eigenrobots theory and practice of complimenting people!!!!
a thread, inspired by a lovely metacompliment
part one: how to give compliment's
1. notice something you like in someone else
2. tell them you like it
this is perhaps harder than you might think. both steps require Art
noticing something you like in someone else may be harder for some people than others.
my suspicion is that complimenting may be difficult for misanthropists, for example, if they are not inclined to notice beauty in their fellow man; or for those who react with fear to social
fortunately this is a skill that may be consciously trained
for example
make a list of ten people in your life
go down that list and for each think of something about them that is laudatory
it doesnt need to be a big thing--often subtleties are better than prominent traits
eventually, you can learn to see Good in others reflexively
beyond embiggening ones Charm, this is an important trait to develop for living a happy life
(naturally it should be tempered with Prudence but the impulse ought to be there)
suppose you have noticed something you like about someone. How do you tell them?
"I like it that you X" is a good start! And it will quite generally be well-received. You don't need to go past this.
being really masterful in delivery is harder. here is the pith of it.
people live in their own stories. a deeply-felt compliment will be one that lets them tell a better story about themselves.
to do this thoroughly--and I'm not sure it can be done entirely consciously--one must have some intuition about another's story; show their intuition; and guide the complimentee to the new story
this is a necessarily intimate exercise
(delivering a mortal insult is a left-hand path mirror of this but is almost always despicable and if done without Charity and Grace corrodes the insulter more than the insulted)
Some pitfalls.
Do not lie when you deliver a compliment. This is harder than an honest compliment, for one thing, as it is difficult to tell a story around a kernel of falsehood. It also may deceive the complimented and deprive them of a chance to live a better, truer story.
Relatedly, don't give empty compliment. It's important to _perceive_ something good and true, and share that story. Grasping at unheartfelt tropes will ring hollow and never stick, and over time people will notice and devalue such statements.
Flattery is fine as long as it is _true_ but you must have a very deft delivery or you will read as fulsome and the recipient will be flustered or put off. Flatter rarely and well and honestly.
Closing thoughts.
People need to be seen and need to be loved (there may not be a difference).
Giving someone a compliment shows that you perceive them, perhaps better than they do themselves.
Compliments ennoble the giver and recipient alike.
AI is not currently good enough to cause me to lose my job but i expect ive got maybe a year to figure out how to move up several abstraction layers some of which may not even exist yet
this is going to get weird because idk how people starting careers will even begin
my intuition is that having a model of how a function--data, engineering, product, whatever--functions is important to capably automating that function
people who have been operating in those functions for years seem as though they'd have an overwhelming advantage in this
but of course to the extent agents hollow out these functions and displace human labor its hard to imagine firm structures remaining as they exist, designed for human operations
so this probably gets me another year or two max, if i'm working in tech proper
the biden administration, which i assume had access to people who know at least as much about missiles as i do, equivocated about whether or not they believed the israeli explanation that the strike was a failed hamas rocket
a major lesson of the awokening for me was that a significant number of people on the left hate me and would prefer i not exist and a majority of the country is willing to go along with policies operating toward that end
this was probably an infohazard
i call it an infohazard because there's really not anything i can do with this information but it leaves me anxious about the future, and experiencing to varying degrees contempt or outright hatred toward people about whom i had previously felt positively
when i look at the political landscape i see two factions wholly unworthy of the inheritance bequeathed to us by our ancestors
the important difference between them is that one is directed by people who would prefer i be erased