falenas108 comments on A Protocol for Optimizing Affection - Less Wrong

30 [deleted] 30 May 2012 12:38AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (114)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: falenas108 30 May 2012 03:23:17PM 7 points [-]

Back when the DC meetups were first starting, we realized that we wanted to build up friendships faster than normal. One person (I think it was atucker) suggested that we start hugging each other, because that naturally installs feelings of affection for each other. It's only a data point of 1, but it seemed to work very well in making us more comfortable with each other.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 May 2012 10:58:01PM *  0 points [-]

Hugs do seem to work. I wanted something more general, and safer for people who are uncomfortable.

Rather than just setting a reasonable (has to be low) affection set-point for the group, individual optimization can be more effective, IMO.

EDIT: The computational complexity of my rules is definately higher. I wonder if a groupwide protocol could be cheaper but still safe and effective (assuming mine is)