Of course, at its core, social grace is nothing but "intelligent application of the Golden Rule".
Nonsense. At the core it is the smooth application of Machiavellian politics. The golden rule is the pretty lining on the surface that we like to make believe social grace is about.
I said social grace. True kindness and honesty and loyalty have their reward. It's not usually as large as the ones you get by going full-blown machiavellian, but it's usually more reliable and durable: people tend to notice if your virtues are fake, and machiavellians are competitive, while "true gentlemen" don't need to fight each other off. It's the difference between getting power and getting respect.
I said social grace. True kindness and honesty and loyalty have their reward.
Exactly. Particularly if you choose the right people to be kind to and the right times to be loyal.
people tend to notice if your virtues are fake
Believing in the pretty lining, and even erring slightly in the direction of being 'virtuous' when the stakes are low tends to be a practical policy. Because doing the calculations of just when not to be kind is hard.
Note people can get by satisfactorily by living by the Golden Rule. At least they can if they are sufficiently sheltered. Yet this does not appear graceful. It looks kludgey and naive.
A perhaps even more important point is that when being kind/nice/virtual/reciprocal/cooperating/etc the golden rule, "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself", still isn't the one to follow. Again you can get by treating others as you would like to be treated but - some people will be able to tolerate you. But to be 'socially graceful' you need to be able to read people and infer how they will respond best to being treated.
Note that
while "true gentlemen" don't need to fight each other off. It's the difference between getting power and getting respect.
"One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself"
I thought that the golden rule was treat others as they would like to be treated, not as you would like to be treated.
I thought that the golden rule was treat others as they would like to be treated, not as you would like to be treated.
That is sometimes proposed as moral rule too. But the golden rule is "do unto others as as you would have them do unto you". From the looks of it the quote you have there is one I took straight from wikipedia.
And yes, the golden rule being that way is obviously silly. If I went around doing that I would be locked up for sexual assault or harassment.
Interesting post. I do occasionally watch myself interacting with people, smiling at the right times, joking at the right times, getting people to laugh and feel comfortable...and it absolutely amazes me that I can do this. Even with grownups! (Actually, older adults and young children are much easier to interact with than people in my age group, probably because I'm not expected to compete with them for status...that game still throws me off.) Yeah, socializing is fun, and it's awesome that I can now find it fun. It took years of spending a lot of my time among extroverts and feeling really, really out of place there...but now I'm glad that I didn't immediately segregate into a group with "people like me", because I probably wouldn't have learned better social skills from them.
(that, and flirting with any and everybody all the time is just creepy and makes you look like a supervillain).
I can understand why you think that. One of my friends has a polarising effect on people, in part because he's flirting all the time. But he's still miles ahead of me socially, in terms of how people relate to him on average. If it was in his interests I'm sure he could improve even more. But being charming is basically flirting; flirting with everybody, all ages and sexes, being friendly, seeming interested, teasing them, remembering stuff, using their name, touching appropriately.
Of course, at its core, social grace is nothing but "intelligent application of the Golden Rule".
I disagree.
I also disagree with the golden rule assertion. the average person does not want to be treated like an intelligent rationalist.
Language is not about communication of abstract concepts, it's about communication of status.
An intelligent rationalist likes to have incorrect reasoning pointed out so they can correct it. A normal person perceives corrections as an assertion of higher status.
An intelligent rationalist enjoys discussing difficult subject mater that stretches the limit of their understanding. A normal person perceives such topics as an assertion of higher status.
An intelligent rationalist is interested in pragmatic solutions to problems. A normal person uses stances on known problems to signal their social affiliations.
An intelligent rationalist explicitly reasons about social norms and ignores them when advantageous. A normal person implicitly views such behavior as signaling group disloyalty.
An intelligent rationalist values intelligence terminally (okay this isn't strictly rational, but is a common pattern). A normal person values intelligence instrumentally.
I'm sure there are many more, and you could write pages about each one, but I think this covers some broad swaths.
Holy crap, suddenly lots of up-to-now-incomprehensible stuff stared making sense!
