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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 thi

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.

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.