Comment by muzani | Hacker News Reader

Comment by muzani | Hacker News Reader

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Yup, it was oversimplified. Relationships are incredibly complicated, but they are still systems.

I do believe you should optimize your relationships. Phone your parents. Praise your employees and your boss. Buy things for your spouse when it's not their birthday. Hug your kids and watch their favourite Saturday morning shows. Don't say things that trigger your uncle.

A big part of being good in relationships is the 'process' of consistently being a nice, honest, genuine person.

Systems are not a bad thing. They exist whether or not we want them to. You don't have to engineer everything. But if we don't pay attention... we'll fail to understand why some things happen. There are habits like how someone offers you a snack and gets annoyed when you accept. Sometimes you help someone and they resent you for it. Sometimes someone doesn't say anything and resents you for not helping.

The last point still stands - someone who tries to be manipulative, controlling, or forcing a structure suggests that they don't get it. You can't just treat someone like it's Stardew Valley.

>I do believe you should optimize your relationships

I agree with your sentiment, but I would reword this to "optimise your responses". All you can ever control, especially in social situations and interpersonal relationships, is what you say and what you do. As such, there are important things you can do to your 'social engine' to optimise your responses for good - essentially adding modesty, kindness and thoughtfulness.

1) Optimise your classifier when meeting new people to be as cognitively cheap as possible while still protecting you from harm. With the lack of knowledge, assume the best of people. Often a positive opening gambit can make the whole relationship easier.

Case study: https://ncase.me/trust

2) Optimise your conversation. Talking to people doesn't need to be stressful or anxiety inducing. If you don't know the person, listen to the words they say and ask questions about them. You don't have to always be thinking about how to make a joke out of the conversation. You don't always have to come up with a relevant anecdote. Let the things you say be positive and affirmative - sarcasm is fine but overuse is expensive the listener, both emotionally and in cognitive load to process it.

3) Optimise your thoughts so that your load becomes more manageable. When you cull out the noise, streamline your inbox/todo/notifications (digital or otherwise) and reduce mental overhead to prioritise tasks, you will find that it's easier to be thoughtful, to think 'outside the box' and to manage a wider range of things. You will find it easier to remember birthdays, be present with your loved ones, buy better gifts, sleep more etc. Do without doing and you will find there is nothing that isn't done.

You definitely have a way with words.

The missing piece here is that you yourself are also a system.

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