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I agree w you mostly but you extended this form of systemic analysis to "making a date happy" which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships.

I agree w you mostly but you extended this form of systemic analysis to "making a date happy" which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships. To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized! If you wish to think about relationships as systems, you really need to understand that you are a partial component in social systems and therefore a flawed observer. It is impossible to objectively "diagnose" social systems without communication, empathy, and collaboration. It is far more than "saying the right words"

solveit 7y ago
> I agree w you mostly but you extended this form of systemic analysis to "making a date happy" which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships. To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized! I think people who say this kind of thing have a fundamental misunderstanding of how a certain type of people think. Of course people are systems to be optimized! What else could they possibly be? It's like people who object to love being a chemical reaction. What else could it be possibly be? And why in the world would love being a chemical reaction and people being systems to be optimized rule out treating people with respect, empathy, and kindness? What kind of straw Vulcans do you think we are?
- pkalinowski 7y ago
  People will straight reject reality if it doesn't fit their worldview. Go tell your wife love is just chemistry. Your words will haunt you for years :)
  - nestorherre 7y ago
    If that's what you think you should be able to say it. Otherwise one or both of the next things are true: -You married the wrong girl -You need to regain your manhood On the other hand, you do need to look for a good time and a good way to say it, and that just goes to being empathetic and caring about your partner.
  - Shorel 7y ago
    Life itself is 'just chemistry'. And I damn love to be alive.
- mnsc 7y ago
  > And why in the world would (...) people being systems to be optimized rule out treating people with respect, empathy, and kindness. Because seeing people as systems to be optimized is per definition dehumanizing which is an action that is not respectful or empathetic?
  - CapricornNoble 7y ago
    Have you ever told a woman, after coitus, how you ran the same Game on them that you've run dozens of times before? Did they get pissed and never talk to you again? I'm going to guess "no", at least neither I nor anyone I know has had that happen. They'll usually just laugh it off / not take it seriously. The empathy and connection has been built successfully, and no amount of ex post facto chastisement about "hey you were just dehumanized and disrespected" tends to register.
    - anbotero 7y ago
      I’m beginning to believe people is pissed because the example was dating, and now they think the whole argument was how some people can be made to do/feel things, instead of a miserable simple example on how even people is a system that can be analyzed (to a certain extend)
      - CapricornNoble 7y ago
        HN gets weird about dating-related subjects IMO. Any other topic seems to embrace analysis, exchanging and comparing anecdotes/techniques, and "life hacks", but sex and relationships? Whoa boy, better don your flame suit first...
    - reroute1 7y ago
      That's a terrible example and yes many people would be offended by that and not "laught it off", that is highly dependent on the individual and situation. Just because you made a connection doesn't mean you can't destroy it just as easily, by say pointing out the shallow nature of your connection.
- teucris 7y ago
  > I think people who say this kind of thing have a fundamental misunderstanding of how a certain type of people think. I honestly can’t deduce from your comment what the misunderstanding is. Is it that certain people see optimizing systems as an empathetic action?
  - anbotero 7y ago
    What OP means is (I hope), yes, people are complex entities, each with their own nuances, but our behavior is not something astral, magic, that cannot be analyzed and figured out just yet. In fact we can be (to a certain extend, at least) profiled and we can act and plan upon such results. Making a date happy? Sure, at first there can be some luck/lottery if you don’t know the person, but if you know your game you will try to know as much from that person as you can in order to do/give/say things that will make a moment turn out better for you, or for both even. You may not like some people think like that, thinking they are just thinking of people as systems, but some of us actually just use that information to complement our spontaneity. Also, I don’t see what fuzz is all about, just because there was an example with people relationships.
