TheAltar comments on Open Thread May 9 - May 15 2016 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Elo 09 May 2016 01:55AM

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Comment author: TheAltar 11 May 2016 01:56:05PM 2 points [-]

I was reading through a link on an Overcoming Bias post about the AK Model and came across the idea that, " the Social return on many types of investments far exceed their private return". To rephrase this: there are investments you can make such as getting a college education which benefit others more than they benefit you. These seem like they could be some good skills to focus on which might be often ignored. Obvious examples I can think of would be the Heimlich maneuver, CPR, and various social skills.

Do you know of any good low hanging fruit in terms of skills or time investments a person can make which can provide a lot of benefit to the people around them (company, family, friends, etc.) but don't actually benefit themselves?

Comment author: ChristianKl 11 May 2016 05:51:43PM 3 points [-]

There are cases where better being able to perceive whether someone else really wants to do what you ask them to or whether they are just saying "yes" because they feel an obligation benefits the other person a lot more.

Comment author: username2 13 May 2016 06:03:30AM 2 points [-]

Writing educational articles, editing wikipedia, contributing to free software projects.

Comment author: Stingray 13 May 2016 02:53:30PM *  1 point [-]

I think that parenting skills are a good example of such situation

Comment author: Lumifer 13 May 2016 04:16:50PM 0 points [-]

low hanging fruit in terms of skills or time investments

Getting pregnant.