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XFrequentist comments on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA - Less Wrong
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Comments (616)
I'd be in.
You can dismiss the shitstorm associated with the phrase PUA by just calling it social skills or charisma.
Some thoughts and anticipated difficulties:
Should this be a forum, a blog, or a LW-style "community blog"? I think the LW structure might actually be optimal: there are top-level articles (which would contain advice) and long threaded discussions (which would contain personal experiences.)
What do you do about different levels? Some people need what I'd think of as "basic" advice (wear a clean suit to a job interview) and some people want something "advanced" (how can I make people think my ideas are awesome?)
A major challenge, I think, is when you can't tell how you appear to others, or when you get too caught up in the moment to remember to make a good impression. Most social-skills advice is along the lines of "remember to do X, Y, and Z" -- but how do you remember to remember? Someone who has cognitive insights could be very helpful here.
Scott Adams' list is very corporate-focused. We might need to poll people to see how many of us actually need golf, tennis, and management techniques.
Scott Aaronson once began a series of posts called "Geek Self-Help," though unfortunately he never followed up. The idea is that intelligent people have a strong tendency to discount motivational platitudes and self-help books, because those sound (and often are) stupid. But there is such a thing as healthy thinking -- the opposite of self-destructive thinking. It's just that you have to communicate it in a way that sounds insightful instead of lame. If anyone has insights of this kind, this would be a good place to share them.
I could, but every time I've tried to describe this without mentioning PUA people tell me to go to Toastmaster's or take a leadership class. It's the community + field-tests + feedback + iteration that I want. Shitstorm notwithstanding, I think this gets my intention across best. If the PUA part becomes too much of a distraction I might re-label it.
I have my own list topics/problems/thoughts that I cut from this just before posting. I'll bring these up if no one else does.
3 - It better be very focused, with a strong cultural element that says "do this or you are doing nothing", on in-person practice and feedback, otherwise it will just be wankery - "social skills porn" posts that people read and write without ever learning anything. You know, kind of like Less Wrong is rationalist porn :). While I'm sure that lots of people read PUA without practicing it, there is a strong cultural tradition that PUA is all about "the field" and you can't practice it very far without going into "the field". If you don't have that, you are doomed.
I have a long post about this coming up, with a pretty similar viewpoint to yours, just a more general goal, and similar technical requirements, we should talk.
Yeah, this could easily turn into really boring porn if it's all talk (though I dispute LW being rationalist porn, I use things I've learned here every single day).
One of the key reasons I decided to risk the PUA fallout is to convey the tradition of getting out in the field that you mention. That's also part of why I hesitate to suggest books. I know that I have a bad habit of preferring reading about doing stuff to actually doing stuff, and I suspect I'm not alone.
Look forward to your post. I'd love to chat, PM me for contact info.
Joining the toastmasters is actually a good idea for some of the items on your list. I did so in 2006, and it helped. But of course it is not a concept for all of it.
What do you think of the content on LW so far? There are great posts about Akrasia and Luminosity and other items.
If you have, i would like to see your recommended reading list.
I'm still on the fence about Toastmasters, I've heard mixed things.
There's a chapter at my work holding an open house this week, I may go and give them a second chance.
I have some books in mind, but I don't think this is the type of thing where any major gains will come from reading. Many of the authors I like (Cialdini, Carnegie) have already come up in this thread.
Groups differ alot! If you live in a big US city, you have many to choose from. If you decide it is not useful, I would like to understand why. It is - as was noted earlier - extensive practice.
It's practice, but it's non-field practice of a subset of the skills I'm interested in. It might have potential as one among several methods, but I don't think it's sufficient for what I'm after.
Inter-group variability in quality is a good point, I should be more careful to qualify my experience as particular to a single group and not Toastmasters in general.
As a side note it might be interesting to note when a group has important study points that you have already ingrained. TM is a point where some people learn to hold and structure meetings, which might or might not be something one already can do.
For the training of abilities I do not think that field experience is the only thing that counts. I would suggest to develop an accurate model of how to learn behavioral changes effectively, because so far there are way to many contradicting ideas.