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You're describing an algorithm, albeit an informal one. The problem is that there is no general algorithm for social skills, which means that this algorithm is

by User23 7y ago

You're describing an algorithm, albeit an informal one. The problem is that there is no general algorithm for social skills, which means that this algorithm is useless in the general case. Now, if one treats your listed points as a set of heuristics rather than an algorithm and then perceptively applies them to a given social interaction, they probably will be useful. But, of course, the ability to do that is exactly the same thing as having social skills. This explains why it strikes many people as both patronizing and unhelpful: because it is.

roenxi 7y ago
There obviously is a general algorithm for social skills; otherwise humans couldn't socialise. However there is no algorithm independent from what other people say and do. So any strategy that doesn't involve carefully considering what other people say and do is bound to fail.
- User23 7y ago
  You’re implying human social interaction is decidable. That’s a pretty bold claim and I’m not aware of any evidence for it. Please elaborate.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    I disagree that a thing has to be decidable for there to be a relevant algorithm; an algorithm is a defined set of steps to take for a given input. And there is always the option of modelling social interaction as a decidable system then come up with an algorithm for the model (which is how most algorithms are used in practice, any decidable algorithm performs strangely in a physical world when it has to cope with cosmic rays hitting the CPU). For people to be able to interact socially they have to make predictions about the consequences of their actions. That can be formulated as some sort of stochastic model. This is enough of a hook that algorithms can be used. Anyway, that is fairly academic because in practice humans are obviously very predictable and tend to have quite stable personalities over time. There is a wealth of psychological literature classifying major personality traits [eg, 0] and most people respond in a normal way to incentives and social hierarchy with some adjustments for their cultural background. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Personality_traits

by User23 7y ago

roenxi 7y ago

There obviously is a general algorithm for social skills; otherwise humans couldn't socialise. However there is no algorithm independent from what other people say and do. So any strategy that doesn't involve carefully considering what other people say and do is bound to fail.

User23 7y ago
You’re implying human social interaction is decidable. That’s a pretty bold claim and I’m not aware of any evidence for it. Please elaborate.
- roenxi 7y ago
  I disagree that a thing has to be decidable for there to be a relevant algorithm; an algorithm is a defined set of steps to take for a given input. And there is always the option of modelling social interaction as a decidable system then come up with an algorithm for the model (which is how most algorithms are used in practice, any decidable algorithm performs strangely in a physical world when it has to cope with cosmic rays hitting the CPU). For people to be able to interact socially they have to make predictions about the consequences of their actions. That can be formulated as some sort of stochastic model. This is enough of a hook that algorithms can be used. Anyway, that is fairly academic because in practice humans are obviously very predictable and tend to have quite stable personalities over time. There is a wealth of psychological literature classifying major personality traits [eg, 0] and most people respond in a normal way to incentives and social hierarchy with some adjustments for their cultural background. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Personality_traits