18 ms·

Why negative reinforcement would be necessarily bad? If you only do what you feel like doing, at the moment you feel like doing it, that's the perfect recipe fo

Why negative reinforcement would be necessarily bad? If you only do what you feel like doing, at the moment you feel like doing it, that's the perfect recipe for disaster. I am against the modern hedonistic zeitgeist and, on the contrary, think a lot of current social issues could be mitigated by more discipline and "hard work". On a side note : am I the only one who is tired of the current (decade(s)-long...) trend in blogs/articles of "deconstructing" positive/common-sense behaviors? "The dangers of tidiness", "Embrace your bipolarity", "Why I stopped aiming for excellence" etc... (I am not denying the risks of being too extreme and I understand the "click-bait" need of those writers, but still, it is very telling...)

achenet 4y ago
mmm, there is something to be said for perfection being the enemy of productive. Eg for software, at some point you have to stop tweaking and just ship. More generally, sometimes habits that are recommended in order to boost productivity and/or happiness can act in such a way as to reduce productivity and/or happiness. Maybe that's not what you were talking about though?
- the_omegist 4y ago
  Sure, am also all for efficiency and if something gives marginal improvement for a disproportionate amount of time or efforts,then most of the time it's not needed. I was more against this current "let it be" mindset that leads to all those buggy and low-quality things. But even more about in daily life, with people embracing their "mediocre-self".
Cupertino95014 4y ago
> I am against the modern hedonistic zeitgeist and, on the contrary, think a lot of current social issues could be mitigated by more discipline and "hard work" While I sympathize totally with this, I'll also stand on what I said. F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote about "holding two opposite ideas in your mind at the same time, etc. etc." If you don't have any work ethic at all ("the modern hedonistic zeitgeist") then maybe you won't ever exercise or keep your weight down. Or clean the garage. If you really do, you don't have to keep beating yourself up about it. Although you're right that, for some people, that might be a Good Thing.
faceplanted 4y ago
> On a side note : am I the only one who is tired of the current (decade(s)-long...) trend in blogs/articles of "deconstructing" positive/common-sense behaviors? "The dangers of tidiness", "Embrace your bipolarity", "Why I stopped aiming for excellence" etc... (I am not denying the risks of being too extreme and I understand the "click-bait" need of those writers, but still, it is very telling...) I think the you're seeing unconnected things as connected here, it's very much a problem with the internet in general, these blog posts and articles aren't aimed at everyone, they're talking to a specific subset of people who do have in fact have issues with toxic ideas about work, "The perfect is the enemy of the good" is important advice _for perfectionists_ like my sister desperately needed to hear that growing up, I most certainly did not. The internet in all of it's design tells you that any advice that gets popular enough must be some universal wisdom even when the people who write these articles do prefix everything they say with constant reminders that their advice is only for specific people (and the ones that don't do that claim to have found the answer to everything and start cults). This trend you're seeing isn't a cultural shift, it's just a collection of people with specific problems trying to help each other. I could say the same about the life-optimisation obsessed section of the self help market that does shout about hard work, discipline, and grindset. tl;dr they're only "positive common sense behaviours" to you, but the article's are for the people for whom they are in fact toxic blockades to happiness. My sister really could've done with hearing that tidiness isn't more important than being able to actually use your space.
- the_omegist 4y ago
  Well, I agree there is no planned things & that I am just connecting random dots. But would you have found the same proportion of books or articles promoting what seems counter-intuitive behaviors/mindsets just for the contradiction itself? I think the authors just need to find an easy way to say something new, and what is more easy than going against something "common"?
  - faceplanted 4y ago
    > I think the authors just need to find an easy way to say something new, and what is more easy than going against something "common"? I'm sure some of them do, but having seen first hand the damage to productivity and happiness these "common behaviours" can do to people who don't have my personality type, the books deconstructing them and putting them back together for people you start to realise are just another kind of productivity guide but for atypical people. There are lots of books deconstructing ordinary weight loss advice for people with eating disorders as well, the thing is that once you get cynical enough you start to realise that they really are just the other side of the same coin, the goal is the same "tell people how to get to a healthy weight" just with different perspective. It took a whole hell of a lot of "deconstructing common behaviours" for people to settle on not beating children in schools, we didn't get rid of the concept of discipline and punishment, we just picked up a new, more universal framework that works better.