The problem is, those guys aren't even aware of this, and when you actually ask them why they behave so incongruously, they bullshit their way or can't answer at all. So can we only count on each other to find out about this stuff, highlight it, and explain it? I'm dead serious here: where can I read more about this?
Reading about it won't actually get you that far. nazgulnarsil, wedrifid and HughRistik all know a lot more about this than me. That said; in decreasing order of information per unit of reading, PUA literature, theatre literature, social psychology.
If you want to learn this stuff without joining the PUA subculture the second most efficient way to do it is probably doing improv in a good group.
Impro, by Keith Johnstone has a fantastic introduction to status. Things that are relevant to this; body language, tone and intonation; gaze. There are books for all these but if you want to improve for yourself and integrate your abstract knowledge much, much faster you can do partner dancing, acting and singing.
That said; in decreasing order of information per unit of reading, PUA literature, theatre literature, social psychology.
Then there are sources like Robert Greene's Law's of Power. They aren't the sort of thing to literally follow. Just a body of knowledge that will be brought to mind when looking at how social patterns flow around. It gives the practical experience and observations something to form around and 'click' on.
It is, of course, worth noting that while the nerd instinct of 'read about it till I understand it' does help - and is certainly a lot of fun as a matter of curiousity - actually getting to the level of being able to understand what is happening in real time takes huge amounts of practical work. Because this is what most people have spent the majority of their formative years mastering.
Actually acting, dancing and singing have taught me a lot. The only reason I don't get into the PUA subculture is because I can't find a freaking wingman I trust. All my friends find PUA morally repulsive for some reason and don't want to help me in this endeavor.
Another factor that staves me romantically is that I have a lot of trouble finding an intellectually compatible girl... and other girls just... failt to arouse me. I guess I could force myself into seducing them for practice or something, but I just can't see myself being in a relationship with a girl that isn't at least a potential rationalist. Those girls are few and far between... and when I find them I tend to get so overexcited I inevitably screw things up one way or another... they remain good friends though.
There's a Barcelona Lair if you're really interested in pickup. If you're at a university, in a debating club, then there are intelligent women about. Everybody's a potential rationalist. People in relationships generally change, and the more awesome, fun and attractive you are the more likely any partner you find will be to change for you.
That place sounds pretty badass. Do you know it personally?
As for the awesome part, as a good rationalist, I am steadily working on it.
And i don't want to change anyone, I want to find someone who already is a rationalist (not specifically a Lesswronger, just someone who values Truth as a terminal value... at least for a start) or has the disposition to grow into one. In Big Bang Theory terms, I would never date a Penny, a Bernie, a Priya or an Amy would all be interesting choices (all of them inconvenient in their own way, but, hey, we're all people).
A pretty brutal but quite efficient acid test would be suggesting they read Methods of Rationality. That book is kinda the sum of a lot of stuff I like and endorse, so if they go as enthusiastic about it as I was before Schedule Slip, it's almost certain we'll at least be very good friends. Furthermore, and failing that, the fact that they can 'keep up with the more complicated knots of the plot means we can have the sort of advanced discussion I enjoy. Failing that, the fact they'd be willing to consider reading a fanfiction would already mean we share some unusual cultural priors.
At how low a probability of eventually understanding, say, Bayes' Rule and the 12 Virtues of Rationality do you consider a girl to have no potential as a future rationalist?
eventually? 100%. Anything less is completely unacceptable.. Anyone should be able to understand those. That's the entire point of Rationalism, it's supposed to be accessible to anyone, intelligent people are just faster learners.
The potential to become a rationalist isn't a matter of being capable to understand, say, the Sequences or the Luminosities or the Feynman Lectures. It's a matter of wanting to.
If there's one trend you can tell from this thread, it's that the Twelve Virtues are mostly an innate and early-nurture thing. The Number One virtue, Curiosity, I know so many people who just don't have it. A relationship with a person who doesn't seek the truth, who doesn't feel the itch to pick at contradictions and fill their intellectual lacunas, or worse, who refuses to question their own prejudice, and who is content with knowing the minimum needed to perform their social function... There's only so far a relationship with such people can go for me.
