A rule I have just applied here. It's easy to be against things. Anyone can do it, there are whole blogs created just to be against something or other. I don't read sucks blogs.
There are only so many words it is useful to expend on explaining why X sucks. Once you've given all the reasons, there is nowhere to go but to repeat yourself. To whine. It's the safe thing to do, because if you thought about what, specifically, you want instead ("Not X" isn't it), then you would be faced with the task of creating it.
(I won't go into an alternative way of avoiding the work, which is to magnify what you do want into an impossibly huge and far-off goal, except to say that it's a standard transhumanist failure mode.)
In a New York shop, I once got pressure-sold something expensive I didn't really want; when I said it cost too much, I was asked what I might be prepared to pay, and we ended up haggling. Since then, I've had a rule:
and I have been very glad of it on many occasions. I can go for a short walk to decide, and if I don't want it, I simply don't return to the shop. This means I'm deciding in calm surroundings, based on what I want rather than on embarrassment.
Are there other maxims I could adopt that would serve me equally well?
(Personal note: I'm in the Bay Area for a week after minicamp, Sunday July 29th to Sunday August 5th. Let's hang out, go to things together, help make my visit cooler! Mail me: paul at ciphergoth.org. Thanks!)