Group Rationality Diary, June 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for June 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Previous diary: May 16-31

Next diary: June 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for June 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Previous diary: May 16-31

Next diary: June 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

I just made this decision about 5 minutes ago, so I'm posting it here as some form of commitment to stick to it.

A while ago, I decided to make a Minecraft adventure map. An embarrassing amount of time was invested into making it, but sizable progress was made in that time. That's what kept me going. The feeling of making progress on a big personal project.

But taking an outside view on it...

How much time will it take to complete? A whole hell of a lot more.

What could I do in that time instead? Make more friends, learn a programming language or two, plenty of stuff.

What will probably happen if it is completed? I will probably get a few dozen downloads of the map and that's it.

What benefits will accrue by completing it? Not enough to justify the time spent on it.

Somebody is calling this project an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. How would I respond? Hang my head in shame.

Is it fun? Somewhat, but much more fun things could probably be done with the time instead.

So I give up. It's a really huge sunk cost by this point, and it feels terrible that I used so much time on something I just abandoned halfway through, but every time I imagine what someone smarter than me would say, it is some variant of "Finally you realize it now." Time to walk away from Minecraft, permanently.

It reminds me greatly my making of conlangs (artificial languages). While I find it creative, it takes vehement amounts of time to just create a simple draft and an arduous work to make satisfactory material. And all I'd get is just two or three people calling it cool and showing just a small interest. And I always know I'll get bored with that language in few days and never make as much as to translate simple texts.

And yet every now and then I get an amazing idea and can't stop myself from "wasting" hours, planning and writing about some conlang... (read more)

13Punoxysm12y

You could have also spent that time watching TV or surfing reddit. I'd rank a half-finish project that genuinely used your creative energy above those sorts of things. I guarantee you most of the people on this site have a mountain of similar half-finished projects.