3 ms·

A comparison to video games shows how hard it is to truly practice social skills. You can't play the same situation over and over, which is why it's easier to g

A comparison to video games shows how hard it is to truly practice social skills. You can't play the same situation over and over, which is why it's easier to get better at small talk than confrontation. People don't want to reveal how they manipulate you, so schools can't teach about head tilting and brinksmanship. You have few trustworthy external evaluators, so you can come away from a conversation where you talked the entire time thinking you got a high score instead of a low one. The opportunities for using social skills to make a romantic connection are rare and you hardly ever even get to see how other people do it. Being able to act out scripts and get real feedback could be a tremendous benefit to the world. People who offend, withdraw, or blunder have existed since before techno-optimism. This is their chance to become better in a safe space without embarrassment.

helboi4 3y ago
I think most people who cannot learn most of these skills between the ages of 12-21 (when it's perfectly socially acceptable to fuck up to varying degrees, since literally everyone is learning), are probably neurodivergent. In which case they need to get a diagnosis, that will hopefully open them up to coaching by a human being. Perhaps something like this tech could be supplementary for some extreme cases there. Anyone who is not neurodivergent is just being overly self conscious if they think its not normal to blunder a lot even up to the age of 25. Such timid people will be actively crippled by staying indoors talking to a computer instead of participating in normal human developmental behaviour (otherwise known as interacting with other humans and fucking up a lot). I say this as someone who literally had no friends in high school and wasn't particularly fond of leaving my house because of it. I get accused of being some extreme extrovert so often here just for saying common sense things about how humans are social creatures and you really do have to go through these things.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  There are some societies where “fucking up a lot” isn’t an option - you get a bullet in the head.

helboi4 3y ago

I think most people who cannot learn most of these skills between the ages of 12-21 (when it's perfectly socially acceptable to fuck up to varying degrees, since literally everyone is learning), are probably neurodivergent. In which case they need to get a diagnosis, that will hopefully open them up to coaching by a human being. Perhaps something like this tech could be supplementary for some extreme cases there. Anyone who is not neurodivergent is just being overly self conscious if they think its not normal to blunder a lot even up to the age of 25. Such timid people will be actively crippled by staying indoors talking to a computer instead of participating in normal human developmental behaviour (otherwise known as interacting with other humans and fucking up a lot). I say this as someone who literally had no friends in high school and wasn't particularly fond of leaving my house because of it. I get accused of being some extreme extrovert so often here just for saying common sense things about how humans are social creatures and you really do have to go through these things.

selimthegrim 3y ago
There are some societies where “fucking up a lot” isn’t an option - you get a bullet in the head.