Writing this post, I just realized Ace Attorney is remarkably close to what a Rationalist game could be.
women are malleable. it is an evolutionary trait, disagreeing with males was bad for your offspring's health.
before someone starts getting offended, men are malleable too, or do you not find all the hoop jumping just to have some sex in the PUA culture somewhat funny? I do.
anyway, If I expected women to be ideologically agreeable when we first started dating I'd never date anyone.
I wasn't talking about "starting dating", I was talking about "keeping as romantic partner". Otherwise it'd be a purely sexual relationship, and those just aren't very interesting except as half-hearted practice for the real stuff. If i could skip that stuff entirely without damaging my chances of finding my one and true, I would.
If you can stomach it, you can read PUA stuff without joining the subculture if you're willing to practice the parts that you're okay with. If you can't stomach it, you can find a different site.
Nice us vs. them litany you got there. I think the descriptions of what "intelligent rationalists" do are actually mostly descriptions of what people who identify as "intelligent rationalists" tell themselves about themselves.
But I agree about the parts about what "normal people" do, so it's still a useful comment.
IME highly intelligent people really do have different revealed preferences than normal people. Also keep in mind normal just means average. I think appeals to populism are just another form of applause lights TBH.
People want to be treated the way they want to be treated, sometimes that's compliments, sometimes its fun outings, but its rarely the way I want to be treated.
I've often found Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People to provide effective guidelines. He didn't do any scientific studies as far as I know, but he claims to have based his material on the behaviors of those who were interpersonally effective throughout history and then tweaked it for effectiveness in the course of several years of teaching it in seminars. I've seen it work wonders in situations that I thought were likely to go south quickly otherwise. And his material on being a good conversationalist definitely works marvelously in my experience - even if I don't always remember to apply it!
I've also found some personality typing systems to be immensely useful. I personally lean mostly on Riso & Hudon's Enneagram with occasional adjustments using the four dimensions of Myers-Briggs, though I've recently started looking into the Big Five due to a recommendation from a recent meet-up. (I can't tell as yet whether the Big Five is actually useful at all in the way the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs are.) There's something jaw-droppingly spectacular when you suddenly realize how to decode someone's personality enough to know a few magical phrases that dissolve conflict or open that person right up, or at least understand why they got so upset about something you didn't think was at all relevant.
The incomprehensible people around us suddenly become fairly simple and predictable [...] They also become all that much more interesting.
These two sentences seem to contradict each other.
you've discovered the pleasures of socializing
Not really. I do it when I have to, to further some goal I have, but I still don't find it particularly "pleasurable" (with certain exceptions, of course).
When you don't uderstand anything about what's going on, you are bored and turn away to other activities. When you understand enough that you can follow the action but not so much as to already know what's coming next, you can get pretty sucked in.
In other terms: TV Tropes Will Enhance Your Life: beng able to read and recongize the patters in narrative fiction can make the fiction all that more interesting, in an "I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE" way.
"Not Really": Oh, well, my fault for overgeneralizing, but I the feeling of empowerment as you start seeing how people actually work to be thrilling. To pardoy myself, I'd say I'm like Monsieur Jourdain: "THEY ARE SPEAKING IN PROSE, THEY HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR YEARS! AND THEY DO NOT KNOW IT! HOW EXCITING!"
I find that "flirting" best encapsulated the things I wasn't doing to make me more socially effective before. Lots of eye contact, smiling, joking, using people's names, etc.
You know, I ''still'' can't get the hand of joking. Not telling jokes or using witticisms, but, you know, the taunting, the stealth insults, the "in good fun" stuff. Maybe I'm working under Law Of Conservation Of Detail, but I tend to process them as unwarranted, intentional insults, made by people who won't openly engage you, and that come entirely out of the blue and can't be refuted in less than a small paragraph. Which is obviously not a witty response and marks you as unfunny and "someone who takes themselves too seriously". This really exasperates and confuses me.
The point isn't to refute but to "give as good as you get". Humor is more social norm exploration than pure entertainment. Ribbing subtly asserts the pecking order, you'll notice this when you step back and watch the patterns.
the quintessential "geek" not "getting" it usually comes about when you are miscalibrated because you don't know the norms.
