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It's interesting to compare "Dice Man"[0] with "Yes Man"[1] (the book, not the Jim Carrey film adaptation). Both books are about people putting their decision
by Zhyl 7y ago
It's interesting to compare "Dice Man"[0] with "Yes Man"[1] (the book, not the Jim Carrey film adaptation).
Both books are about people putting their decision making to an external force (Dice man with a die, Yes Man by accepting any offer or invitation that he was given). Dice Man embraces randomness which ultimately leads to Chaos and self destruction. Yes Man embraces positivity and most of the outcomes are positive and constrictive.
One of the main issues I had with Dice Man when I read it was that you were kind of limited in a way because you were making a discreet set of decisions and it seems like the book was encouraging you to always include destructive options, which would occur (intrinsically) with a probability of some multiple of 1/6. To abuse the gamblers ruin, this basically means that if you're including destructive options, then you're almost certain to do damage to yourself eventually.
To that end, it didn't really seem that useful to me as a philosophy or as a tool. Not in any meaningful way. Yes Man, on the other hand, feels like it has greatly changed my life for the better. Your flatmate comes home from work and says to you "I've just had someone pull out of a gig. Want to come? I'm leaving in half an hour". You go, putting aside the fact that you're tired and were looking forward to some quiet TV. You meet someone who you end up dating for a few years. Or how a friend at college invited me to a talk given by local companies in the area offering industrial placements (year long internships taken as part of the degree). It was in 5 minutes time and I wasn't on the 4 year course that the placement was a part of. I had a free period so I went. Off the back of that I changed my course to the 4 year, applied to one of the companies that presented. I got the placement and off the back of that learned basically all the technical skills that got me my first job out of college. So on and etc.
I can't see the dice really allowing for that kind of flow, unless you use a d20 and heavily stack all of the options with positive, enriching and life affirming options. Which, really, isn't what the Dice Man book encourages at all.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Man_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Man_(book)
- rebuilder 7y agoI'm not sure I'd say "The Dice Man" encourages anyone to do what the Rhinehart character does in the book.
- Zhyl 7y agoMaybe not, but it is pretty clear about what the author means by "dice living". I.E a somewhat zen-like destruction of self (or ego as the book puts it). This is also explored in the sequel (Search for the dice man, also the name of the article). Yes man also outlines its philosophy pretty explicitly (the "yes manifesto"). As such, it's easy to contrast and compare the two philosophies on pretty like-for-like terms. Dice man does approach it kind of nihilistically though, but also shows the consequences of that approach.
- Gravityloss 7y agoAs Woody Allen put it, "the first part of success is showing up"
- Pimpus 7y agoWould be interesting to try both! As for the self destructive aspect, I think that says more about ones subconscious desires. The dice can be corrupting... or perhaps revelatory.
- narag 7y agoI hadn't heard of "Yes Man" and I had not done it consciously, but I've been doing this clown routine for years. A girlfriend that's into theatre took a course for being a clown and explained to me that one of the traits of the clown, as defining as the red nose, is accepting any challenge, saying that she knows how to do it perfectly with the ensuing disastrous results. I realized that I'd been doing that all my life. So you can call me a clown but, as you say, results are often wonderful. Actually I start dating her with a couple of such daring decisions. The clown seems to be some kind of metaphor for children's behaviour. So, nice.
- Ntrails 7y agoCounterpoint. The gig turns into a night out, which you don't really enjoy but heck you had to say 'yes'. Now you're tired, and you are snappy at a work friend, who takes offense and you miss out on an invite to some other thing you would have actually got value from... Basically saying _yes_ to everything isn't going to magically make you only have great experiences. It will just mean having different ones.
- Zhyl 7y agoCounter lemma: saying "yes" to more opportunities [than one would normally say "yes" to] increases the surface area for happy coincidences (such as meeting the person at the gig) to happen which overall will outweigh the negative effects (annoying the friend and not getting the second invite) in absolute terms. I.e. I think it's more likely you'll end up in a better place if you say yes more (saying yes to absolutely everything is impractical) rather than just ending up somewhere "different" but equal
- Ntrails 7y agoEvery yes has an opportunity cost. I have had plenty of evenings where more than anything I wished I had just said no and chilled at home with housemates. I am a big proponent of infinite universes branched at every decision point, and I've no doubt that saying yes every time doesn't result in the happiest outcome possible.
- fatnoah 7y ago> You go, putting aside the fact that you're tired and were looking forward to some quiet TV. You meet someone who you end up dating for a few years. This is literally how I met my wife. Mutual friends were going to a Billy Joel concert and one couldn't make the show, so I was invited. I was tired, had a long commute home, didn't particularly feel strongly about Billy Joel, and generally didn't really want to go. For some reason, I said yes and ended up sitting next to a nice young lady who laughed at my jokes and was fun to be around. I always reflect on that when I'm feeling like saying "no" to things.