It seems to me rather more analogous to a cook who made a checklist for making pancakes, which he expected would apply to other cooks making pancakes whilst wearing differently-colored hats.
Your analogy assumes that between people of different sexes and sexual preferences, there are no relevant differences that would have any significant bearing on their dating strategies. Frankly, I find this assumption so remote from reality, including all my experience with human life and all that is known about it both informally and scientifically, that if you really hold this opinion, it would be extremely hard for us to establish a common reference point from which to even begin a constructive discussion. So, it would probably be better if we could just agree to disagree at this point.
Your analogy assumes that between people of different sexes and sexual preferences, there are no relevant differences that would have any significant bearing on their dating strategies.
I think the relevance of the difference depends on the specificity of the advice. If I were telling people to show off their brains and their sense of humor, or to make a point of talking or not talking about sex, or to be sure to mention their pets, then yes, it would be ridiculous of me to claim that these are generally applicable. But the post is mostly discussing how to ensure that your profile depicts you accurately. Do you think that there is a group for which that’s not a concern?
To be clear, there are two fundamental problems with your post.
First, even when it comes to just you personally, you don’t seem to present any coherent method for differentiating between things that you simply like as a matter of personal taste, and things that have practical relevance (to whatever effect). In your post, you appear to have a completely cavalier attitude towards this immensely difficult problem.
Second, in this area, the relevant guidelines for self-presentation are indeed so strongly sex-and-preference-specific that anything not completely trivial or irrelevant is almost certain to be impossible to express in a manner applicable to all groups. In other words, everything that can be expressed in such manner will be either obvious, or irrelevant, or false and misleading for at least some of these groups.
These simple observations, to which I referred as “sanity checks” in my above not very well received comment, are in my opinion sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise.
As for your specific question:
But the post is mostly discussing how to ensure that your profile depicts you accurately. Do you think that there is a group for which that’s not a concern?
In order for your advice to make sense, you have to be able to point out the expected practical consequences of the concrete pieces of advice you give, and to explain why you believe that they will result from following your advice. Your approach completely fails to satisfy these criteria, both when it comes to “depicting oneself accurately” (which I’m not even sure is a coherently defined objective) and everything else.
(Not to mention that your post does contain specific advice about improving the attractiveness of one’s profile, which I’ve already criticized.)
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.
thomblake:
Your analogy assumes that between people of different sexes and sexual preferences, there are no relevant differences that would have any significant bearing on their dating strategies. Frankly, I find this assumption so remote from reality, including all my experience with human life and all that is known about it both informally and scientifically, that if you really hold this opinion, it would be extremely hard for us to establish a common reference point from which to even begin a constructive discussion. So, it would probably be better if we could just agree to disagree at this point.
I think the relevance of the difference depends on the specificity of the advice. If I were telling people to show off their brains and their sense of humor, or to make a point of talking or not talking about sex, or to be sure to mention their pets, then yes, it would be ridiculous of me to claim that these are generally applicable. But the post is mostly discussing how to ensure that your profile depicts you accurately. Do you think that there is a group for which that’s not a concern?
To be clear, there are two fundamental problems with your post.
First, even when it comes to just you personally, you don’t seem to present any coherent method for differentiating between things that you simply like as a matter of personal taste, and things that have practical relevance (to whatever effect). In your post, you appear to have a completely cavalier attitude towards this immensely difficult problem.
Second, in this area, the relevant guidelines for self-presentation are indeed so strongly sex-and-preference-specific that anything not completely trivial or irrelevant is almost certain to be impossible to express in a manner applicable to all groups. In other words, everything that can be expressed in such manner will be either obvious, or irrelevant, or false and misleading for at least some of these groups.
These simple observations, to which I referred as “sanity checks” in my above not very well received comment, are in my opinion sufficient to invalidate your approach altogether, and to conclude that by any practical criteria, your advice is likely to be just noise.
As for your specific question:
In order for your advice to make sense, you have to be able to point out the expected practical consequences of the concrete pieces of advice you give, and to explain why you believe that they will result from following your advice. Your approach completely fails to satisfy these criteria, both when it comes to “depicting oneself accurately” (which I’m not even sure is a coherently defined objective) and everything else.
(Not to mention that your post does contain specific advice about improving the attractiveness of one’s profile, which I’ve already criticized.)
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.
I see. Just to make sure I’ve understood correctly, my impression from this:
is that you do not believe the post is salvageable, because it’s built on a foundation which is flawed for the reasons you give. These are useful flaws to be aware of when composing future posts, and I will try to remember them.
If it is indeed unsalvageable, though, I don’t see what productive action I can take about it now, short of performing a rigorous study and rewriting the post from scratch based on the results (which is farther than my interest and resources extend). I could delete it, but that seems a bit dishonest (in that it dodges the karma hit for a bad post) and also robs me of productive feedback. So my intent is to let it stand.