  - solveit 7y ago
    People who say such things seem to think that abstraction and reduction to components inherently carry a moral valence. They don't. People think that if you think of love as a chemical reaction it must mean that you think it has no value. I think that it only shows their narrowminded arrogance in thinking that chemical reactions can have no value. One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens and all that. We all take on different points of view depending on what's most useful at the time, and what patterns of thought come naturally to us. If you're a specific type of person, it's useful and natural to think of people as a system to be optimized. And if you love the people you're modeling, what you're optimizing for is their happiness and dignity. But some people can't conceive of this being the case. They see someone saying sciency words about mushy feelingy topics and pattern-match to the first supervillain they can think of. "People are just atoms, I guess that means I can blow you all up! Mwahahahaha!" Perhaps the people who wrote that supervillain never studied refraction and realized that it made rainbows more beautiful, not less. But probably they just didn't care. They needed a flimsy excuse to justify the awesome fight scenes they wanted to write. And that's all the reader was looking for too, It doesn't take much to let someone suspend their disbelief.
- disambiguously 7y ago
  > It's like people who object to love being a chemical reaction. What else could it be possibly be? Did you learn that by study, or did someone tell you that? Where else have you looked for love? You might find “love” contained in the electrical impulses in a computer program. It might be in the words of a screenplay. A complicated mechanical automaton might experience love. You could notice it in a melody, or in the pattern of behavioral incentives among a society of human beings. None of these things are chemical reactions in any systematic sense. You may notice chemical reactions everywhere you find these things, but that’s just because chemical reactions are contingently intrinsic to your own cognition. You’re only noticing yourself noticing the subject, and what you learn from that is almost entirely arbitrary. Heartbreak is a form of neurotransmitter withdrawal, and it can be treated in similar ways to substance abuse issues. That’s because “love” is a “chemical reaction”. But that’s just a random fact about earthlings. It won’t help you write a pop song, let alone make a friend. This is the reason “reductionism” has become a bit of a dirty word in philosophy. You feel like you are understanding the world better and better the whole time you are decomposing it into its constituent parts. Then you get to the bottom and you realize that the universe is made of many kinds of constituent parts, and you have decomposed a useful idea all the way down into nonsense.
  - 8bitsrule 7y ago
    somefamousperson (shrug) once said (I roughly paraphrase) that you could be handed a picture, and you could analyze the makeup of every square millimeter of it without ever seeing the picture. What does it gain? I can never know anyone. After long effort, I've made some progress knowing myself. Yet we manage to have some kinds of relationships. We can enjoy (or suffer) them, but comprehension is a fantasy.
JackFr 7y ago
> To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized! This. Treating other people as systems to be optimized plus with narcissism equals sociopathy. People should be treated with empathy and dignity.
CapricornNoble 7y ago
