mattnewport comments on Beware of Other-Optimizing - Less Wrong

79 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 01:58AM

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Tags: overconfidence productivity akrasia other_optimizing

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 10 April 2009 05:32:44PM 2 points [-]

One of the critical events was when someone on the Board of the Institute Which May Not Be Named, told me that I didn't need a salary increase to keep up with inflation - because I could be spending substantially less money on food if I used an online coupon service. And I believed this, because it was a friend I trusted, and it was delivered in a tone of such confidence. So my girlfriend started trying to use the service, and a couple of weeks later she gave up.

You got me curious - what was the problem?

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 05:34:58PM 2 points [-]

It was a while ago and I'd have to ask her to see if she remembered. But if it had been providing large gains for little work I expect she'd have kept on doing it, so conversely, I suppose it was providing little gain for large work.

Comment author: mattnewport 10 April 2009 06:45:12PM 5 points [-]

Which doesn't really contradict the claim that you "could be spending substantially less money on food if [you] used an online coupon service". That claim is probably literally true, it just ignores the fact that in your situation the monetary savings were not worth the time/effort cost.

Much not-exactly-wrong advice falls down by ignoring opportunity cost.

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