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HughRistik comments on How to always have interesting conversations - Less Wrong
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The problem I had with them is that advice in this area generally applies an instrumental view to "other people", without attention to the kinds of people the skills are likely to work on, and whether those people (after the interaction or deep into it) are likely to be better people who are retrospectively happy about their interactions with you.
For most of my life I've been of the opinion that the idea of "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" is a sham excuse that people invent after having been partly responsible for causing an emotional trainwreck that was very painful to most of the people involved. My working hypothesis, then and now, is that it is probably better not to get romantically entangled with someone unless you and your sweetie are both capable offering and granting something approaching research grade informed consent (as opposed to merely judicial grade where its pretty much deemed not to have been obtained only in cases of gross fraud or dramatic mental impairment).
I'm not talking about getting signatures before smooching with someone, but I am talking about (1) thinking about it first, (2) imagining possible consequences for both parties (and possible children who may be created) in the coming weeks, months, and years, and (3) doing one's best to avoid harm to anyone given such thoughtfulness which probably requires some time in private and lengthy conversation.
Cialdini's "Influence" is an interesting example of the social skills literature, because he ostensibly wrote it as a "defense against the dark arts" textbook to help people avoid being manipulated. In practice, it is studied mostly by compliance professionals as one of the most epistemologically sound manuals that exists on the subject of the "dark arts" in general. I don't think it is an accident that sound epistemology and benevolent moral intent went together like this.
Though there is great ethical value in helping people avoid influence techniques, I contend that there is also great ethical value in teaching people how to influence others. I argue that social skills (of which social influence is a subset) are distributed inequitably in society, and that this result is unjust. Some people are dramatically better at social influence (status, etc...) than others knowingly or unknowingly, due to different personality traits and upbringings. There are the haves, and the have-nots in the area of social skills.
The only way for social equality to exist is for people to be in the same bracket of social skills (and social influence ability). We can't make things equal, but we can compress the disparity between the top and the bottom, so the people at the bottom aren't getting stomped on so badly.
Either the haves must give up their social skills, or the have-nots must attain more social skills. The first solution is impossible. With their higher social status, the haves can't be forced to do so, and they will scoff at requests to disarm out of the goodness of their hearts. The cool kids aren't going to change how they do things no matter how much the uncool kids stamp their feet. Furthermore, some of the haves are naturally that way due to their phenotype, and they can't lower their social skills (at least, not without the help of the Handicapper General ).
The solution is for the have-nots to learn to be more socially influential. Yet if you do so, you join the ranks of the haves, though you may be one of their more restrained and reflective members. Unfortunately, if you become one of the haves you will still encounter have-nots. You should avoid stomping on them, but they may end up at a disadvantage relative to you. It isn't your fault that they aren't educated about social influence, and it isn't your individual responsibility to do so.
A society where disparities in social skills have been compressed by pulling people at the bottom upwards would be more equal than what we have today. Reducing this inequality is a good thing. There would be great transparency about social influence. That's part of the reason I write so much about these subjects: I'm trying to do my part to get the knowledge more evenly distributed. Yet there is a strange agreement in society between the haves and the have-nots: they both often look down on have-nots trying to become haves.
I also believe that there should be more discussion of the ethics of social influence. Yet in discussions of the ethics of social influence, I often notice a greater degree of scrutiny on people who are learning social influence, rather than on those who are already doing it. Furthermore, some ethical criticisms of social influence (usually leveled at those learning it) seem overly idealistic. When social influence and status is woven so deeply into the fabric of society, the phrase "don't hate the player; hate the game" can often be a valid defense.
This is reminding me of Westerfeld's Uglies, a pretty good science fiction novel about a society where everyone gets plastic surgery at age 16 to make them extremely beautiful.
As might be expected in a novel, there's an arbitrarily added catch to the beauty, but would just having the surgery be standard be a bad idea?
The novel was inspired by Raphael Carter's ""'Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation' by K.N. Sirsi and Sandra Botkin"", a short story which explores the implication of people having the option of not noticing whether people are beautiful or not.
Thanks for the recommendations.
It does seem like there are tree options to reduce beauty-based inequalities:
Make less beautiful people more beautiful (which may indeed involve routine surgery in the future).
Make the beautiful people less beautiful (e.g. the Handicapper General).
Make people care about beauty less (feasible in the future, but only partially effective in the present since so much of perceptions of beauty seem biologically predisposed).
I support #1 in the present, and some combination of #1 and #3 in the future, when we have more effective ways of changing people's preferences.
It might also be possible in future to mimic the effect of options 1 and 2 by altering one's own perception of who is beautiful and who isn't. (For example, instead of handicapping beautiful people, I could get my brain reprogrammed to see as ugly the people others see as beautiful.) This is like #3 in that it's about altering someone other than the beautiful/non-beautiful people themselves, but different in that one changes what one sees as beautiful instead of how much one cares about beauty.
Some would suggest this gives you all sorts of practical benefits.
I see learning status gaining skills as an arms race. That is you gaining more social influence will encourage others to gain more to try and stay ahead of you so that they can get what they want. Thus forcing you to spend more time and energy on socialising. It is not as simple as have and have-nots.