"Saying the right words" is one step in "fake it till you make it", when it comes to the practical application of charisma to relationships. And it works. It's why people develop their own personal repertoire of pick-up lines and flirtatious stories that they employ repeatedly. Re: systems optimization....I've found it often DOES help guys, mostly engineers, to think about their dating attempts as an equation. It puts dating into a conceptual framework that their brains can better understand. Sure, you have incomplete information about the variables and their coefficients, but the variables you CAN control, you can optimize for such that you maximize your chances when interacting with the broadest spectrum of the female population. Once you've made those optimizations, THEN you apply empathy and communication to tweak the remaining variables on a case-by-case basis with each individual. This explanation goes over better with struggling guys than "I get more women than you because I look like Will Smith and you don't."
- teucris 7y ago
  > Re: systems optimization....I've found it often DOES help guys, mostly engineers, to think about their dating attempts as an equation. That’s great! I think there’s just concern that people tend to easily forget that a model is an approximation for reality, and in the case of people, that’s an objectifying mistake.
  - MrFantastic 7y ago
    Models are still the best way to attempt to understand other people's actions. People rarely understand why they do things and even when they do they will often give a socially acceptable response vs the truth.
muzani 7y ago
Yup, it was oversimplified. Relationships are incredibly complicated, but they are still systems. I do believe you should optimize your relationships. Phone your parents. Praise your employees and your boss. Buy things for your spouse when it's not their birthday. Hug your kids and watch their favourite Saturday morning shows. Don't say things that trigger your uncle. A big part of being good in relationships is the 'process' of consistently being a nice, honest, genuine person. Systems are not a bad thing. They exist whether or not we want them to. You don't have to engineer everything. But if we don't pay attention... we'll fail to understand why some things happen. There are habits like how someone offers you a snack and gets annoyed when you accept. Sometimes you help someone and they resent you for it. Sometimes someone doesn't say anything and resents you for not helping. The last point still stands - someone who tries to be manipulative, controlling, or forcing a structure suggests that they don't get it. You can't just treat someone like it's Stardew Valley.
- lowkeyokay 7y ago
  You definitely have a way with words.
- Zhyl 7y ago
  >I do believe you should optimize your relationships I agree with your sentiment, but I would reword this to "optimise your responses". All you can ever control, especially in social situations and interpersonal relationships, is what you say and what you do. As such, there are important things you can do to your 'social engine' to optimise your responses for good - essentially adding modesty, kindness and thoughtfulness. 1) Optimise your classifier when meeting new people to be as cognitively cheap as possible while still protecting you from harm. With the lack of knowledge, assume the best of people. Often a positive opening gambit can make the whole relationship easier. Case study: https://ncase.me/trust https://ncase.me/trust 2) Optimise your conversation. Talking to people doesn't need to be stressful or anxiety inducing. If you don't know the person, listen to the words they say and ask questions about them. You don't have to always be thinking about how to make a joke out of the conversation. You don't always have to come up with a relevant anecdote. Let the things you say be positive and affirmative - sarcasm is fine but overuse is expensive the listener, both emotionally and in cognitive load to process it. 3) Optimise your thoughts so that your load becomes more manageable. When you cull out the noise, streamline your inbox/todo/notifications (digital or otherwise) and reduce mental overhead to prioritise tasks, you will find that it's easier to be thoughtful, to think 'outside the box' and to manage a wider range of things. You will find it easier to remember birthdays, be present with your loved ones, buy better gifts, sleep more etc. Do without doing and you will find there is nothing that isn't done.
justin_oaks 7y ago
It's less about "treating other people as systems to be optimized" and more about understanding the "system". Calling people systems may sound cold and calculating, but using that particular word doesn't mean you're uncaring. I'll interpret the original commenter to mean: Everything is a system with it's own rules. You'll be better off learning the rules instead of fighting the system. Do more of what works and less of what doesn't. That 100% applies to people, even if you don't like the term "system".

