3 ms·

I've already adopted a general philosophy of attempting to benefit from interpersonal interaction as much as possible, I try to figure out how a person works on

I've already adopted a general philosophy of attempting to benefit from interpersonal interaction as much as possible, I try to figure out how a person works on their own level, including if I could assist them in any way, and if in doing so I may be setting up a mutually beneficial arrangement. In some cases, this works, but these cases are few and far between. It seems the majority of people, if one were to pursue this philosophy, ought to be left to oblivion. Entanglement with them will only result in encumberance rather than advantage, even if you were to attempt to selflessly better them without regard to the benefits to yourself, typically they would be incapable of making use of your assistance. What then is the purpose of humanity at large, those who fall outside the sphere of which can be of any advantage to you and are more valuable avoided than utilised?

tokenadult 17y ago
It seems the majority of people, if one were to pursue this philosophy, ought to be left to oblivion. Entanglement with them will only result in encumberance rather than advantage, even if you were to attempt to selflessly better them without regard to the benefits to yourself, typically they would be incapable of making use of your assistance. If you seriously go through life with that much of a sense of superiority, it would be no surprise at all to be socially isolated. I don't think that way. Most people are important and useful to humanity at the individual level. My default is to treat all people as if they are, and that default assumption is generally born out in my interaction with people in many settings. I don't merely seek PERSONAL advantage in dealing with people, but the broader advantage of a better human society for all.
- shadowaccount 17y ago
  Making the world a better place is promoting a personal advantage, so long as you're not dragged down too much in the process. My point is that by and large this is simply not the case. I think if you believe it is then I'm wondering if your target population is truly representative of humanity at large or simply those who you interact with most commonly within some social sphere which you have found to be agreeable with you. It isn't even that I feel superior, I simply feel utterly different, as I said, alien in the extreme. I believe this inhibits me when trying to understand why other people behave as they do because all I have to work off is a bunch of simulations of human behaviour in the past that I have observed / heard of.
  - shadowaccount 17y ago
    The pattern that I am seeing here and after having meditated on this myself is this: My conclusions about humanity at large are mostly correct, but this ought not discourage me from interaction in general due to one critical point. There are many great people despite the mass being largely useless. Further, if one actually attempts to follow rational principles it would not be all that difficult to find these people and maximise one's interactions within this sphere. Isn't that in fact exactly what I'm doing here? The first place I have ever actually felt mostly socially comfortable in my life? All the examples of positive social experiences that I can think of I could logically have concluded would likely have ended up that way based on the guessed at characteristics of the groups in question, the trick to human interaction is not to optimise your communications for the mean, but to optimise your communications for the groups whom with which you wish to interact. Thanks to those that responded.
    - robotrout 17y ago
      I think you need to get out of your head. It's a bit masturbatory, this constant introspection and comparison. It feels good, but you shouldn't do it all the time. If you truly can't find joy in the smell of spring, or exploring a strange city, or jumping out of an airplane, than you should seek some medical assistance. If you indeed do get joy from these things, than go enjoy them, and when you look to your left and your right, you'll find other people enjoying them also. You just connected with another person socially, even if he can't do differential equations in his head.
sunir 17y ago
Read the article again, especially about would-be leaders of mobs. Here's the big difference: Instead of helping people to correct them, help people to propel them further on towards their own goals and their own potential.
- shadowaccount 17y ago
  I think you misunderstand the nature of my idea of helping people or choosing to disengage with someone. Illustrative examples; When dealing with a drug addict, I will not attempt to capitalise on who they are as a person by selling them more drugs, even if this would by definition "propel them further on towards their own goals, and by their subjective definition, their potential". From my perspective, doing such a thing may potentially result in commercial advantages for me but I would think the action of exploiting this desire in the target human would be exploitative, so I would not do it. I believe that likely the best thing that I could do for such a person would be to avoid them entirely, as they are entangled in a local maximum from which they do not desire an escape. I have never engaged with anyone with the view to trying to "better" them purely from my own perspective, I believe that such a thing would not be fair to the other party, especially when direct deception is involved indicating in which fashion I intend to benefit from my part in the transaction. I am comfortable with not telling all of the truth all of the time, but I am utterly uncomfortable with any degree of fabrication. I want to either interact honestly or disengage entirely. I'm comfortable with assisting people toward goals that I don't feel are utterly counterproductive to their development to a very obvious and damaging degree, even if those are goals that I would find quite neutral.
10ren 17y ago
He meant it the other way round, for you to learn from others, not that you should teach them. Confucius was a famous teacher, but the quote is about how other people were his teachers. tokenadult then says of himself, that "[I] expect to learn from most people of my acquaintance, whatever their IQ scores". You can learn from someone without becoming entangled in an intense relationship. Don't try to see from "their level", but try to see from their point of view (as if they were the center of the world instead of you). In my experience, seeing another's point of view has been difficult to do, but it's always been rewarding. Everyone literally has a unique point of view (where their eyes are at any particular moment), so they can see things that I can't. And everyone's unique background, attitudes, experience and genetics also gives them a different point of view, figuratively. Even when someone is mistaken, it is revealing to me in what way they are mistaken. What are they seeing that I'm not? And, of course, mostly, they aren't mistaken. Human beings have an instinctual need for community, to connect, to understand and be understood, and we aren't happy without it. I believe the benefits of sharing our unique perspectives is one of the reasons that we have that instinct: our aggregate perspective is greater than their sum.

