
Against Advice - andrewnc
https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/against-advice-agnes-callard/
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mapleoin
Additionally, advice between peers, advice that doesn't come from the master
to the student, and I think this is the most common sort of advice, life-
advice, or "how to live" advice, is always patronizing. There's an implicit
assumption (and lie) that the other person knows better, taken to its extreme,
it means the other person can think, you can't think; the other person knows
what's good, you don't know what's good; the other person has the motivation,
you don't have the motivation. Sure, the advice giver "means well" so they
can't be faulted, the receiver has to appreciate the advice no matter how
useless and the advice giver never has any responsibility, certainly not the
responsibility of any consequences of their advice, that's always the
receiver's responsibility.

~~~
CaptArmchair
That's only true if you're willing to entirely discount the intent of the
sender, and the perception of receiver.

There's a stark difference between giving clearly unsolicited advice, and
giving advice because the other person asks for advice.

Then there's the grey area where you have to rely on non-verbal and implicit
communication because it's unclear whether any advice given will be perceived
as presumptuous or as pure gold. This is the murky area of human interaction
where intuition matters more and formal rules don't always apply.

There have been times when I resisted advice given to me. Only to understand
some time later that the advice given was really helpful and true, and ending
up grateful for having that person not holding back on me.

~~~
abjKT26nO8
You can phrase useful advice in a "non-advicy" way. E.g. "here is how I do
it..." instead of "it's better to do it this way/you should do it like this".
This form sends an implicit message "there may be other, maybe better, ways to
do it/YMMV".

The phrasing indicates whether the sender thinks of themselves as someone who
has all the answers vs someone who just found out that something works for
them.

~~~
kd5bjo
Be careful with this, too. When somebody brings up problems they’re having,
they often just want the catharsis of complaining and empathy about their
situation. Proffering a solution, even couched as you have described, can
change the conversation dynamic from empathy to a semi-combative back-and-
forth which serves no-one’s purpose.

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GarrisonPrime
I suggest a good way to “give advice” is Socratic. Listen. Have them describe
their views. Ask clarifying questions.

Even if you have the best advice in the world, it’ll be useless if it’s not
what the listener needs to hear at that moment.

Might be better to just help them better understand their current perspectives
and options. Then they’ll be more open to finding solutions themselves.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
I've noticed good therapists do this.

When I was in therapy, my therapist would just continually ask questions. And
eventually, Id start answering them, and find the answer that I was looking
for. It was really amazing.

Now all of my advice is in this way. People already have an idea of what the
problem is. Sometimes they don't want to admit it, or face it. But when they
talk through it, it's enlightening.

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amiune
Giving advice is like trying to inject lines of code in a neural network
instead of giving training examples to it. Nothing good is going happen. I
prefer to share experiences and let people to do whatever they want with that
information

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kmax12
This reminds me of a story I heard from Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway
about asking Mozart for advice.

One man came to Mozart and asked him how to write a symphony. Mozart replied,
“You are too young to write a symphony.” The man said, “You were writing
symphonies when you were 10 years of age, and I am 21.” Mozart said, “Yes, but
I didn’t run around asking people how to do it.”

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Uhuhreally
I've completely given up on giving advice and persuading people because it
doesn't work and often people do the opposite. People are going to do what
they want anyway. Doesn't stop me having my opinions though.

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LaundroMat
I don't remember where I read it, but someone once said that the two things
that hurt the most are criticism and unsolicited advice.

~~~
diablo1
Exactly. It can be an ego-damaging exercise to another person to give
unsolicited advice, so usually before I give it (online) I add a mini
disclaimer like 'IMHO', or 'You might want to hear my thoughts on the matter'.

