jaibot comments on Three more ways identity can be a curse - Less Wrong

40 Post author: gothgirl420666 28 April 2013 02:53AM

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Comment author: Viliam_Bur 28 April 2013 09:31:15AM *  5 points [-]

"Be yourself" is probably the most widely-repeated piece of social skills advice despite being pretty clearly useless

It is very useful... for preserving the existing social order.

(Which is usually the opposite of what the person asking for the advice wants. Problem is, the goals of others, including the one giving the advice, are not aligned with that.)

Comment author: jaibot 29 April 2013 02:22:36AM 3 points [-]

The optimistic interpretation of this advice could be "Don't spend cognitive overhead on signalling".