Another thing, remember when Mr. Rogers said "Look for the helpers."?
Feel free to ignore/skim this. Just jotted some notes, for anyone addicted to the art of effectively intervening in the universe. Seems a nice place to post this, so I can refer to it in the future
Yesterday had
a case study. It's public, so you can critique it. Bite-sized, but nontrivial; on that thread, one of my dear beloved haters here expressed
"I don't know if there is anything you can do". And I said
"Ho boy. This is hard." (Before
providing a solution that the client liked)
Demonstrates common errors: no
stalking researching the client's context, moving to a solution too quickly, one-size-fits-all advice, little probing to build a higher-res pic, zero relationship flair, no collecting constraints on solutions, no prototype solutions. Perhaps worst of all, it's about convincing a boyfriend — which means you gotta try to learn something about him
Leads to a low-quality job. Advice-seekers are best seen as employers — just without imaginary money points. And in any job (that isn't completely de-skilled like McD's), people are happy to give presentations on their work — case studies, mindsets, etc. They're constantly talking about how to do a better job — if they give a damn
Bigger problems
Is this an overly "small" problem? Well, we chop big problems down into little ones. If we solve enough little ones, with quality, then often we fucking win. Chip-chip-chip away until one day a major part of the problem cracks
We grind away at problems in OIDA loops: Observe, Imagine (possibilities), Decide, Act. Each "Act" is a question to the universe, and you listen in "Observe". Looping's important, beause people often quit after their first attempt gets them 90% of the way. But they only needed to turn around & walk the remaining 10%!
The "Imagine" phase may uncover risky possibilities. Simple risk analysis helps: imagine what could go wrong. And you will make mistakes. You can fix them: before they happen (preemption), before anyone notices, or when they're running amok. The earlier you fix, generally the cheaper it is
Theory-theory (the theory of theories)
"Social theories generally explain, predict, and permit intervention. All to a degree, not with perfect confidence, but with enough to be much more useful than just winging it, so to speak." —
Michael Albert
Example theories: redpill, feminism, blackpill:
- Blackpill: interesting — it's anti-intervention, and predicts only gloomy outcomes. Many suicidal people are blackpillers, in the general doomer sense
- Feminism: very broad. Best to refer to specific sub-traditions. Otherwise you run into trouble with conflicting goals & concepts
- Redpill: geared to intervene, in many current societies. Many concepts look weird, yet help you predict/intervene surprisingly well in certain contexts. But their explanations are typically evo-psych mythologies
So for example, in my solution prototype, I tried to make a poem so schweeeeet
, her boyfriend would no sooner breakup with her than punch a kitten. Testing that redpill saying:
"Men see women, like women see children, and like children see animals". Thus activating his inner nurturer. I just needed to probe to determine whether he was the right kinda stoic/chill/loyal guy who actually works this way
Which is why I ask if people intervene, and if they have a basic understanding of these theories they speak of. Otherwise, theories become ideologies — never tested in battle, nor used for intervention. And if you don't use them, you only build skeletal theories, without all the musculature required to actually understand & get things done
Like martial artists who talk, yet can't do
Helps to learn multiple theories — even ones that look contradictory. For example, you can augment radical feminism with redpill, if you alter the parts of redpill that support patriarchy. Because theories are made of concepts. (Bits of the world we name & think are real.) And you can steal useful concepts from a theory, without committing to the whole shebang
Helps you become relentlessly resourceful
