In short: I don't aim to influence their personality. I have given up on that long ago. Instead I aim for knowledge. Knowledge is not heriditary and evolution better not throws knowledge passed on from parents to children out of the window.
I researched the effect I can have on the life success of my parenting and came to the concusion that effects exist - esp. at the high end of the spectrum. I haven't written about that yet and need to pull the references together first. One quote from the Handbook of Parenting Vol. 4 I just looked up:
...That variations i
What are we doing to make this world a better (epistemically or instrumentally) place?
Some answers to this question are already written in Bragging Threads and other places, but I think they deserve a special emphasis. I think that many smart people are focused on improving themselves, which is a good thing in a long run, but sometimes the world needs some help right now. (Also, there is the failure mode of learning a lot about something, and then actually not applying that knowledge in real life.) Becoming stronger so you can create more good in the future is about the good you will create in the future; but what good are you creating right now?
Rules:
Top-level comments are the things you are doing right now (not merely planning to do once) to improve the world... or a part of the world... or your neighborhood... or simply any small part of the world other than only yourself.
Meta debates go under the "META" comment.