I'm not saying (or thinking) that your decision to take up Salsa wasn't perfectly rational. What I do think is my decision not to do such a thing is also perfectly rational, which is probably why I had a negative emotional reaction to your very... vehement advocacy. In the case of archery, the structure of the discussion I gathered is: you said it was much inferior in health benefits to other activities - somebody brought up that it was simply fun - and you replied essentially that, well, then you should learn to find better things fun! That struck me as somewhat bizarre, because you were so forcefully condemning hobbies that were not optimal according to your metric without taking into account that other people may have other metrics and/or be constrained by various circumstances.
At this point, it's become pretty clear to me that the reason I voiced this objection was that I perceived you as arguing so vehemently that I felt essentially I was being told that I'm irrational because I like the wrong things.
because you were so forcefully condemning hobbies that were not optimal according to your metric without taking into account that other people may have other metrics and/or be constrained by various circumstances.
This is a discussion. If I argue against something being wrong by a certain metric X but the person thinks metric Y is more important and has an argument for why the activity fulfills metric Y then I'm happy to hear that argument.
I'm happy to get such an analysis because it might tell me something about archery that I don't know. It might also ...
On ChrisHallquist's post extolling the virtues of money, the top comment is Eliezer pointing out the lack of concrete examples. Can anyone think of any? This is not just hypothetical: if I think your suggestion is good, I will try it (and report back on how it went)
I care about health, improving personal skills (particularly: programming, writing, people skills), gaining respect (particularly at work), and entertainment (these days: primarily books and computer games). If you think I should care about something else, feel free to suggest it.
I am early-twenties programmer living in San Francisco. In the interest of getting advice useful to more than one person, I'll omit further personal details.
Budget: $50/day
If your idea requires significant ongoing time commitment, that is a major negative.