Good advice tends to have it’s opposite to be good advice too. I am often struggling with the failure mode where I try to solve a version of the problem that is general. it ends up being hard and I end up not doing, doing it only in small part or doing it inefficiencty. In these kinds of situations it could benefit me from exploiting the peculiar properties of people that I am in fact in direct contact with rather coming up with a “dealing with people in general”. Sometimes “we will worry about that once it gets relevant” means it gets relevant and there is no longer notice or possiblity to deal wiht it but on the other hand if you knew it will become a problem it can be easier to notice and set out to solve the problem.
Just being aware what you can handle can be valuable. “What you do if you don’t have oxygen surrounding your body?”, “You are silly humans have oxygen around their bodies no need to worry about it”, “Hey with this scuba tank you can visit places that do not have breathable athmospheres without dying”
I would also think that case 4 is not htat helpless. If you tell what has happened to you to a friendly culture they probably will tell “Well among us we would do X instead of Y in this situation?”, “But yeah but what if other people are doing Y how you carry on from that” (“People do not do Y” would be valid if actual filter bubble exists but if there is concrete telling of another persons life tha tis indeniable proof that some person has done Y making this not an option) “That’s is so weird to do Y that is so bad, wrong and what would even be the point of that?” (If we would make this in a shared culture “Y is bad” can be seen as demand not to Y but when talking about a foreign culture there seems ot be a better formed problem of “how to effectively demand fo Y abolitinition without being outright rejected”). This can easily lead to recognition that things function differently in the other context it can easily spark curiosity for the function differences and it is likely to give recognition and tools to deal with experiences of alienation or akwardness. Sure lines with structure like “Oh in responce to Y you do Z” are likely to be missing but a lot of other positive stuff is likely to come up. Trying to do the troubleshooting wihtin the foregin context would lead to diffulcties of the kind of “you expected and want X to happen, what kind of weirdo are you?”
Re: reversals—there are definitely situations where it is better to in fact just focus on a local group—Paul Graham, having seen many startups fail because they built something that nobody actually wanted, advises building something that you yourself want if you’re planning to make a startup company.
Re: case 4 -- agreed that it is not totally helpless, but at times friends can make worse advisors than disinterested observers do.
Good advice tends to have it’s opposite to be good advice too. I am often struggling with the failure mode where I try to solve a version of the problem that is general. it ends up being hard and I end up not doing, doing it only in small part or doing it inefficiencty. In these kinds of situations it could benefit me from exploiting the peculiar properties of people that I am in fact in direct contact with rather coming up with a “dealing with people in general”. Sometimes “we will worry about that once it gets relevant” means it gets relevant and there is no longer notice or possiblity to deal wiht it but on the other hand if you knew it will become a problem it can be easier to notice and set out to solve the problem.
Just being aware what you can handle can be valuable. “What you do if you don’t have oxygen surrounding your body?”, “You are silly humans have oxygen around their bodies no need to worry about it”, “Hey with this scuba tank you can visit places that do not have breathable athmospheres without dying”
I would also think that case 4 is not htat helpless. If you tell what has happened to you to a friendly culture they probably will tell “Well among us we would do X instead of Y in this situation?”, “But yeah but what if other people are doing Y how you carry on from that” (“People do not do Y” would be valid if actual filter bubble exists but if there is concrete telling of another persons life tha tis indeniable proof that some person has done Y making this not an option) “That’s is so weird to do Y that is so bad, wrong and what would even be the point of that?” (If we would make this in a shared culture “Y is bad” can be seen as demand not to Y but when talking about a foreign culture there seems ot be a better formed problem of “how to effectively demand fo Y abolitinition without being outright rejected”). This can easily lead to recognition that things function differently in the other context it can easily spark curiosity for the function differences and it is likely to give recognition and tools to deal with experiences of alienation or akwardness. Sure lines with structure like “Oh in responce to Y you do Z” are likely to be missing but a lot of other positive stuff is likely to come up. Trying to do the troubleshooting wihtin the foregin context would lead to diffulcties of the kind of “you expected and want X to happen, what kind of weirdo are you?”
Re: reversals—there are definitely situations where it is better to in fact just focus on a local group—Paul Graham, having seen many startups fail because they built something that nobody actually wanted, advises building something that you yourself want if you’re planning to make a startup company.
Re: case 4 -- agreed that it is not totally helpless, but at times friends can make worse advisors than disinterested observers do.