Good example, think about where the humor is derived from in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1vY2J9FTnE
"Give as good as you get"... okay, confused non-native English speaker googles... "If you give as good as you get, you are prepared to treat people as badly as they treat you and to fight for what you believe.". Aha. I actually know that, it's just that I never ever felt the need to do that, I basically treat everybody as my equals. No, actually I lie, I have felt the temptation to snark on people I thought weaker, but I felt so guilty at the prospect of hurting their feelings and reinforcing their low self-esteem position, I just avoid these people altogether. Especially if they admire me or look up to me, I feel very tempted to bring them further down, and I find that side of me repulsive. Perhaps I am Completely Missing The Point and I should go on and verbally abuse weaklings?
Andl, of course the point isn't to refute... unless you're on a formal debate, but given time constraints pointing out the bullshit in the opposing party's argument, if they are twisty enough, can waste so much time you don't get to develop yours. That's a dilemma I constantly face in Debate Club, and I'm conflicted about the loss of credibility bullshitting back wittily but inaccurately may cause...
Back to "friendly" socializing: In general, I kinda suck at saying stuff I know isn't true, and going for someone's masculinity or for other sources of their self-esteem is something that really doesn't come naturally to me. Back in the old nerdy days I used to clam up in indignation (or sheepish shocked sadness depending on how much I knew the person appreciated me: I mean, someone who's a true friend, and is loyal, and helpful, and nice, and suddenly out of the blue and for no reason at all Attacks Your Weak Point For Massive Damage). Nowadays I just use a wary "are you fucking kidding me" face and, if the other person keeps it up, some dry, deadpan put down heavily inspired in Batman and Quirrelmort (I only wish I could emulate the level of threat post-Azkaban Quirrelmort exuded). (Yes, much of my social repertoire is taken directly from fictional characters.)
But that's not the right way to go about it. I need to be more familiar, closer, and faster. Deadpan snarking is a good defense mechanism, but makes you appear stuck up, pompous, and with a superiority complex, and that's not the image I want to give...
So, do we have news of anyone throughly exploring "ribbing" and the mechanisms thereof?
Back to "friendly" socializing: In general, I kinda suck at saying stuff I know isn't true, and going for someone's masculinity or for other sources of their self-esteem is something that really doesn't come naturally to me. Back in the old nerdy days I used to clam up in indignation (or sheepish shocked sadness depending on how much I knew the person appreciated me: I mean, someone who's a true friend, and is loyal, and helpful, and nice, and suddenly out of the blue and for no reason at all Attacks Your Weak Point For Massive Damage). Nowadays I just use a wary "are you fucking kidding me" face and, if the other person keeps it up, some dry, deadpan put down heavily inspired in Batman and Quirrelmort (I only wish I could emulate the level of threat post-Azkaban Quirrelmort exuded). (Yes, much of my social repertoire is taken directly from fictional characters.)
I recognize these behaviors as things that I did in such situations when I was younger. Here's what helped me get over that: I realized that, for the most part, people can only embarrass you if you agree to be embarrassed. It's much easier for me to interact in a teasing environment now that I've simply stopped taking it so seriously.
The underlying principle is that everyone has embarrassing stories and characteristics. Participating in making fun of these things, both yours and others', is a way to signal trust and belonging to the other people in the group. The point of this kind of interaction isn't to be cruel or mean; it's that not being able to talk about sensitive topics makes you seem like a member of the out-group. Members of the in-group will generally be less offended by a teasing remark made by one of their own than by the same remark made by someone outside of the group, so matching those differing levels of offense demonstrates your familiarity with the in-group.
Obviously, not becoming embarrassed or offended is easier said than done. I recommend trying not to display or act on the feeling even if you have it. As I worked on doing this, the feeling itself became much less prevalent.
Also, it's important to keep track of which topics are off-limits even for the in-group. People may have issues that are simply too sensitive for the usual teasing, and failing to realize that is another signal of lack of familiarity with the group members, and therefore out-group status.
You definitely should read Impro and maybe take a class on improvisational theater if you can. Being status blind is a huge handicap that I'm not sure can be overcome. You just have to learn.
http://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178
Japanese is nice in this regard because they actually have special words and language used to refer to people of significantly higher or lower status.
