Open Thread February 25 - March 3

Scott Garrabrant

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I'm curious about usage of commitment tools such as Beeminder: What's the income distribution among users? How much do users usually wind up paying? Is there a correlation between these?

(Selfish reasons: I'm on SSI and am not allowed to have more than $2000 at any given time. Losing $5 is all but meaningless for someone with $10k in the bank who makes $5k each month, whereas losing $5 for me actually has an impact. You might think this would be a stronger incentive to meet a commitment, but really, it's an even stronger incentive to stay the hell away from commitment contracts. I've failed at similar such things before, and have yet to find a reliable means of getting the behavior I want to happen, so it looks like using such tools is a good way to commit slow suicide, in the absence of different data. But Beeminder is so popular in the LWSphere that I thought it worth asking. Being wrong would be to my advantage, here.)

Remember that it may work for you or it might not. Try and see.

Beeminder didn't work at all for me, I found it was all sticks and no carrot.

6trist12y

I've never used Beeminder, but I find social commitment works well instead. Even teling someone who has no way to check aside from asking me helps a lot. That might be less effective if you're willing to lie though. An alternative would be to exchange commitments with a friend, proportional to your incomes...

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Open Thread February 25 - March 3

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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Open Thread February 25 - March 3

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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