solveit 7y ago

> I agree w you mostly but you extended this form of systemic analysis to "making a date happy" which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships. To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized! I think people who say this kind of thing have a fundamental misunderstanding of how a certain type of people think. Of course people are systems to be optimized! What else could they possibly be? It's like people who object to love being a chemical reaction. What else could it be possibly be? And why in the world would love being a chemical reaction and people being systems to be optimized rule out treating people with respect, empathy, and kindness? What kind of straw Vulcans do you think we are?

pkalinowski 7y ago
People will straight reject reality if it doesn't fit their worldview. Go tell your wife love is just chemistry. Your words will haunt you for years :)
- nestorherre 7y ago
  If that's what you think you should be able to say it. Otherwise one or both of the next things are true: -You married the wrong girl -You need to regain your manhood On the other hand, you do need to look for a good time and a good way to say it, and that just goes to being empathetic and caring about your partner.
- Shorel 7y ago
  Life itself is 'just chemistry'. And I damn love to be alive.
mnsc 7y ago
> And why in the world would (...) people being systems to be optimized rule out treating people with respect, empathy, and kindness. Because seeing people as systems to be optimized is per definition dehumanizing which is an action that is not respectful or empathetic?
- CapricornNoble 7y ago
  Have you ever told a woman, after coitus, how you ran the same Game on them that you've run dozens of times before? Did they get pissed and never talk to you again? I'm going to guess "no", at least neither I nor anyone I know has had that happen. They'll usually just laugh it off / not take it seriously. The empathy and connection has been built successfully, and no amount of ex post facto chastisement about "hey you were just dehumanized and disrespected" tends to register.
  - anbotero 7y ago
    I’m beginning to believe people is pissed because the example was dating, and now they think the whole argument was how some people can be made to do/feel things, instead of a miserable simple example on how even people is a system that can be analyzed (to a certain extend)
    - CapricornNoble 7y ago
      HN gets weird about dating-related subjects IMO. Any other topic seems to embrace analysis, exchanging and comparing anecdotes/techniques, and "life hacks", but sex and relationships? Whoa boy, better don your flame suit first...
  - reroute1 7y ago
    That's a terrible example and yes many people would be offended by that and not "laught it off", that is highly dependent on the individual and situation. Just because you made a connection doesn't mean you can't destroy it just as easily, by say pointing out the shallow nature of your connection.
teucris 7y ago
> I think people who say this kind of thing have a fundamental misunderstanding of how a certain type of people think. I honestly can’t deduce from your comment what the misunderstanding is. Is it that certain people see optimizing systems as an empathetic action?
- anbotero 7y ago
  What OP means is (I hope), yes, people are complex entities, each with their own nuances, but our behavior is not something astral, magic, that cannot be analyzed and figured out just yet. In fact we can be (to a certain extend, at least) profiled and we can act and plan upon such results. Making a date happy? Sure, at first there can be some luck/lottery if you don’t know the person, but if you know your game you will try to know as much from that person as you can in order to do/give/say things that will make a moment turn out better for you, or for both even. You may not like some people think like that, thinking they are just thinking of people as systems, but some of us actually just use that information to complement our spontaneity. Also, I don’t see what fuzz is all about, just because there was an example with people relationships.
- solveit 7y ago
  People who say such things seem to think that abstraction and reduction to components inherently carry a moral valence. They don't. People think that if you think of love as a chemical reaction it must mean that you think it has no value. I think that it only shows their narrowminded arrogance in thinking that chemical reactions can have no value. One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens and all that. We all take on different points of view depending on what's most useful at the time, and what patterns of thought come naturally to us. If you're a specific type of person, it's useful and natural to think of people as a system to be optimized. And if you love the people you're modeling, what you're optimizing for is their happiness and dignity. But some people can't conceive of this being the case. They see someone saying sciency words about mushy feelingy topics and pattern-match to the first supervillain they can think of. "People are just atoms, I guess that means I can blow you all up! Mwahahahaha!" Perhaps the people who wrote that supervillain never studied refraction and realized that it made rainbows more beautiful, not less. But probably they just didn't care. They needed a flimsy excuse to justify the awesome fight scenes they wanted to write. And that's all the reader was looking for too, It doesn't take much to let someone suspend their disbelief.
disambiguously 7y ago
> It's like people who object to love being a chemical reaction. What else could it be possibly be? Did you learn that by study, or did someone tell you that? Where else have you looked for love? You might find “love” contained in the electrical impulses in a computer program. It might be in the words of a screenplay. A complicated mechanical automaton might experience love. You could notice it in a melody, or in the pattern of behavioral incentives among a society of human beings. None of these things are chemical reactions in any systematic sense. You may notice chemical reactions everywhere you find these things, but that’s just because chemical reactions are contingently intrinsic to your own cognition. You’re only noticing yourself noticing the subject, and what you learn from that is almost entirely arbitrary. Heartbreak is a form of neurotransmitter withdrawal, and it can be treated in similar ways to substance abuse issues. That’s because “love” is a “chemical reaction”. But that’s just a random fact about earthlings. It won’t help you write a pop song, let alone make a friend. This is the reason “reductionism” has become a bit of a dirty word in philosophy. You feel like you are understanding the world better and better the whole time you are decomposing it into its constituent parts. Then you get to the bottom and you realize that the universe is made of many kinds of constituent parts, and you have decomposed a useful idea all the way down into nonsense.
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  somefamousperson (shrug) once said (I roughly paraphrase) that you could be handed a picture, and you could analyze the makeup of every square millimeter of it without ever seeing the picture. What does it gain? I can never know anyone. After long effort, I've made some progress knowing myself. Yet we manage to have some kinds of relationships. We can enjoy (or suffer) them, but comprehension is a fantasy.