Also: teasing generally involves saying things you both know isn't true and you have mutual knowledge that the other knows you know it isn't true.
Great talk by Pinker about mutual knowledge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU
There's a reason that nerds have trouble succeeding at social excellence when trying to reason about it from scratch. This stuff is extremely complicated and normal people are relying on built in heuristics to do much of the work.
The first 2 seasons of the TV show Entourage seems to be a good examination of how extraverts do teasing (plus it is a lot of fun to watch). Since the show is inspired by real people (actor Mark Wahlberg and some of his friends and associates) and since every episode has at least one famous Hollywood personality playing themselves, it seems to hew closer to real life than most scripted TV does.
I don't understand sarcasm. I mean, I know what it is and everything, and I can participate in a sarcastic exchange if I'm expecting it, but if I'm not paying attention, a remark meant to be sarcastic gets automatically processed as serious, and I respond defensively. Various people over the years have noticed this and used it to their own amusement. (Which I don't really mind. I was ignored enough as a kid that even just being teased is a sign of social inclusion for me and makes me feel warm and fuzzy.)
A useful response, particularly given a lack of talent for witty retorts and a personal distaste for the more aggressive fringe of jokes at others expense is to completely ignore them. Not in the sense of a trite "there, there, it doesn't matter you'll be ok Raw Power", but in the sense of the holding a strong frame that can potentially completely undercut and marginalize them if done well. It does require the resilience and self control to completely suppress any facial expression indication that you were vulnerable to the attack and to not lose track of whatever your goal was in the conversation. It usually works best of you open or continue a completely unrelated thread with someone else in the vicinity.
I used to have the same attitude toward teasing and joking that you do. I still do, actually, in many situations, but I've loosened up about it a bit since I realized that some significant subset of it is a form of countersignaling. That doesn't mean it's always benign, even when it's meant that way - one obvious failure mode that I run into is when a particular one of my acquaintances uses it to signal that they think I should trust them, when they have not actually earned my trust, and winds up causing me to trust them less - but some of it is, and having a framework to think about whether it's benign or not seems to make it less frustrating overall.
Followup to Recovering Insufferable Genius
So, we've been talking a mighty amount on avoiding and understanding the common pitfalls and mistakes that plague most human minds for various biological, evolutionary and social reasons. This knowledge is supposed to be used for the sake of learning how to think proprely and clearly about the world, and for the sake of making the right choices, and making them quickly. Both blades of the weapon can have a dramatic effect on how we interact with people. Behaviors that would appear absurd and annoying to us would suddenly gain a history, reasons for their existence until now and even for their continued existence. The incomprehensible people around us suddenly become fairly simple and predictable, to the point that you might, every now and then, understand them better than they do themselves. They also become all that much more interesting. You find yourself observing them, gently pushing their buttons as you eagerly wait for what they are going to do next. Of course, this applies just as much to you yourself. You see your own past in a very different light, and Akrasia remains difficult to escape. But at least now you know what you're doing wrong.
Anyway, you've discovered the pleasures of socializing, and you've even acquired an "edge" over those who relied on intuition ever since they were young. What I want us to discuss here is how to reach not just some "proficiency" in social navigation, but actual social excellence. We've collected research on how to be happy, on how to confront organizational problems, etc. I think it would be nice if we also collected data on how to be polite. How to make one's company agreeable and interesting. How to make oneself elegant and glamorous. How to get people to do what you want, and then thank you for it.
Some slight bits of this are approached by PUA methods, but those are very specific in goal and scope, and require a set of skills that can be far from adequate in other contexts (that, and flirting with any and everybody all the time is just creepy and makes you look like a supervillain).
Of course, at its core, social grace is nothing but "intelligent application of the Golden Rule". So, with insight and purpose, everything should be possible... But that's a pretty huge ideaspace, and in day-to-day interaction you often don't have that much time to figure our what to do. Of course, there's rote behavior, protocol, that allows you to free brainspace for what's actually important, but too much of that and it can become blatant.
So... anyone know any actual research on the subject? We can also use some armchair philosophy, it's not like we eschew creative individual thinking here, but some backed-by-evidence stuff is very nice to have.
