You provide an argument for how "do not marry" could be derived from "do not divorce". Without endorsing either of those claims, you still presumably endorse the reasoning mechanism you yourself introduced.
The structure of the argument you provide is "if X is sufficiently important then Y (which helps in bringing about X) is good advice" (ceteris paribus).
I show you why the above reasoning structure that you used is too general by showing how it would equally prop up e.g. the "not eating marmalade sufficiently important" -> "suicide as the surest way to avoid eating marmalade" step. Using your very own argument; which you apparently accept in one case, yet reject in the other.
Now, I'm glad you agree that an application of the very same kind of reasoning you provided just as easily leads to "utterly absurd" claims, as made evident by checking it against border cases.
Why then do you still defend its use in your initial comment?
Concerning the "all else being equal", you evidently missed the "... while keeping all the myriad other goals constant". I'm sure you appreciate the irony.
Let's go back to DEFCON 5 now.
This is an extension of a comment I made that I can't find and also a request for examples. It seems plausible that, when giving advice, many people optimize for deepness or punchiness of the advice rather than for actual practical value. There may be good reasons to do this - e.g. advice that sounds deep or punchy might be more likely to be listened to - but as a corollary, there could be valuable advice that people generally don't give because it doesn't sound deep or punchy. Let's call this boring advice.
An example that's been discussed on LW several times is "make checklists." Checklists are great. We should totally make checklists. But "make checklists" is not a deep or punchy thing to say. Other examples include "google things" and "exercise."
I would like people to use this thread to post other examples of boring advice. If you can, provide evidence and/or a plausible argument that your boring advice actually is useful, but I would prefer that you err on the side of boring but not necessarily useful in the name of more thoroughly searching a plausibly under-searched part of advicespace.
Upvotes on advice posted in this thread should be based on your estimate of the usefulness of the advice; in particular, please do not vote up advice just because it sounds deep or punchy.