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?)
You don't say? :nicholascage:
Ah. If that's what you mean by “being attracted” (myself, I'd usually call that “liking”), then I think that there are tons of things that have a waaaay larger effect than anything one could learn easily learn by formal dance classes but not otherwise, though it depends on the person (for example, certain people seem to be attracted to intelligence, others repelled).
That much I do usually agree, though it varies on whether I'm sleep-deprived, whether I've been drinking, how much and what I've been reading lately, and other factors. (In particular, I think I'm much less “in my head” when I'm with people I'm at ease with, which is a proper superset of the people I'm willing to date long-term.)
FWIW, I'm the kind of person who thinks that what “I” means depends on the context, so whether I am my body or my brain isn't even a well-defined question (both literally and metaphorically).
Even taking in account status signalling? (A way to make that moot would be to wear such a sign somewhere I don't expect anyone I know, or anyone who knows anyone I know and is likely to talk about that, to see me.)
I don't know the company that you keep. Most people I personally care about impressing wouldn't see it as low status.
If someone tells me: "I read about this free hug thing and then I tried it out", what does that tell me about the person? He's signalling that his adventurous and willing to do things that are a bit outside of the social norm that produce good feelings for other people.
Doing creepy pickup approaches can be a low status signal if people you know get wind of it. I don't see that problem wit... (read more)