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DavidNelson comments on The True Rejection Challenge - Less Wrong
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Taking evening walks while listening to audiobooks seems to deal with all of those issues, assuming you aren't like one of my friends who can't stand audiobooks. Audiobooks aren't free, but if you take 3 30 minute walks a week it will take you months to get through a single book.
Audiobooks can be free if you get CDs from a library. (Then if you want, burn them onto your computer.) Also they may be available online as torrents.
Another source of free audiobooks is LibriVox which is building (i.e. recording) a catalog of free & public domain audiobooks. It is all volunteer work so I'm sure there is varying quality, but the few I have listened to have been quite good. However, the catalog is limited to works out of copyright (or under an appropriately permissive license), so newer material is rare, but many of the "classics" are there.
My existing iPod does not have any battery life (expense of equipment). Walking is not immune to the sweat problem. I also might not be able to reliably hear the contents of an audiobook over the sound of my own footsteps, nearby traffic, etc., but this part would be worth empirical testing.
I probably have an mp3 player around somewhere that you can use. (Check in the electronics bin, if you like.) If you don't mind being functionally deaf to anything else, using earplugs and turning the player's volume all the way up will likely solve the problem of hearing it over things. There is still the sweat issue, though.
Noted, thanks.
I share many of the problems with exercise that you have, especially the overheating and the boredom.
My solution to the sweating problem is to pick out clothes that are 'okay to sweat in', go for a run, then wash the clothes and have a shower immediately. I experience being sweaty as being very unpleasant, but with the attitude of "in these clothes, that doesn't matter", I can get around that.
I find that podcasts are much better than audiobooks for exercise -- they give variety and a breadth of topics in the event that I'm not in the mood for a particular audiobook. I subscribe to some news podcasts, anime/movie review, comedy, philosophy, sociology, hacking and short-story podcasts, and if I grow tired of one, I always have something else to distract me.
Really bare-bones mp3 players can be bought here for 15 units of local currency, so with rechargable batteries, that isn't a good reason. Most phones can play mp3s, and come with free headsets.
It's a textural issue, not an attitudinal one.
The object is to get around my reasons, not dismiss them as bad reasons. Also, I don't have a phone.
I understand that that's the object, but I hope you aren't excluding the possibility that some of your reasons--or anyone's reasons--might actually be bad reasons. That's a concern I have with this whole post: it could be a net rationality loss if you let your attitude shift from "I will do X if objections W, Y and Z are overcome," to "I will do X if and only if etc."
It is certainly possible that some reasons are bad. When people have presented options as partial solutions, I am in some cases willing to meet those partial solutions halfway. But "It only costs $X and it's a functionality that comes with $OBJECT so that can't be too much even though I know nothing about your finances or why you want free options" is not a responsive answer to my complaint that things cost money. X ≠ 0 and I don't have $OBJECT already.
You know that wasn't me, right?
Didn't say it was.
Even when it's dark out? I would expect this would be OK at least at some times of year.
Other things you could do to fight the boredom problem would be to try to get a friend to walk with you, or have a phone conversation.
From the original comment:
Sorry if it sounded like I hadn't read the post carefully. I know it annoys me a lot when I have to repeat myself because people don't seem to be listening. But I did in fact notice that and had a possibly incorrect but not actually crazy reason for asking that specific question.
My model looked something like this:
expected_amount_of_sweat = f(ambient_temperature,exercise_intensity,time)
where f() is continuous and monotonically positive in ambient_temperature, exercise_intensity, and time. In other words, a small increase in any of the three inputs yields a small increase in the output.
This implies that for a sufficiently small increase in exercise_intensity, there would be some finite decrease in ambient_temperature that would offset it. I interpreted "does not [get around the sweat problem]" as meaning that for a fixed value of exercise_intensity, as ambient_temperature decreases, expected_amount_of_sweat approaches a lower asymptotic bound. It's possible for that to happen (e.g. if you're doing intense enough exercise you will sweat even in a walk-in freezer), but for there still to be an offsetting effect (e.g. carrying something heavy or running will make me sweat sooner on a hot summer day than on a cold winter day).
It seems as though either my model is wrong, or my model is right but the transition from resting to walking is not a sufficiently small increase in exercise_intensity. Is one of those the case, or am I missing something else?
Your model is close to correct, but "ambient temperature" is local to parts of the body, and in some locations cannot normally drop below my actual core body temperature. I'd have to wear ice packs in some mighty weird and highly uncomfortable places to make reality function like a naive version of your model.
OK, though I'm quite surprised if you're saying that the general outside temperature has no effect whatsoever.
I'm slightly less surprised if you're saying it has some effect, but that due to localization of heat and the insulation of even light clothing, walking is intense enough to overcome even a chilly autumn or winter night sweatwise.
General outside temperature has an effect on parts of me that are exposed to air. This doesn't typically include, say, armpits, my scalp under my hair, or certain less G-rated locations - not because of clothes (or rather not entirely because of clothes; they certainly have an effect), but because of other body parts being in the way.
Ah. I was thinking in terms of core body temperature being affected by the external temperature, which seems like it has to happen at least in extreme cases as a simple matter of physics (e.g. if it's so hot or so cold that it overcomes the body's ability to self-regulate temperature), but it might not happen in the majority of less extreme cases for some people. I should just take your word for it that you're one of those people, or close enough for practical purposes.
And it's probably a bad idea to induce hypothermia in order to go for a run without sweating, so I withdraw my suggestion.