.
Generally, you should assume that ‘the world is smaller than you expect’, that is, once in a while you will learn afterwards that two random people actually know each other. Most of the time this is not the case, but when it is, it could come costly.
Ask yourself why you are telling a story. If what you want is to share a good story, don’t tell their names. If you want to inform a listener about specific actions of a person, say, to warn them, then you have to tell their names
In telling stories about acquaintances, should I be explicit with names? It helps follow the story, makes it more personal, and follow up stories paint a better overall picture.
It depends on the context. Do you think the person would want their name associated with the story? Have you heard the context in a confidential setting?
How confidential is the setting in which you are speaking? If I’m talking to my girlfriend I try to use names for most stories that aren’t confidential. If I’m talking to strangers I will less likely use names for sensitive stories.
If I’m talking on the LW I don’t use any names for stories I tell unless the person in question signaled they are okay with the story being public. I don’t use the name of my girlfriend in this paragraph.
I have tried with or without names; for me it would depend how close I am to the person I am telling the story to.
And depend if the 3rd party is known in positive/negative light. i.e. story that involves an ex to a current partner.
I think you might be over thinking this because for the most part it doesn’t matter, however if you are developing a rule of thumb; if a story gives positive credit—name the person, if not positive, skip the name.
Oftentimes, I am confused because I didn’t lock in my algorithm. This makes my behavior incongruent.
This is a complicated post and was confusing to work out; you should consider more instructions.
something like:
”I am looking for advice on a few times where I seem to follow various existing algorithms that should lead to success in different circumstances. But sometimes the general advice conflicts with itself.
I have formatted the sub-posts to this one with—general area; then specific question; then an example.”
Specific examples go here (add yours), so they can be discussed separately
Self-promotion
Should I just apply the counter-signalling model?
Sometimes you can win so big, that you need not say anything. Other times, you DO need to say something to be noticed. The problem is, nobody exactly LIKES a braggart. The question is, how do you find an appropriate weighting between these two? Does this change if you’ve already managed to win big in one different field?
For what it’s worth, Nassim Taleb and Eric Raymond both do quite a bit of bragging, and they both have fan bases. I don’t know about Taleb, but Eric also has friends.
I’m not sure what it takes to make this work.
Depending on situation, you might ask (or even hire) someone else to do the bragging on your behalf.
Have someone else say “You should all pay attention to Arshuni, the most awesome person in the world!”, then act like “Oh, you are embarassing me, I am just an ordinary person”, then have them list your specific achievements like “Arshuni is always so adorably humble, but in fact he achieved X, Y, and Z, isn’t that awesome?”, and then you conclude it like “I think anyone could have done the same thing (there are many other people who have Nobel price, too), and I also wouldn’t be able to do it without a bit of luck and a lot of help from my good friends (not that I am bragging about also having great social skills)… but please let’s change the topic now, and focus on the original issue of our meeting here...”
Must be done with some tact, and adjusted for specific culture or subculture, but I think many successful people do this. I think the typical solutions are (a) have allies who do this service for you, and in return you do it for them on a different day; or (b) hire professionals: art critics, or PR agencies; in addition to money, you could also pay them by flattery or sex.
Unsolicited advice/interventions
You can really save someone a lot of time, effort, or pain. Or help them improve.
OTOH, sometimes you ARE wrong, unsolicited advice does not always come across well, and… well, you probably gave them advice because you care about them, but also, being the guy who always knows better (whether true or not, rarely matters) does not help your relationship.
I think giving advice only if asked, and otherwise, rewarding good behavior is A solution. But for example non-alcoholist me thinks I would prefer people to take a more interventionist approach, if I were to regularly take drinking to an excess.
A good first step isn’t to give advice but to start asking questions about the issue and listen empathically.
Revenge. It does not often come up in my life.
I think the supposed best strategy would be to be known to be a vengeful person, who ruins you if you cross him, but only if it is really a valid reason, so people are not afraid to enter a social relationship with you. (only hating for the right reasons)
OTOH, do people actually differentiate at this level? If I hear someone dealt sweet revenge, I am not sure my next question is necessarily going to be ‘was it for the right reason?’
When it comes to revenge I would focus more on what’s good for my own emotional health than about how it looks like to outsiders. Don’t invest too much effort into image management. Having good emotional health results in many situations where you look good without you having to manage your image.
In telling stories about acquaintances, should I be explicit with names? It helps follow the story, makes it more personal, and follow up stories paint a better overall picture. On introductions, ‘Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you!’ is great, too. On the other hand, sometimes you end up telling stories that may be slightly embarrassing for some concerned. In being explicit with their names, you may end up making the recipient less likely to open up to you (or I would assume so: I don’t remember if I ever decided to be less open to someone merely because that, even after being surprised by hearing a story back from a third person. OTOH, I did definitely think deeply about my relationship with people who have a habit of shit-talking people behind their backs.)
Any other considerations? Which would you consider more appropriate?
If names are needed to keep a story clear, you can use made-up names.
Depending on what level you are playing at. The safe strategy is to mention specific people only if the story reflects unilaterally positively on them.
Because even if you think the story reflects on average positively for them, you are at risk that they will calculate the averages differently than you (e.g. the embarassing part may be their very sensitive spot), or more likely, that the story may reach them in a modified form, where the embarassing parts are remembered and exaggerated, while the positive parts are left out. But still the person will say that ‘this is the story you told them’, and upon confrontation it will be awkward to explain that “yeah, I kinda said that, but not exactly like this, and also I said this and that” when the target person is already angry at you.
Generally, you should assume that ‘the world is smaller than you expect’, that is, once in a while you will learn afterwards that two random people actually know each other. Most of the time this is not the case, but when it is, it could come costly.
Ask yourself why you are telling a story. If what you want is to share a good story, don’t tell their names. If you want to inform a listener about specific actions of a person, say, to warn them, then you have to tell their names
It depends on the context. Do you think the person would want their name associated with the story? Have you heard the context in a confidential setting?
How confidential is the setting in which you are speaking? If I’m talking to my girlfriend I try to use names for most stories that aren’t confidential. If I’m talking to strangers I will less likely use names for sensitive stories. If I’m talking on the LW I don’t use any names for stories I tell unless the person in question signaled they are okay with the story being public. I don’t use the name of my girlfriend in this paragraph.
I have tried with or without names; for me it would depend how close I am to the person I am telling the story to.
And depend if the 3rd party is known in positive/negative light. i.e. story that involves an ex to a current partner.
I think you might be over thinking this because for the most part it doesn’t matter, however if you are developing a rule of thumb; if a story gives positive credit—name the person, if not positive, skip the name.