1: I liked the general progress of the story. It contains several thematic elements that in general I find appealing (finding emotional happiness, building skills)
2: I know people who I believe this advice would be of great help to. Specifically this section:
Every book on dating skills told me to go talk to women, but I thought I needed a completed decision tree first: What if she does this? What if she says that? I won’t know what to do if I don’t have a plan! I should read 10 more books, so I know how to handle every contingency.
The dating books told me I would think that, but I told myself I was unusually analytical, and could actually benefit from completing the decision tree in advance of actually talking to women.
The dating books told me I would think that, too, and that it was just a rationalization. Really, I was just nervous about the blows that newbie mistakes (and subsequent rejections) would lay upon my ego.
3: I have also had that experience where after yet another woman rejected me I thought “I need to refine my approach to avoid making the same mistakes that I did previously.” In my specific case, the second problem, which I was stuck on for years, was that I was getting friend zoned by people who weren’t looking for a boyfriend right now.
I am curious how you met your first girlfriend and more details about your relationship before you noticed that problem you mentioned. While I like the story, the in media res beginning leaves that as an unknown. (I’m not saying you should add it to the story necessarily, just that it leaves me personally curious.)
Re #2: OK, so now I’m really curious. Why do you think that a section in a blog post encouraging people to follow the advice in books will be of great help to the people you know?
I infer that these are people who are making the same error Luke describes making, an error he continued to make despite reading books that specifically cautioned him about it. So I would expect that they would similarly continue to make that error, despite reading a blog post that specifically cautions about it.
To sum up, I had a similar discussion a month ago, and I stated:
“But I am very serious that you should consider asking the people who seem to be reacting poorly. I am just guessing. It may be a good guess, or it may be totally off base. But it’s just a hypothesis. You should still want to gather evidence from the source. Even if it’s personally awkward.” as a way of advising someone to talk to other people.
But Zed presented “I have to disagree with your conclusion though: why gather evidence from the source? Well, in the best case I end up extrapolating from 3 data points and in the worst case I end up alienating people unnecessarily. I want to gather evidence from the source, but the act clearly has negative expectation! Rationality is not an excuse for self-destructive behavior. So given my options I’d much rather learn from the experience of others.” as a counter argument for not doing so.
At the time, I didn’t agree with him, but I didn’t seem to have a good way to phrase it, so I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have sufficient time to come up with an argument before the thread got older and It had left my active mind. So that was sort of left as an unresolved argument that trailed off.
And then today, I read lukeprog’s point, and I thought “Oh, THAT’s what I should have said in that argument weeks ago!” The person I was discussing with may have just been making a rationalization, and I should have tried to point that out. It’s also possible he might not have been, but the conversation could have continued on that grounds.
Upvoted for several different reasons:
1: I liked the general progress of the story. It contains several thematic elements that in general I find appealing (finding emotional happiness, building skills)
2: I know people who I believe this advice would be of great help to. Specifically this section:
3: I have also had that experience where after yet another woman rejected me I thought “I need to refine my approach to avoid making the same mistakes that I did previously.” In my specific case, the second problem, which I was stuck on for years, was that I was getting friend zoned by people who weren’t looking for a boyfriend right now.
I am curious how you met your first girlfriend and more details about your relationship before you noticed that problem you mentioned. While I like the story, the in media res beginning leaves that as an unknown. (I’m not saying you should add it to the story necessarily, just that it leaves me personally curious.)
Re #2: OK, so now I’m really curious. Why do you think that a section in a blog post encouraging people to follow the advice in books will be of great help to the people you know?
I infer that these are people who are making the same error Luke describes making, an error he continued to make despite reading books that specifically cautioned him about it. So I would expect that they would similarly continue to make that error, despite reading a blog post that specifically cautions about it.
What am I missing?
I actually found a post that I had made which I had in the back of my mind when I was typing my response. http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/6gj/those_who_cant_admit_theyre_wrong/4g4q
To sum up, I had a similar discussion a month ago, and I stated:
“But I am very serious that you should consider asking the people who seem to be reacting poorly. I am just guessing. It may be a good guess, or it may be totally off base. But it’s just a hypothesis. You should still want to gather evidence from the source. Even if it’s personally awkward.” as a way of advising someone to talk to other people.
But Zed presented “I have to disagree with your conclusion though: why gather evidence from the source? Well, in the best case I end up extrapolating from 3 data points and in the worst case I end up alienating people unnecessarily. I want to gather evidence from the source, but the act clearly has negative expectation! Rationality is not an excuse for self-destructive behavior. So given my options I’d much rather learn from the experience of others.” as a counter argument for not doing so.
At the time, I didn’t agree with him, but I didn’t seem to have a good way to phrase it, so I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have sufficient time to come up with an argument before the thread got older and It had left my active mind. So that was sort of left as an unresolved argument that trailed off.
And then today, I read lukeprog’s point, and I thought “Oh, THAT’s what I should have said in that argument weeks ago!” The person I was discussing with may have just been making a rationalization, and I should have tried to point that out. It’s also possible he might not have been, but the conversation could have continued on that grounds.