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Thank you.
Since I presume you have read the book, may I ask, how did it work for you?
I'm very interested in upping my social skills.
Cheers
In response to
Summary of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
Actually, if you're interested in improving your social skills, check out the rest of our website!
http://effectivenessforgeeks.com/
Click the "Social Effectiveness Book" on the top link to read our free book online.
In response to
Summary of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
Thank you.
Since I presume you have read the book, may I ask, how did it work for you?
I'm very interested in upping my social skills.
Cheers
Oddly enough, I decided to read the book after I had already optimized my social skills. It was basically a recap of most of what I already had stumbled upon! I realized it would only take me several more hours to summarize what I had read, so decided to do it to provide value for others.
Summary of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
In the very back of Kaj's excellent How to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup Group booklet, he has a recommended reading section, including the classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People.
It just so happens that not only have I read the book myself, but I have written up a concise summary of the core advice here. Kaj suggested that I post this on the discussion section because others might find it useful, so here you go!
I suspect that more people are willing to read a summary of a book from the 1930s than an actual book from the 1930s. What I will say about reading the long-form text is that it can be more useful for internalizing these concepts and giving examples of them. It is far too easy to abstractly know what you need to do, much harder to actually take action on those beliefs...
In response to
What Would You Like To Read? A Quick Poll
I read this on a mailing list, and unsurprisingly would like to read future developments on a mailing list. :)
Or at least, that's how I'm most likely to find out such a development would exist. In practice I think I would read it on either email or a webpage.
In response to
Atkins Diet - How Should I Update?
This seems like very little evidence as far as I am concerned.
It claims that eating a higher-fat diet increased cholesterol. This is what I would expect, and I am also entirely unconvinced that this is remotely harmful. They don't even break up "cholesterol" into the relevant subtypes! Was this an increase in HDL or triglycerides? They rely on a section of the paper to claim that the link between higher cholesterol and cardiovascular mortality is well-established... but then why didn't they make a study showing increased CVD or all-cause mortality? They have those data as part of the study! I want the body count.
Also, if you look at the correlations they found with increased cholesterol levels, the ones they don't report in the abstract include "sweet buns and crisp bread rolls, and boiled potato" (as well as boiled coffee and salted fish). So it looks like some kinds of fats and some kinds of carbs correlate with higher cholesterol. That doesn't seem nearly as compelling as the headline. (Let's also note that fat consumption as a % of energy only once again reached 1986 levels in 2010, and yet total cholesterol is still significantly lower.)
The continually-rising BMI is more interesting to me. They lowered fat intake, people got fatter. They lowered carb intake, people got fatter. Hmmm... Oddly enough, they don't report much about total caloric intake - everything is mentioned as a proportion of calories. The shift in fat intake was a fall of 3-4% of calories, then an increase of 3-4% of calories. This would only require a small amount of increased total calories from fat, with no reduction in carb content, to explain the shift as well as the increasing BMI. (Note that they didn't try to draw any correlations with BMI, because of the well-known bias in food frequency questionnaire reporting.)
What other major food shifts did they note in the study? First of all, potatoes were being replaced with rice and pasta. Second of all, alcohol intake rose continuously over the period in question. I would bet hundreds of dollars that the strongest statistical correlation with BMI would be wine intake, based on the figures they report.
Even as far as associational studies go, this is a really bad one. I mean that seriously, this is methodologically one of the worst I've ever seen. I was expecting to actually have my beliefs challenged, a few good associational studies have given me pause, but this is not one of them.
Great summary; just read it and bookmarked it. Much thanks for writing this. I had thought I needed to reread Eat That Frog but had been reluctant to take the hours required; now I don't have to.
Thanks, I'm glad you found it useful! :)
In response to
Urges vs. Goals: The analogy to anticipation and belief
I have also found Eat That Frog to be an unusually good collection of the major productivity techniques. Incidentally, I also heard about the book from Patri via Divia.
For a shorter and more rationality-friendly version of the book, I summarized it here:
By:
our cultural sentiments surrounding meat consumption
Do you mean the rationalist community or the human community at large?
I meant humanity at large, and I expect the rationalist community to follow suit.
In response to
Trip from Ottawa, Canada to NYC on weekend of April 2
As mentioned, I'm in if this happens.
I have two couches, so you can crash at my place that weekend as well.
If anyone else is interested, I am sure other members of the community will step up to host. :)
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Fifteen seconds of Googling resulted in Deloitte's pro-bono service, which is done for CSR and employee morale rather than tax avoidance. Requests need to originate with Deloitte personnel- I know a friend who works there who might be interested in LW, but it'd be a while before I'd be comfortable asking him to recommend SI. It's a big enough company that it's likely that there are some HPMOR or LW fans that work there.
Interesting!
"Applications for a contribution of pro bono professional services must be made by Deloitte personnel. To be considered for a pro bono engagement, a nonprofit organization (NPO) with a 501c3 tax status must have an existing relationship with Deloitte through financial support, volunteerism, Deloitte personnel serving on its Board of Directors or Trustees, or a partner, principal or director (PPD) sponsor (advocate for the duration of the engagement). External applications for this program are not accepted. Organizations that do not currently have a relationship with Deloitte are welcome to introduce themselves to the Deloitte Community Involvement Leader in their region, in the long term interest of developing one."
Deloitte is requiring a very significant investment from its employees before offering pro bono services. Nonetheless, I have significant connections there and would be willing to explore this option with them.