EA is deficient in character training. Now, teaching character is best done through interpersonal interactions, but here’s a rough summary of some things for young EAs.
Status is all fake. As a signal of usefulness, it’s very patchy. It’s likely that the most useful things or people simply won’t be advertising in eye-catching ways, because they don’t need to. So don’t be too impressed by really flashy adverts.
Similarly to the above: status games are overblown, and they can breed division hesitancy and lies in the social space of additional complexity required to upkeep them. If you can manage a serious and experientially lived commitment to genuine kindness and honesty in everything you do you do not need much else at all, which is good, because other things distract you from your goals.
Criticise things. Criticise everything. Then get someone to evaluate your criticism: is it honest criticism? Is it kind criticism? Your aim is to train yourself to be the best possible critic you can be.
Please, for the love of Christ, learn to cook healthy vegan food before going vegan. Get support from older vegans where necessary.
Get good at befriending altruists (effective or not). If you want to make friends with someone quickly, figure out something nice they did that cost them something (time, money, effort, risk), and ask them why they did that—the answers are many and varied but all tend to lead to friendships forming. If it seems like a person has never done anything nice that cost them time, money effort, or risk, they’re probably not worth befriending.
EA is deficient in character training. Now, teaching character is best done through interpersonal interactions, but here’s a rough summary of some things for young EAs.
Status is all fake. As a signal of usefulness, it’s very patchy. It’s likely that the most useful things or people simply won’t be advertising in eye-catching ways, because they don’t need to. So don’t be too impressed by really flashy adverts.
Similarly to the above: status games are overblown, and they can breed division hesitancy and lies in the social space of additional complexity required to upkeep them. If you can manage a serious and experientially lived commitment to genuine kindness and honesty in everything you do you do not need much else at all, which is good, because other things distract you from your goals.
Criticise things. Criticise everything. Then get someone to evaluate your criticism: is it honest criticism? Is it kind criticism? Your aim is to train yourself to be the best possible critic you can be.
Please, for the love of Christ, learn to cook healthy vegan food before going vegan. Get support from older vegans where necessary.
Get good at befriending altruists (effective or not). If you want to make friends with someone quickly, figure out something nice they did that cost them something (time, money, effort, risk), and ask them why they did that—the answers are many and varied but all tend to lead to friendships forming. If it seems like a person has never done anything nice that cost them time, money effort, or risk, they’re probably not worth befriending.