My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

Post by boat-of-theseus » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #360

coldtea wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reductionist biological explanation might be obvious to you, but in the actual world, the reasoning and the moral condemnation of things like plastic surgery is never explicitly about giving false signals regarding one's reproductive fitness. Reasons "haters" cite are about vanity, narcissism, refusing to look your age, etc.

For me, motivation matters. If you want to learn social skills to make your life easier while not harming others, that's perfectly fine, admirable even, but if you learn it to damage others for your own profit, that's immoral. Same for the motivation of surgeries. You might not be comfortable with yourself, and want to change something, and that's perfectly fine, but again to changing appearance signal something to b…

Post by istjohn » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 3:49 PM UTC

Post by kubanczyk » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 3:57 PM UTC

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #307

whstl wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very strange that people are ok with people charming others "naturally" (while it's probably because they learned by imitation, often from parents) while "practicing it" is seen as bad and manipulative. It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it.

You say ‘somehow’ like the reasoning isn’t obvious. Physical attractiveness is a signal of reproductive fitness when it’s genetic, and not otherwise.

Post by kubanczyk » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 4:18 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #47

This post wasn't what I was expecting from the "socially normal" title. While there is a lot of self-reflection and growth in this piece, a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Look at the first two subheadings: > 1: Connecting with people is about being a dazzling person > 2: Connecting with people is about playing their game The post felt like a rollercoa…

Post by whstl » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

phantasmish wrote: post #192

Aurornis wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. I don’t think that’s a fair comparison to what’s describe in this blog post. The writer describes taking on different personas and trying different tricks with other people portrayed as subjects of some sort of experiment. The casual mentions of how they tried so…

> The writer describes taking on different personas and trying different tricks with other people portrayed as subjects of some sort of experiment. It’s typically not done quite so intentionally, but this sounds like most folks’ junior high and high school years. Sometimes also college. I know I totally changed in those years, and it was mostly by noticing what “worked” and leaning into it.