I am beginning to suspect that it is surprisingly common for intelligent, competent adults to somehow make it through the world for a few decades while missing some ordinary skill, like mailing a physical letter, folding a fitted sheet, depositing a check, or reading a bus schedule. Since these tasks are often presented atomically - or, worse, embedded implicitly into other instructions - and it is often possible to get around the need for them, this ignorance is not self-correcting. One can Google "how to deposit a check" and similar phrases, but the sorts of instructions that crop up are often misleading, rely on entangled and potentially similarly-deficient knowledge to be understandable, or are not so much instructions as they are tips and tricks and warnings for people who already know the basic procedure. Asking other people is more effective because they can respond to requests for clarification (and physically pointing at stuff is useful too), but embarrassing, since lacking these skills as an adult is stigmatized. (They are rarely even considered skills by people who have had them for a while.)
This seems like a bad situation. And - if I am correct and gaps like these are common - then it is something of a collective action problem to handle gap-filling without undue social drama. Supposedly, we're good at collective action problems, us rationalists, right? So I propose a thread for the purpose here, with the stipulation that all replies to gap announcements are to be constructive attempts at conveying the relevant procedural knowledge. No asking "how did you manage to be X years old without knowing that?" - if the gap-haver wishes to volunteer the information, that is fine, but asking is to be considered poor form.
(And yes, I have one. It's this: how in the world do people go about the supposedly atomic action of investing in the stock market? Here I am, sitting at my computer, and suppose I want a share of Apple - there isn't a button that says "Buy Our Stock" on their website. There goes my one idea. Where do I go and what do I do there?)
HughRistik:
Actually, I disagree, unless you take this in a tautological sense. There are several important points here.
First, a "crazier and more subcultural" look is essentially a form of peacocking. Like all peacocking, it can be extremely effective, but it's difficult to pull off competently and tends to backfire badly if done in a less than stellar way. So I definitely wouldn't recommend it to a typical guy, who almost certainly has much more advisable options than attempting peacocking.
Even attempting a more conventional elaborate hairstyle can backfire. You know when a man tries dressing sharply but instead of looking sharp ends up projecting that bad "I'm trying too hard" look? (I don't have in mind being badly dressed by any clear standard, but rather giving off that vague impression that it's not his natural image, and it just doesn't fit him in some hard-to-describe way.) My impression is that it's even easier to fail in a similar way by attempting a sophisticated haircut.
That said, as I already pointed out, if you don't have a nicely shaped skull and a handsome face, a competently chosen and executed haircut can significantly improve your looks, while a really bad hairstyle can make any man look like a dork. Otherwise, however, I have the impression that men's efforts put in hairstyle rapidly hit diminishing returns, except perhaps in a peacocking context. Certainly it seems to me that countless other aspects of looks and behavior are far more important outside of these basic limits.
What apparent evidence I've seen to the contrary can all be explained by confounding factors, i.e. it's about men who have self-improved in other more important ways along with changing their hairstyle. (Of course, like any other change, it can be effective via "inner game," i.e. if it makes you genuinely feel better about yourself, it will likely change your outside behavior for the better, regardless of any immediate effect on your looks.)
I am indeed talking about peacocking. I agree with you about the risks of peacocking, and perhaps I didn't acknowledge them clearly enough.
Actually, I think peacocking o... (read more)