tokenadult 17y ago

It seems the majority of people, if one were to pursue this philosophy, ought to be left to oblivion. Entanglement with them will only result in encumberance rather than advantage, even if you were to attempt to selflessly better them without regard to the benefits to yourself, typically they would be incapable of making use of your assistance. If you seriously go through life with that much of a sense of superiority, it would be no surprise at all to be socially isolated. I don't think that way. Most people are important and useful to humanity at the individual level. My default is to treat all people as if they are, and that default assumption is generally born out in my interaction with people in many settings. I don't merely seek PERSONAL advantage in dealing with people, but the broader advantage of a better human society for all.

shadowaccount 17y ago
Making the world a better place is promoting a personal advantage, so long as you're not dragged down too much in the process. My point is that by and large this is simply not the case. I think if you believe it is then I'm wondering if your target population is truly representative of humanity at large or simply those who you interact with most commonly within some social sphere which you have found to be agreeable with you. It isn't even that I feel superior, I simply feel utterly different, as I said, alien in the extreme. I believe this inhibits me when trying to understand why other people behave as they do because all I have to work off is a bunch of simulations of human behaviour in the past that I have observed / heard of.
- shadowaccount 17y ago
  The pattern that I am seeing here and after having meditated on this myself is this: My conclusions about humanity at large are mostly correct, but this ought not discourage me from interaction in general due to one critical point. There are many great people despite the mass being largely useless. Further, if one actually attempts to follow rational principles it would not be all that difficult to find these people and maximise one's interactions within this sphere. Isn't that in fact exactly what I'm doing here? The first place I have ever actually felt mostly socially comfortable in my life? All the examples of positive social experiences that I can think of I could logically have concluded would likely have ended up that way based on the guessed at characteristics of the groups in question, the trick to human interaction is not to optimise your communications for the mean, but to optimise your communications for the groups whom with which you wish to interact. Thanks to those that responded.
  - robotrout 17y ago
    I think you need to get out of your head. It's a bit masturbatory, this constant introspection and comparison. It feels good, but you shouldn't do it all the time. If you truly can't find joy in the smell of spring, or exploring a strange city, or jumping out of an airplane, than you should seek some medical assistance. If you indeed do get joy from these things, than go enjoy them, and when you look to your left and your right, you'll find other people enjoying them also. You just connected with another person socially, even if he can't do differential equations in his head.

sunir 17y ago

Read the article again, especially about would-be leaders of mobs. Here's the big difference: Instead of helping people to correct them, help people to propel them further on towards their own goals and their own potential.

shadowaccount 17y ago
I think you misunderstand the nature of my idea of helping people or choosing to disengage with someone. Illustrative examples; When dealing with a drug addict, I will not attempt to capitalise on who they are as a person by selling them more drugs, even if this would by definition "propel them further on towards their own goals, and by their subjective definition, their potential". From my perspective, doing such a thing may potentially result in commercial advantages for me but I would think the action of exploiting this desire in the target human would be exploitative, so I would not do it. I believe that likely the best thing that I could do for such a person would be to avoid them entirely, as they are entangled in a local maximum from which they do not desire an escape. I have never engaged with anyone with the view to trying to "better" them purely from my own perspective, I believe that such a thing would not be fair to the other party, especially when direct deception is involved indicating in which fashion I intend to benefit from my part in the transaction. I am comfortable with not telling all of the truth all of the time, but I am utterly uncomfortable with any degree of fabrication. I want to either interact honestly or disengage entirely. I'm comfortable with assisting people toward goals that I don't feel are utterly counterproductive to their development to a very obvious and damaging degree, even if those are goals that I would find quite neutral.

10ren 17y ago

He meant it the other way round, for you to learn from others, not that you should teach them. Confucius was a famous teacher, but the quote is about how other people were his teachers. tokenadult then says of himself, that "[I] expect to learn from most people of my acquaintance, whatever their IQ scores". You can learn from someone without becoming entangled in an intense relationship. Don't try to see from "their level", but try to see from their point of view (as if they were the center of the world instead of you). In my experience, seeing another's point of view has been difficult to do, but it's always been rewarding. Everyone literally has a unique point of view (where their eyes are at any particular moment), so they can see things that I can't. And everyone's unique background, attitudes, experience and genetics also gives them a different point of view, figuratively. Even when someone is mistaken, it is revealing to me in what way they are mistaken. What are they seeing that I'm not? And, of course, mostly, they aren't mistaken. Human beings have an instinctual need for community, to connect, to understand and be understood, and we aren't happy without it. I believe the benefits of sharing our unique perspectives is one of the reasons that we have that instinct: our aggregate perspective is greater than their sum.