achenet 4y ago

mmm, there is something to be said for perfection being the enemy of productive. Eg for software, at some point you have to stop tweaking and just ship. More generally, sometimes habits that are recommended in order to boost productivity and/or happiness can act in such a way as to reduce productivity and/or happiness. Maybe that's not what you were talking about though?

the_omegist 4y ago
Sure, am also all for efficiency and if something gives marginal improvement for a disproportionate amount of time or efforts,then most of the time it's not needed. I was more against this current "let it be" mindset that leads to all those buggy and low-quality things. But even more about in daily life, with people embracing their "mediocre-self".

Cupertino95014 4y ago

> I am against the modern hedonistic zeitgeist and, on the contrary, think a lot of current social issues could be mitigated by more discipline and "hard work" While I sympathize totally with this, I'll also stand on what I said. F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote about "holding two opposite ideas in your mind at the same time, etc. etc." If you don't have any work ethic at all ("the modern hedonistic zeitgeist") then maybe you won't ever exercise or keep your weight down. Or clean the garage. If you really do, you don't have to keep beating yourself up about it. Although you're right that, for some people, that might be a Good Thing.

faceplanted 4y ago

> On a side note : am I the only one who is tired of the current (decade(s)-long...) trend in blogs/articles of "deconstructing" positive/common-sense behaviors? "The dangers of tidiness", "Embrace your bipolarity", "Why I stopped aiming for excellence" etc... (I am not denying the risks of being too extreme and I understand the "click-bait" need of those writers, but still, it is very telling...) I think the you're seeing unconnected things as connected here, it's very much a problem with the internet in general, these blog posts and articles aren't aimed at everyone, they're talking to a specific subset of people who do have in fact have issues with toxic ideas about work, "The perfect is the enemy of the good" is important advice _for perfectionists_ like my sister desperately needed to hear that growing up, I most certainly did not. The internet in all of it's design tells you that any advice that gets popular enough must be some universal wisdom even when the people who write these articles do prefix everything they say with constant reminders that their advice is only for specific people (and the ones that don't do that claim to have found the answer to everything and start cults). This trend you're seeing isn't a cultural shift, it's just a collection of people with specific problems trying to help each other. I could say the same about the life-optimisation obsessed section of the self help market that does shout about hard work, discipline, and grindset. tl;dr they're only "positive common sense behaviours" to you, but the article's are for the people for whom they are in fact toxic blockades to happiness. My sister really could've done with hearing that tidiness isn't more important than being able to actually use your space.

the_omegist 4y ago
Well, I agree there is no planned things & that I am just connecting random dots. But would you have found the same proportion of books or articles promoting what seems counter-intuitive behaviors/mindsets just for the contradiction itself? I think the authors just need to find an easy way to say something new, and what is more easy than going against something "common"?
- faceplanted 4y ago
  > I think the authors just need to find an easy way to say something new, and what is more easy than going against something "common"? I'm sure some of them do, but having seen first hand the damage to productivity and happiness these "common behaviours" can do to people who don't have my personality type, the books deconstructing them and putting them back together for people you start to realise are just another kind of productivity guide but for atypical people. There are lots of books deconstructing ordinary weight loss advice for people with eating disorders as well, the thing is that once you get cynical enough you start to realise that they really are just the other side of the same coin, the goal is the same "tell people how to get to a healthy weight" just with different perspective. It took a whole hell of a lot of "deconstructing common behaviours" for people to settle on not beating children in schools, we didn't get rid of the concept of discipline and punishment, we just picked up a new, more universal framework that works better.