I'd guess the haves socially denigrating the have-nots for trying to get more social skills is part of their way of fending off competitors.
Why the have-nots might do it? Well if they are part of your social group there are a number of reasons.
They might not want to be on their guard around you in case you try and manipulate them.
They might worry that you will become less interesting to talk to or less of a friend as you spend less time with your head in a book/consuming in-group media and more time shmoozing and climbing the greasy pole.
If they are not part of your social group, then yep a legitimate bias unless they are trying to defuse the arms race. Which is a bit overly idealistic I'll grant you.
It might be a game, and engaging in it might lead to more energy put into socially unproductive purpose down the line. But, unfortunately, the only way to win IS to play, otherwise you'll be losing influence to suburban WASPS with nice hair. Some of them might even be sociopaths. :(
Yes and no. If you personally want to be influential in government or CEO of a major company then yes. However that is not the only way to influence society.
There are two rough ways to shape society. Through social means and technological. An example of technological shaping is the creation of effective birth control allowed many women to take more control of their lives. It allowed them to have sex and maintain a career. Artificial wombs would have further societal consequences.
So if you are going the technological route to societal influence then all you need is sufficient resources to create the technology and market it to sufficient people such that it becomes self-sustaining. It would become self-sustaining by becoming the basis of a profitable business with lobbyists etc. If you are fulfilling a large need, then all you may need to do is develop the tech and license the patent. That may not require to much resources or lots of social skills. However the fallout of any technology is not predictable and it is very hard to "undo" a technological release if it is not to your liking (requiring lots of social influence).
In terms of long lasting social influence you can support a group that has the same or similar goals as you. The groups marketing team can then use their skills to transform your money into influence more effectively than the individual donator.
If your idea is insufficiently popular to be a major influence in that fashion it is likely if you get into politics that mentioning it or suggesting might well be political suicide.
Lone genius inventors have influence in society, but they don't have much status. I don't even know the name of the guy who invented birth control. It's the marketers and CEOs in the technology sphere who get most of the status, outside of the geek world.
To truly capitalize on many inventions, it's necessary to negotiate with your licensees, investors, or partners. How much social skills that takes depends on how well you want to come out in your negotiations. Business social skills aren't the same thing as the status skills present in more general contexts, but there is substantial overlap.
Personally, I want to have my cake and eat it, too: I want to influence society, and gain status for it rather than creating things that give other people more status than me.
That is fine, but a personal preference. And not one everyone shares.
My pleasures in life (so far) are simpler and easier to acquire than being high status.
Not everyone shares a preference for attaining status, but many people share preferences for things that status can facilitate, such as money, dates, friends, and mental health. Those who can attain those things to their satisfaction without any additional efforts spent on status, are in a great spot. Those who can't will have to either learn status, be unsatisfied, or downgrade their preferences to what they can achieve. While not everyone shares my preferences, it's possible that more people should if they want to effectively fulfill their preferences.
I encourage people to be honest with themselves about what their goals actually are, instead of selling themselves short and accepting a mediocre situation out of fear of leaving their comfort zones. I make this encouragement because in the past I've observed many people (myself included) abandoning ambitions out of feelings of resignation and unworthiness, and convincing themselves that they don't really want those things as a coping mechanism. This can be a dangerous form of self-deception.
But you accept that there are some people with genuinely low ambition? Whether I am one or not* is somewhat irrelevant; you probably don't have sufficient biographical material to tell one way or another. Do you have a good way of testing whether low ambition is due to low ambition or low self-worth? Any research on the subject?
*I'd characterise mysefl as ambitious in what I would like to achieve, but I actively do not want the trappings of power. The thought of sycophantic yes-men vieing for my attention turns my stomach and makes me feel tired, for example. As do girls that would want to try and exploit me for my money/connectedness. So I'll try and find alternate ways to achieve my goals without acquiring great social status, as that would be a true win for me.
Of course, which is why I addressed my comment in general terms.
I would expect individuals to vary on ambition and status-seeking. I do not know the precise factors that cause variance in these traits. I am advocating attention to specific factors that lead people to state low ambition or low desire/concern for status. These factors may include defeatism, lack of opportunity, discourage from others, negative emotion associations, akrasia, or past mistreatment or abuse.
Your view of status interaction seems different from mine. Having status doesn't mean you have to have sycophantic yes-men. People (men or women) drawn to you for your money or connectedness (especially the latter) aren't necessarily trying to exploit you.
I guess it's a question of costs vs. benefits and what your goals are. For most sorts of goals that people have, I suggest that status will probably help them achieve their goals to a similar degree that money could (think of the term "social capital"). I've noticed that people without much social experience, particularly with status interaction, often have an overly cynical outsider's view of those sorts of interaction, which could lead to skewed estimate of costs and benefits.
Personally, I've found that many specific ways of acquiring social status or influence, even if not actively unethical, don't fit my values or personality. Yet I feel a lot more comfortable rejecting them having tried them out, knowing that my arguments against them are based on empirical data, not on purely theoretical conceptions that may be subject to bias (e.g. self-deception, sour graps, slave morality).
Power to build vs. power to get
With just a little elaboration on the relevant bias at work this would make a fantastic top level post. This insight in particular made me laugh: