3 ms·

On another note, you argue 'few good insights ever come of the form "You have $difficult_problem, you just need to do X to solve it"', but right before that you

On another note, you argue 'few good insights ever come of the form "You have $difficult_problem, you just need to do X to solve it"', but right before that you say "getting on medication to fix their broken neurochemistry." Is that not an example of "you have $difficult_problem, do X to solve?" You sound young and confused. It will pass.

derefr 11y ago
Maybe qualifying the phrasing makes it more useful: few good insights come of the form "you have $difficult_problem, you just need to do [thing that is easy enough to try that if you were interested in solving this problem you've probably tried it long ago] to solve." Getting on a medication is hard, and frequently shameful. It especially requires acknowledging, first, that you have a problem to a degree where you should seek help with it, rather than that you just "prefer to" be lazy. Because of this, people who have motivational problems don't tend to try the solution "getting on medication to fix their broken neurochemistry" until a whole bunch of evidence piles up to suggest that's the way to go. An economist would say that, because the market is efficient, there is no money left lying on the ground—if you think you see some, it's either a fluke that will correct itself, or an illusion. Likewise, there's no "one simple life hack" that will actually solve any common, chronic problem humanity faces. If there was, it'd have reached fixation as common wisdom long ago. (For example: brushing your teeth to avoid them rotting away. It's a "life hack" that works!) The only time something can be both "one simple life hack", something few people know about, and actually work, is if it's really hard to put it into practice. Practicing epistemic rationality is a "life hack" for avoiding wasting time, but you have to read tons of things and route around a bunch of your own neural circuitry to make it happen. Moving to another country is almost always a "life hack" for getting better job and relationship opportunities, but it requires uprooting a lot of your existing life. Etc. The only "easy/surefire wins" in the market of personal health/well-being/productivity, are the ones you'd never try on a whim because they have too much of an upfront cost. The art, then, is in convincing yourself to feel "desperate" enough to try those things early on, rather than wasting time with the patent-medicine-style life-hacks first. Or, in short, and by analogy: in a nutrition store, all the stuff that is known to work, is locked behind the counter. Things that work, unsurprisingly, have side-effects; frequently the side-effects are in fact simply corollaries or restatements of their effect! Anything with no side-effects, no costs, is extremely likely to also have no effect.

derefr 11y ago

Maybe qualifying the phrasing makes it more useful: few good insights come of the form "you have $difficult_problem, you just need to do [thing that is easy enough to try that if you were interested in solving this problem you've probably tried it long ago] to solve." Getting on a medication is hard, and frequently shameful. It especially requires acknowledging, first, that you have a problem to a degree where you should seek help with it, rather than that you just "prefer to" be lazy. Because of this, people who have motivational problems don't tend to try the solution "getting on medication to fix their broken neurochemistry" until a whole bunch of evidence piles up to suggest that's the way to go. An economist would say that, because the market is efficient, there is no money left lying on the ground—if you think you see some, it's either a fluke that will correct itself, or an illusion. Likewise, there's no "one simple life hack" that will actually solve any common, chronic problem humanity faces. If there was, it'd have reached fixation as common wisdom long ago. (For example: brushing your teeth to avoid them rotting away. It's a "life hack" that works!) The only time something can be both "one simple life hack", something few people know about, and actually work, is if it's really hard to put it into practice. Practicing epistemic rationality is a "life hack" for avoiding wasting time, but you have to read tons of things and route around a bunch of your own neural circuitry to make it happen. Moving to another country is almost always a "life hack" for getting better job and relationship opportunities, but it requires uprooting a lot of your existing life. Etc. The only "easy/surefire wins" in the market of personal health/well-being/productivity, are the ones you'd never try on a whim because they have too much of an upfront cost. The art, then, is in convincing yourself to feel "desperate" enough to try those things early on, rather than wasting time with the patent-medicine-style life-hacks first. Or, in short, and by analogy: in a nutrition store, all the stuff that is known to work, is locked behind the counter. Things that work, unsurprisingly, have side-effects; frequently the side-effects are in fact simply corollaries or restatements of their effect! Anything with no side-effects, no costs, is extremely likely to also have no effect.