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Congratulations!
(Would you care to say what sort of job?)
Thanks! Real estate. Around here the market's just picking up, so hopefully this is a good time to enter the field.
In response to
Open thread, Sep. 21 - Sep. 27, 2015
To me sexual relationships have always had this weirdly science-fictional aspect about them. During my teenage years in the 1970's, I read science fiction novels which depicted sexual situations - notably Brave New World and Stranger in a Strange Land, along with novels like Asimov's The Gods Themselves and Clarke's Imperial Earth. I also saw the science fiction film Logan’s Run when it came out in theaters, with its depiction of a sexual utopia, including a hooking up technology which combines features of Tinder and Star Trek-like transporters.
Like it does for most teenage boys, to me sex sounded like an incredibly cool thing to try to experience as soon as possible, especially given how the novels I read and how at least one movie I saw portrayed it in "futuristic" settings. But because I had no access to sexual opportunities at the time, I had to postpone sex to some indefinite date in the future. Sex for me eventually turned into a vague science-fictional aspiration like, oh, visiting Mars or something.
Science fiction writers tend to know their readership – mainly nerdy boys like me who don’t attract girls – so I wonder if some of them portray sex as an implicitly futuristic experience on purpose. I ran across an example a couple years ago in A. Bertram Chandler’s novel, The Road to the Rim, originally published in 1967. I could have read this novel as a teen, I suppose, but it escaped my notice at the time. Chandler in this work introduces a recurring character named John Grimes, an interstellar explorer whom I have seen described as “Horatio Hornblower in space.” Baen has recently republished all of Chandler’s Grimes novels in several omnibus editions.
Anyway, the first novel shows Grimes as a young recruit into the Federation Survey Service going on his first interstellar voyage. The plot involves another officer on the starship named Jane Pentecost. The following happens between these two characters:
Suddenly she bent down to kiss him. It was intended to be no more than a light brushing of the lips, but Grimes was suddenly aware, with his entire body, of the closeness of her, of the warmth and the scent of her, and almost without volition his arms went around her, drawing her closer still to him. She tried to break away, but it was only a halfhearted effort. . .
Somehow the buttons of her uniform shirt had come undone, and her nipples were taut against Grimes’ bare chest. Somehow her shorts had been peeled away from her hips – unzippered by whom? and how? – and somehow Grimes’ own garments were no longer the last barrier between them.
He was familiar enough with female nudity; he was one of the great majority who frequented the naked beaches in preference to those upon which bathing costumes were compulsory. He knew what a naked woman looked like – but this was different. It was not the first time that he had kissed a woman – but it was the first time that he had kissed, and been kissed by, an unclothed one. It was the first time that he had been alone with one.
What was happening he had read about often enough – and, like most young men, he had seen his share of pornographic films. But this was different. This was happening to him.
And for the first time.
Keep in mind that Chandler published this in 1967. I find it interesting that Chandler postulated in his imaginary future that porn would become plentiful and socially acceptable – a shrewd prophecy on his part, given the emergence and pervasiveness of internet porn in the early 21st Century. This passage shows a kind of male adolescent fantasy-fulfillment, and I think Chandler wrote it that way deliberately to appeal to the young nerds he knew would read this novel.
If I had read this story back as a teenager, it would have fit into the pattern of the other science fiction I read in those years about sex as a “futuristic” experience, and not as a real, ordinary possibility in the here-and-now, grounded in biological reality. I might have thought that if I couldn’t have my “first time” with my unrequited high school crush Shelley Conrad in the back seat of my parents’ Ford Maverick, I would have to wait until I became a space colonist in my 20’s, or later, where I would meet some Jane Pentecost-like woman on a space ship or orbital colony who would obligingly initiate me into an adult sex life.
Forty years later, my Jane Pentecost and I still haven’t crossed paths that I know of.
... Do you ever talk about anything else other than your lack of sexual success? Alright, granted – I saw a few posts from you on cryonics. What would it take to steer you towards posting more of that and less of this? It's largely off-topic for LW, off-putting as well, and irrelevant to anyone who is not you. I get that it's something that concerns you deeply, but seriously, try getting advice on that one on a specialised forum.
In response to
Bragging thread September 2015
Aced an interview for a high-paying job in a field in which I had no previous experience. A while ago I had asked what jobs that don't require domain-specific skills get a large boost from intelligence – well, it turns out getting interviewed is one of those "jobs". Spent some 2 weeks preparing a resume and answer sheet for the proposed questions, showed up to the interview very well-dressed and tried to put my best self on display without outright lying through my teeth.
Now, all I have to do is not prove myself to act like a five-year-old burdened with adult responsibilities, while waiting for payday in my best Frito Pendejo impersonation. Okay, it's a little more complicated than that, of course – but for now I'm very glad to just get my foot in the door.
In response to
Open thread, Sep. 14 - Sep. 20, 2015
Many LWers, myself particularly, write awkwardly. Did you know Word can check your writing style, not just your spelling with a simple option change. I'm learning how to write with better style already.
This is a good occasion for relying on natural rather than artificial intelligence. Here's a list of style suggestions that can be made by Word. It checks for a lot of things that can be considered bad style in some contexts but not in others, and to my knowledge it's not smart enough to differentiate between different genres. (For example, it can advise you both against passive voice – useful for writing fiction, sometimes – and against use of first-person personal pronouns, which is a no-no in professional documents. If it needs mentioning, sometimes you cannot follow both rules at once.) There's plenty of reason to doubt that a human who can't write very well can have an algorithm for a teacher in matters of writing style; we're not there yet, I think.
