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Alicorn comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong
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Comments (420)
Are you guessing, or did you test this?
Because I used to think the same way, but I now find I get better results with just a dash of politeness. I don't think it takes very much time or is so bad for signal:noise ratio either.
Well, I think the "oh silly me" is fluffy, you could just say thanks. But offering to help in return I think is a great think. Most people won't take you up on it, but it goes over really well.
Maybe try it for a month or two and see how it goes? I'm always really grateful when someone offers me a hand, and then I'm more likely to ask them a question or for a book recommendation or whatever. Even small things, most people won't ask you for them if you don't invite them to. Which is a shame, because then we miss opportunities to connect with people.
I'm not saying politeness is good because it's good. I'm saying it's good because it makes people more effective. I reckon that's true in most non-emergency cases.
It's about one part historical experimentation with styles of politeness, and one part noticing how your post made my skin crawl.
I second everything WrongBot said in the sibling comment.
A lot of that feeling is probably explained by the mere fact that we are discussing social calculations openly. Doing so almost always leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.
I don't ordinarily feel skin-crawly when discussing social norms/calculations/scripts/etc.
That's right, I almost forgot you had posted on the subject before, which is odd because I've actually used your "Considerations in favour of niceness" post to convince people to rein in their conversational aggression.
A couple of lionhearted's sentences sounded slightly cringeworthy to me too, but many times I have been surprised at how well such things actually go over with non-analytical people. For example, my mother prefaces even the tiniest criticism with 42 caveats and compliments (which feel like mostly white noise to me), but I can't help but notice that she also appears to be a social genius, with at least 30 genuinely close friends. (Bla bla anecdote bla bla correlation not causation).
I'm often shocked how much completely (to me) over the top super-politeness is optimal when dealing with average people, often more than enough to make me tempted to say "Get on with it!" in a British accent. In fact a good instinct for many of us when dealing with non-nerds is to use just enough politeness to actively piss ourselves off were we in the other person's shoes.
Yep. Play to your audience. This requires you to gain genuine skill in communication and in assessing the situation, but this is really not optional if achieving your goals requires interacting with humans. Failure to communicate appropriately in a variety of situations will lead to failure.
(No-one said instrumental effectiveness was easy.)