<story><title>Tips for a Better Life</title><url>https://ideopunk.com/2020/12/22/100-tips-for-a-better-life/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>paulpauper</author><text>91. don&amp;#x27;t buy XRP&lt;p&gt;but in seriousness,&lt;p&gt;I think it is easier to apply these rules to people you know than strangers. Look how often people lose patience with each other online.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;85. Cultivate compassion for those less intelligent than you. Many people, through no fault of their own, can’t handle forms, scammers, or complex situations. Be kind to them because the world is not.&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, being smart does not protect one from scams. Look at all the smart people who got duped by Madoff. Smart people are just as inclined to believe BS as less intelligent people are , if the BS is dressed up in such a way to appeal to smart people. If anything, being dumb helps, because scams typically require forms and complex schemes, such as investment schemes.</text></item><item><author>NortySpock</author><text>I think the compassion section has the most wisdom in it, especially the reasoning behind the recommendation:&lt;p&gt;82. Call your parents when you think of them, tell your friends when you love them.&lt;p&gt;83. Compliment people more. Many people have trouble thinking of themselves as smart, or pretty, or kind, unless told by someone else. You can help them out.&lt;p&gt;84. If somebody is undergoing group criticism, the tribal part in you will want to join in the fun of righteously destroying somebody. Resist this, you’ll only add ugliness to the world. And anyway, they’ve already learned the lesson they’re going to learn and it probably isn’t the lesson you want.&lt;p&gt;85. Cultivate compassion for those less intelligent than you. Many people, through no fault of their own, can’t handle forms, scammers, or complex situations. Be kind to them because the world is not.&lt;p&gt;86. Cultivate patience for difficult people. Communication is extremely complicated and involves getting both tone and complex ideas across. Many people can barely do either. Don’t punish them.&lt;p&gt;87. Don’t punish people for trying. You teach them to not try with you. Punishing includes whining that it took them so long, that they did it badly, or that others have done it better.&lt;p&gt;88. Remember that many people suffer invisibly, and some of the worst suffering is shame. Not everybody can make their pain legible.&lt;p&gt;89. Don&amp;#x27;t punish people for admitting they were wrong, you make it harder for them to improve.&lt;p&gt;90. In general, you will look for excuses to not be kind to people. Resist these.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smichel17</author><text>&amp;gt; Look how often people lose patience with each other online.&lt;p&gt;I think this is largely an issue of scale.&lt;p&gt;Say you are driving on a single-lane, one-way road, which ends at a T intersection with a stop sign. The other road is also 1-way, 1-lane, and does not have a stop sign. It has a traffic light around 20 car lengths after your road. You are waiting for a chance to turn in; the other road has a fair amount of traffic, but moving slowly since the light was red. A car stops (or moves very slowly) to make room for you to cut in, and waves you on. Very nice for you, and the cars behind you are not inconvenienced much.&lt;p&gt;In my experience, this kind of thing happens relatively frequently in rural areas, and quite the opposite in cities. For myself, that&amp;#x27;s largely because in the city there&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; a car looking to get in, and if I stopped for them all, I&amp;#x27;d never get anywhere.&lt;p&gt;In person, I am quite patient. Online, still relatively patient I guess, but less so, especially with strangers. There&amp;#x27;s just so many people who I could be talking to, that if I gave everyone I talked to the same attention that I do irl, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have time to do anything else! My impatience translates more into &amp;quot;ghosting&amp;quot; a conversation if the other person isn&amp;#x27;t getting my point, vs snapping at them, but it&amp;#x27;s the same cause.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I write long (as in time to compose) comments like this one, but that&amp;#x27;s partially for myself, to verify that my thoughts are logically consistent.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tips for a Better Life</title><url>https://ideopunk.com/2020/12/22/100-tips-for-a-better-life/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>paulpauper</author><text>91. don&amp;#x27;t buy XRP&lt;p&gt;but in seriousness,&lt;p&gt;I think it is easier to apply these rules to people you know than strangers. Look how often people lose patience with each other online.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;85. Cultivate compassion for those less intelligent than you. Many people, through no fault of their own, can’t handle forms, scammers, or complex situations. Be kind to them because the world is not.&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, being smart does not protect one from scams. Look at all the smart people who got duped by Madoff. Smart people are just as inclined to believe BS as less intelligent people are , if the BS is dressed up in such a way to appeal to smart people. If anything, being dumb helps, because scams typically require forms and complex schemes, such as investment schemes.</text></item><item><author>NortySpock</author><text>I think the compassion section has the most wisdom in it, especially the reasoning behind the recommendation:&lt;p&gt;82. Call your parents when you think of them, tell your friends when you love them.&lt;p&gt;83. Compliment people more. Many people have trouble thinking of themselves as smart, or pretty, or kind, unless told by someone else. You can help them out.&lt;p&gt;84. If somebody is undergoing group criticism, the tribal part in you will want to join in the fun of righteously destroying somebody. Resist this, you’ll only add ugliness to the world. And anyway, they’ve already learned the lesson they’re going to learn and it probably isn’t the lesson you want.&lt;p&gt;85. Cultivate compassion for those less intelligent than you. Many people, through no fault of their own, can’t handle forms, scammers, or complex situations. Be kind to them because the world is not.&lt;p&gt;86. Cultivate patience for difficult people. Communication is extremely complicated and involves getting both tone and complex ideas across. Many people can barely do either. Don’t punish them.&lt;p&gt;87. Don’t punish people for trying. You teach them to not try with you. Punishing includes whining that it took them so long, that they did it badly, or that others have done it better.&lt;p&gt;88. Remember that many people suffer invisibly, and some of the worst suffering is shame. Not everybody can make their pain legible.&lt;p&gt;89. Don&amp;#x27;t punish people for admitting they were wrong, you make it harder for them to improve.&lt;p&gt;90. In general, you will look for excuses to not be kind to people. Resist these.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>carabiner</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not just about being smart&amp;#x2F;dumb, it&amp;#x27;s also about being trusting and agreeable. I think falling prey to the occasional (hopefully not life-destroying) deception is part of the cost of being an easy to work with and trusting person. There are people who will take advantage of you, but most won&amp;#x27;t. On the balance, this leads to better relationships and a better life. OTOH you can be cynical and questioning of every persons&amp;#x27; motives, and that can make many normal interactions exhausting, at work and in social contexts. It can add an edge to you that most people do not like.&lt;p&gt;The ideal would be to have perfect, instant judgement of character, knowing when to be open or closed with people in various contexts. That&amp;#x27;s the hardest of all, and comes from having great parents&amp;#x2F;mentors and making lots of mistakes.</text></comment>