In response to
Open thread, Sep. 14 - Sep. 20, 2015
A while back, I was having a discussion with a friend (or maybe more of a friendly acquaintance) about linguistic profiling. It was totally civil, but we disagreed. Thinking about it over lunch, I noticed that my argument felt forced, while his argument seemed very reasonable, and I decided that he was right, or at least that his position seemed better than mine. So, I changed my mind. Later that day I told him I'd changed my mind and I thought he was right. He didn't seem to know how to respond to that. I'm not sure he even thought I was being serious at first.
Have other people had similar experiences with this? Is there a way to tell someone you've changed your mind that lessens this response of incredulity?
It happened to me only with people who were extremely, unreasonably cynical about people's rationality in the first place (including their own). People who couldn't update on the belief of people being unable to update on their beliefs. There's an eerie kind of consistency about these people's beliefs, at least for that much one can give them credit...
You have to engage in some extra signaling of having changed your own mind; just stating it wouldn't be as convincing.
Why didn't you just simply invited her to discuss the things further in front of a drink in a more intimate space?
I'd rather people actually said "Do you want to come back to my room for sex?" rather than "Do you want to come back to my room for coffee?" where coffee is a euphemism for sex, because some people will take coffee at face value, which can lead to either uncomfortable situations, including fear of assault, or lead to people missing opportunities because they are bad at reading between the lines.
Or if you do want to invite someone for a drink, go somewhere public.
Edit: I'm not saying that people should go round propositioning people for sex without getting to know them first. I'm saying that drinks in public are good, and that I, personally, prefer to think that adults should be able to say what they mean without euphemisms. I'm not saying that I get to ignore societies' rules. And I realise that people find what I have been saying creepy, but personally, I think if I was a girl I would find it very creepy that there could be situations where I'm in a private room with no witnesses and I want to drink coffee and the guy expects sex.
Plausible deniability, dude. It's much easier to dispel the awkwardness of rejection if you can reasonably fall back on the claim that, hey, maybe coffee was all you wanted anyway. Successful courtship depends on making the other person feel comfortable around you; it's a human relationship, not resource extraction, and it has to be framed in appropriate terms. (Edit: oh, sorry, I thought I was replying to advancedatheist; removed a sentence that assumed this.)
In table format. The second strategy is much more likely to lead to (2,1) than to (2,2).
Group Rationality Diary, September 13-26
This is the public group rationality diary for September 13th - 26th, 2015. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
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Established a useful new habit
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Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief
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Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations
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Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior
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Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something
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Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life
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Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you
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Tried doing any of the above and failed
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
do a 10minute analysis of what you present in your first impression, try to get an understanding of what you pass on when you give that impression.
Consider:
- the way you dress (clothes; shoes, carry a bag? a copy of RAZ?)
- the way you look (ripped and muscular? Blob? tall/short?
- the way you smell (seriously; maybe have a shower and also get a nice smelling product to wear - some people like that)
- do you feel comfortable (sweaty, socially afraid, shy, grumpy)
- do you like you?
- what makes an awesome first impression? Can you do some of those things?
- who makes a good first impression? What do they do?
Consider also; the willingness to change these things makes you the kind of person who tries to please people. Choosing to not please people would make you a different personality person who cared less about first impressions.
Did this help? (feel free to share your results if you want to talk via PM or here) (that goes for anyone not just the OP)
Edit: the things listed here are the low-hanging ones. There is an advanced course of methods fur further improvement; but try these first.
a copy of RAZ?
You say this as if it's supposed to score style points with people. Most would probably think you're a paid salesman for the authors. If you value the advice within this much, maybe you should just read it until you're familiar with most main points, rather than carry it around.
Edit: Also, people are pants at borrowing other people's standards for interpersonal evaluation. Seeing yourself on a camera improves things, but only somewhat; if you have a socially unacceptable aspect of yourself that's at the same time ego-syntonic, then by the gods that aspect is going to stay with you and hinder you.
In response to
Open thread 7th september - 13th september
People who are able to reliably create good first impressions when you meet people for the first time, how do you do it? What would you advise?
Superficially good looks and good manners, perhaps.
Advice: make sure the impression continues well after your first few hours/days with the person. I seem to have a 0% retention rate for friends. At some point after our first encounter, all seem to decide there's something off about me. Perhaps my mistakes include: using our newfound trust to reveal some true oddities (people seem to distinguish between normal quirks and odd quirks, as strange as that may be, and I ain't even very far into "odd quirk" territory), and not having a proper understanding of how relationships progress – therefore, keeping in touch either too much or not at all.
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Where can one find information on the underlying causes of phenomena? I have noticed that most educational resources discuss superficial occurrences and trends but not their underlying causes. For example, this Wikipedia article discusses the happenings in the Somali Civil War but hardly discusses the underlying motivations of each side and why the war turned out how it did. Of course, such discussions are often opinionated and have no clear-cut answers, perhaps making Wikipedia a sub-optimal place for them.
I know LW might not be the best place to ask this, but my intuition suggests that LWers may care more about this deeper-level understanding, so may be able to suggest resources.
What kind of phenomena are we talking about? You should specify if you're referring more narrowly to social and historical phenomena, because that's where the biggest gaps between what one can say on the surface about them and what actually drove them are. It's also a very murky area in regards to specifying causality.
The only reasonably effective method I've tried for this is to first read the Wikipedia article, to get an overview of the objective facts, events, numbers and so on, then try to find press articles about the topic, which are less objective but include more details.