JackFr 7y ago

> To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized! This. Treating other people as systems to be optimized plus with narcissism equals sociopathy. People should be treated with empathy and dignity.

CapricornNoble 7y ago

"Saying the right words" is one step in "fake it till you make it", when it comes to the practical application of charisma to relationships. And it works. It's why people develop their own personal repertoire of pick-up lines and flirtatious stories that they employ repeatedly. Re: systems optimization....I've found it often DOES help guys, mostly engineers, to think about their dating attempts as an equation. It puts dating into a conceptual framework that their brains can better understand. Sure, you have incomplete information about the variables and their coefficients, but the variables you CAN control, you can optimize for such that you maximize your chances when interacting with the broadest spectrum of the female population. Once you've made those optimizations, THEN you apply empathy and communication to tweak the remaining variables on a case-by-case basis with each individual. This explanation goes over better with struggling guys than "I get more women than you because I look like Will Smith and you don't."

teucris 7y ago
> Re: systems optimization....I've found it often DOES help guys, mostly engineers, to think about their dating attempts as an equation. That’s great! I think there’s just concern that people tend to easily forget that a model is an approximation for reality, and in the case of people, that’s an objectifying mistake.
- MrFantastic 7y ago
  Models are still the best way to attempt to understand other people's actions. People rarely understand why they do things and even when they do they will often give a socially acceptable response vs the truth.

muzani 7y ago

Yup, it was oversimplified. Relationships are incredibly complicated, but they are still systems. I do believe you should optimize your relationships. Phone your parents. Praise your employees and your boss. Buy things for your spouse when it's not their birthday. Hug your kids and watch their favourite Saturday morning shows. Don't say things that trigger your uncle. A big part of being good in relationships is the 'process' of consistently being a nice, honest, genuine person. Systems are not a bad thing. They exist whether or not we want them to. You don't have to engineer everything. But if we don't pay attention... we'll fail to understand why some things happen. There are habits like how someone offers you a snack and gets annoyed when you accept. Sometimes you help someone and they resent you for it. Sometimes someone doesn't say anything and resents you for not helping. The last point still stands - someone who tries to be manipulative, controlling, or forcing a structure suggests that they don't get it. You can't just treat someone like it's Stardew Valley.

lowkeyokay 7y ago
You definitely have a way with words.
Zhyl 7y ago
>I do believe you should optimize your relationships I agree with your sentiment, but I would reword this to "optimise your responses". All you can ever control, especially in social situations and interpersonal relationships, is what you say and what you do. As such, there are important things you can do to your 'social engine' to optimise your responses for good - essentially adding modesty, kindness and thoughtfulness. 1) Optimise your classifier when meeting new people to be as cognitively cheap as possible while still protecting you from harm. With the lack of knowledge, assume the best of people. Often a positive opening gambit can make the whole relationship easier. Case study: https://ncase.me/trust https://ncase.me/trust 2) Optimise your conversation. Talking to people doesn't need to be stressful or anxiety inducing. If you don't know the person, listen to the words they say and ask questions about them. You don't have to always be thinking about how to make a joke out of the conversation. You don't always have to come up with a relevant anecdote. Let the things you say be positive and affirmative - sarcasm is fine but overuse is expensive the listener, both emotionally and in cognitive load to process it. 3) Optimise your thoughts so that your load becomes more manageable. When you cull out the noise, streamline your inbox/todo/notifications (digital or otherwise) and reduce mental overhead to prioritise tasks, you will find that it's easier to be thoughtful, to think 'outside the box' and to manage a wider range of things. You will find it easier to remember birthdays, be present with your loved ones, buy better gifts, sleep more etc. Do without doing and you will find there is nothing that isn't done.

justin_oaks 7y ago

It's less about "treating other people as systems to be optimized" and more about understanding the "system". Calling people systems may sound cold and calculating, but using that particular word doesn't mean you're uncaring. I'll interpret the original commenter to mean: Everything is a system with it's own rules. You'll be better off learning the rules instead of fighting the system. Do more of what works and less of what doesn't. That 100% applies to people, even if you don't like the term "system".