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XFrequentist comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong
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Comments (676)
I'm intrigued by the idea of trying to start something like a PUA community that is explicitly NOT focussed on securing romantic partners, but rather the deliberate practice of general social skills.
It seems like there's a fair bit of real knowledge in the PUA world, that some of it is quite a good example of applied rationality, and that much of it could be extremely useful for purposes unrelated to mating.
I'm wondering:
I'm aware that there was some previous conversation around similar topics and their appropriateness to LW, but if there was final consensus I missed it. Please let me know if these matters have been deemed inappropriate.
If you want non-PC approaches there are two communities you could look into: sales-people and conning people. The second one actually has most of the how-to-hack-peoples minds. If you want a kinder version look at it titled "social engineering".
Toastmasters?
General social skills are needed in business, a lot of places teach them and they seem to be quite successful.
From my limited experience with Toastmasters, it's very PC and targeted at median-level intelligence people -- not the thing people here would be looking for. "PUA"-like implies XFrequentist is considering something that is willing to teach the harsh, condemned truths.
I went to a Toastmasters session, and was... underwhelmed. Even for public speaking skills, the program seemed kind of trite. It was more geared toward learning the formalities of meetings. You'd probably be a better committee chair after following their program, but I'm not sure you could give a great TED talk or wow potential investors.
Carnegie's program seems closer to what I had in mind, but I want to replicate both the community aspect and the focus on "field" practice of the PUAs, which I suspect is a big part of what makes them so formidable.
The clubs vary in their standard. I recommend you try a few in your area (big cities should have a bunch). For 2 years I used to commute 1 hour each way to attend Victoria Quay Toastmasters in Fremantle, it was that good. It was the 3rd club I tried after moving.
I've heard smart people speak well of Toastmasters. It may be a matter of local variation, or it may be that Toastmasters is very useful for getting past fear of public speaking and acquiring adequate skills.
My impression could easily be off; I only went to one open house.
It wasn't all negative. They seemed to have a logical progression of speech complexity, and quite a standardized process for giving feedback. Some of the speakers were excellent. It was fully bilingual (English/French), which was nice.
I don't think it's what I'm looking for, but it's probably okay for some other goals.
I belonged to TM for many years and I would still if there was a club near me. I found it great for many reasons. But I have to say that you get what you put in. And you get what you want to get. If you want friends and social graces - OK get them. If you want to lose fear of speaking - get that. Ignore what you don't want and take what you do.
I've mostly heard them damn it with faint praises, as being great for polishing presentation skills, but not being particularly useful for anything else.
Interestingly enough, of people I know who are actually professional speakers (in the sense of being paid to talk, either at their own events or other peoples'), exactly none of them recommend it. (Even amongst ones who do not sell any sort of speaker training of their own.)
OTOH, I have heard a couple of shout-outs for the Carnegie speaking course, but again, this is all just in the context of speaking... which has little relationship to general social skills AFAICT.
Interesting, that jibes* pretty well with my impressions of Toastmasters.
There are other Carnegie courses than the speaking one. This is the one I was thinking of.
*See comment below for the distinction between "jives" and "jibes". It ain't cool beein' no jive turkey!
Nitpick: "jibes" means "is consistent with".
"Jives" means "is talking nonsense" or (archaic) "dances".
{Tries looking it up} Wikipedia says "jives" can be a term for African American Vernacular English. The Urban Dictionary gives it a bunch of definitions, including both of mine, "jibe", and forms of African American speech which include a lot of slang, but not any sort of African American speech in general.
On the other hand, the language may have moved on-- I keep seeing that mistake (the Urban Dictionary implies it isn't a mistake), and maybe I should give up.
I still retain a fondness for people who get it right.
I'd be interested in specifics...
Would such "practice" require a physical venue? -- or would an online setting -- maybe even Skype -- be sufficient?
That's a good question. I don't know, but I suspect a purely online setting would be adequate for beginners, but insufficient for mastery.
What do you think?
I don't think you'd have much success mastering non verbal communication through skype.
Generally, I agree. There's a time and a place for both online and offline venues.
Ideally, you'd want a very large number of participants such that, during sessions, most of your peers are new and the situation is somewhat anonymous/random. If your sessions are with the same old people, these people will become well known -- perhaps friends, and the social simulation won't be very meaningful. Who knows.. maybe there's a way to piggyback on the Chatroulette concept?!
Extremely, yes, not to my knowledge.
A lot of companies conduct anonymous "360 review" processes which veer into this territory to some degree.
Also, several business schools conduct leadership labs. In fact, a large chunk of the business school experience is really about social grooming / learning how to network / and so forth.
So do we have any traction for this idea? How about a meetup?
Thanks, those are useful leads. I've done the 360 review thing but hadn't connected it to this idea.
It seems to have gotten a good amount of interest. I've got a draft post going that still needs some polish, but I should hopefully be able to get it finished this weekend. If all goes to plan some sort of meetup should follow.
Any suggestions on logistics? I'm not at all sure what the best way to organize this is, I'd appreciate any thoughts.
I think you're probably correct in your presumptions. I find it an interesting idea and would certainly follow any further discussion.