David_Gerard comments on Q: What has Rationality Done for You? - Less Wrong

11 Post author: atucker 02 April 2011 04:13AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (88)
Tags: advice rationality personal instrumental discussion

Comments (88)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: David_Gerard 02 April 2011 10:15:27AM *  13 points [-]

It's the little things.

Using LessWrong as part of my internet-as-television recreational candy diet reminds me of stuff:

  • Be less dumb. Little things, every day. This in itself makes everything go better.
  • Respond, not react. (This one can get lost in conversation. Trying!)
  • Don't hold others' irrationality against them. (Lump of lard theory. Beware anthropomorphising humans.)
  • Ask yourself "How do you know that?"
  • Ask "what's this for?" That's one of my favourite universal questions ever and dissolves remarkable quantities of rubbish.
  • Be more curious. Picking out random e-books is a current avenue for this. Or deciding on my daily commute to actually look for interesting things about these streets I've walked countless times.

Tim Ferriss' books The Four-Hour Work Week and The Four-Hour Body are full of deeply annoying rubbish, but there's quite a bit of brilliance in there too.

  • 80/20 everything that makes demands of your time or resources. This has reached the point where in the last several months I've actually experienced and savoured the considerable luxury of boredom, after thinking I'd never have time for such a thing in the foreseeable future (looking after a small child, girlfriend chronically ill with migraines, and working a day job).
  • Keep asking myself "What do I really want?" This is one of my lifelong favourite universal questions, but Ferriss reminds me to keep asking it.
  • Get off my arse. Something to remind one of this is always useful.
  • Losing 12 kilograms in the last six weeks. Not a rationality win per se, but certainly a win courtesy Ferriss.

(I'll add more as I think of it.)

Comment author: atucker 02 April 2011 02:01:59PM 3 points [-]

Respond, not react.

What does this one mean?

I think it has something to do with you should incorporate information from what just happened and try to come up with an effective response to things, rather than your immediate gut reaction. Is that what you were going for?

Comment author: David_Gerard 02 April 2011 02:14:43PM *  4 points [-]

Pretty much. I mean: when something upsetting happens and you get a visceral reaction, try to catch that and engage your brain. I expect it should ideally also be applied when something pleasing happens.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 April 2011 11:49:49AM 3 points [-]

80/20 everything that makes demands of your time

Hey what does this mean?

Comment author: David_Gerard 02 April 2011 12:31:58PM *  4 points [-]

The Pareto principle: 80% of the effects come from 20% of the effort. Really quite a lot of things show a power law.

Ferriss puts it like this:

The 80/20 principle, also known as Pareto’s Law, dictates that 80% of your desired outcomes are the result of 20% of your activities or inputs. Once per week, stop putting out fires for an afternoon and run the numbers to ensure you’re placing effort in high-yield areas: What 20% of customers/products/regions are producing 80% of the profit? What are the factors that could account for this?

He considers this a useful principle to apply to everything. And it is - I don't necessarily throw out the unproductive 80% on a given measure (I might want it for other reasons), but it is interesting to see if there's a ready win there. And it's useful even when you work an ordinary salaried day job, as I do. (e.g. these two weeks, when my boss is on holiday and I'm doing all his job as well as my own.)

Comment author: jsalvatier 03 April 2011 11:22:27PM 1 point [-]

Can you expand on asking "what's this for?". Maybe an example or two? I'm not clear on what the context is.

Comment author: David_Gerard 04 April 2011 07:13:14AM *  0 points [-]
  • "Why am I doing this task?" - applies to pretty much any action
  • "What's the best operating system?" - in what context?
  • "What is the morally right course of action here?"
  • "Which of these is a better movie/record?"

Particularly useful when you spot a free-floating comparative, seems to have wider application. (e.g. you just asked it about itself.) Try it yourself, for all manner of values of "this"!

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit