Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why doesn't advice work?

dynomight.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 334 posts

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#51

Post by mrweasel »

silverquiet wrote: post #17
debacle wrote: post #9

Most people, in my experience, not only do not think logically but actively eschew thinking logically, making long term plans, goal setting, etc. I don't know if it's an intelligence thing. I don't think it is. I have met not so smart people that are incredibly goal oriented and very smart people who piss it all away. I'm at a point in my career/life where I often find myself giving advice to people who aren't intere…

This statement seems highly abstract - what sort of goals and long term plans should people have?

It makes a lot of sense, to me. The internet is full of "How do I lose weight", take "Ask Reddit", it's at least once a month that there's a "People who lost weight, how did you do it?" Come on! You know how they did it, they adjusted their eating habits and started exercising.

That just not the answer people want, they want to hear stuff like: "I eat half a lemon every two days" or "I stuffed a peeled potato up my butt to absorb nutrients slowly through the day".

Some advice is ignored because people don't like the answer, right as it may be.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#52

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #43
passion__desire wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> themselves discovered Do you think people consider recommendation systems (feeds which inform their worldview) to be a part of natural order of things so they don't suspect it. Even if they know it to be algorithmic, nudges can be inserted at appropriate times when our guards are down.

This is one of the ways people can go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. They think they "discovered for themselves" some secret truth that "the elite" or "the experts" don't want them to know. Then they find a community of similarly-awakened people who lower their guards even more and point them to other "alternative truths" that they can go DiscoverForThemselves™ too. Probably the same psychology behind t…

[deleted]

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#53

Post by photochemsyn »

The author uses rock climbing as an example. Notably, in most climbing circles there is an almost universally disliked personality type - someone who runs around a gym or outdoor climbing area shouting advice at climbers on routes. Most people find this annoying, distracting, and also it ruins the fun involved in figuring a problem out by yourself. Thus the rule to learn in climbing - if you want climbing friends and partners - is to never give advice to someone on a route unless they explicitly ask for it.

The clear exception to this rule is when you see that someone has done something that might get them killed - forgotten to tie into the rope, clip into the anchor, etc.

This also applies to laboratory and manufacturing work with dangerous chemicals and equipment. If people can't follow protocols designed to keep them from serious injury, even after it's been explained to them repeatedly why those protocols exist, the only advice worth giving is 'find another career where you're less likely to poison/maim yourself and your co-workers.' This tends to cause interpersonal conflict, so such people are often instead promoted into a position where they can do little harm. Some people even game this, hoping a display of incompetence will keep them from being assigned difficult work.

It's thus usually best to keep your advice to yourself when dealing with other adults, unless they come to you and say "I'm stuck, what do you think I should do with this problem?"

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#54

Post by Balgair »

daniel-thompson wrote: post #21

I think it's a pretty simple, and timeless, aspect of human nature: "People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others." - Blaise Pascal, 1670

Two other aphorisms come to my mind:

- Persuasion is pegged to a person.

In that, it's not that the person hasn't heard the arguments before, it's that they haven't met the right person to say it to them. Often, that person is in the mirror.

- If you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#55

Post by csours »

daniel-thompson wrote: post #21

I think it's a pretty simple, and timeless, aspect of human nature: "People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others." - Blaise Pascal, 1670

Stories are more real than facts.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#56

Post by brailsafe »

Craighead wrote: post #42
rdtsc wrote: post #19

> And for producers of advice: Step 0 I think should be "maybe don't give advice". You want to help, you think you're really good, you think it will improve things, but that's not how other people see it. They may seem like they need advice or seem like they are asking for it between the lines, but they just really want to unload or chit chat, or share some difficulty. The answer to that is sometimes to listen and no…

these people are boring, words spent talking about nothing is akin to throwing fresh food away, I'm not a psychologist and I have my own problems, why should I have to listen to others drone on about nothing when we could be working together to fix either or both of our issues.

Because much of the time you just haven't realized yet that you don't really know shit about shit, and good friends communicate in a variety of different ways about different subjects, sometimes just listening, sometimes actually helping someone with an issue they've asked for help with. Lack of versatility in that area means one will probably struggle to form more than the most superficial of relationships, because ironically it ends up being more shallow to think you're in a position to do something more impactful than offering your time to listen.

It's like coming onto a new team as a junior software dev thinking you'll introduce whatever hot new build tool or refactor the code that sucks that someone wrote 15 years ago, and then getting fired because you're clueless.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#57

Post by sickofparadox »

silverquiet wrote: post #38
debacle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeownership (or a more city-oriented construct), civic impact, career growth, retirement, family planning, marriage, growing a business, investment, becoming a grantee, doing 10 pullups, you name it.

I suppose for me, it's finding some sort of meaning in life - it's been rather elusive, and makes it hard to care about any of those; though I can do ten pullups.

Some combination of the above list should at least give an approximation of meaning. Or keep you busy enough you don't notice its absence.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#58

Post by resource_waste »

rdtsc wrote: post #19

> And for producers of advice: Step 0 I think should be "maybe don't give advice". You want to help, you think you're really good, you think it will improve things, but that's not how other people see it. They may seem like they need advice or seem like they are asking for it between the lines, but they just really want to unload or chit chat, or share some difficulty. The answer to that is sometimes to listen and no…

I was at a bakery grand opening from an uneducated rural family.

Plenty of their rural friends listened to the difficulties, wished them the best.

Bring in the MBA + Industrial Engineer, and tell them some advice on processes, economics, and as a bonus, I was an Electrical Engineer for a few years so I had some advice on their oven problem.

What is better? The person that says "You look beautiful", or "You have a piece of fuzz in your hair?"

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#59

Post by csours »

Good Advice is Contingent

Someone wrote a post that I can't find right now with a title like that - good advice accounts for the target's personal situation.

Good advice is not a list of winning lottery numbers, it's a description of a state transition; some state transitions are really hard and scary.

Re: Why doesn't advice work?

#60

Post by resource_waste »

Craighead wrote: post #42
rdtsc wrote: post #19

> And for producers of advice: Step 0 I think should be "maybe don't give advice". You want to help, you think you're really good, you think it will improve things, but that's not how other people see it. They may seem like they need advice or seem like they are asking for it between the lines, but they just really want to unload or chit chat, or share some difficulty. The answer to that is sometimes to listen and no…

these people are boring, words spent talking about nothing is akin to throwing fresh food away, I'm not a psychologist and I have my own problems, why should I have to listen to others drone on about nothing when we could be working together to fix either or both of our issues.

I agree.

My wife basically never gives people feedback unless its positive. She is a people pleaser, popular, all that stuff. No one asks her for advice.

I am much more controversial. I have to ignore emails and text messages of people asking for advice because it happens too much. (I'm busy with my own life, the people asking for advice are low-mid tier and wont follow it, people are asking for my expertise for free)

I've actually hired other people to be a second brain because my wife cannot give negative feedback.

Post reply on HN