Group Rationality Diary, May 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 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: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 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: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

That person fails precisely in the "have a small safe income to pay your bills" part.

He also horribly fails at updating. His whole plan seems to be writing emacs tutorials and selling them for money. (I didn't read the whole website, maybe there are more plans, most likely not better.) Besides being an obviously bad business model, he is actually very bad at writing; which means he can't even show his tutorials to a potential employer and expect to get a technical writing job or something like that.

This is something that cannot happen in the "library" scenario. At least not soon; maybe a few years later, if the library job becomes unavailable. On the other hand, it can happen in the "moving to a larger city where no one responds to my job applications" scenario, if the potential employers keep not-responding, there is no income, and the rent goes up. But I didn't want to discourage; it only takes one job offer to get out of that situation.

For another horror story, I personally know a guy who decided that he will refuse all programming job offers until he gets an offer using SmallTalk (because "Java is only for idiots", although he made decent money from it in the past). He had a lot of money when he decided to do this, now, a few years later, he is homeless. True story. (If you ever visit Slovakia and find a homeless guy with a notebook, that's probably him.) Again, he failed at having a small safe income. That's the point. You either have some way to pay your bills, or you quit your plans before you hit the bottom and break your legs.

Most people seek "paying your bills" and "making a carreer" in the same package. It's probably a good strategy in many cases. But there are other options, too.

I knew a guy who worked for government. He told me he only worked one hour a week. (His work consisted of receiving a Word document with some information, converting in to HTML, and publishing on the website.) He spent rest of the time browsing web. When he discovered that the new version of Word has a "save as HTML" function, so his one hour of work becomes literally ten seconds, he became depressed, and later changed jobs. I kinda didn't understand him. If I had that job, I wouldn't quit. Instead, I would use this free time to do my hobbies and projects. Like translating Sequences, making websites for my friends, writing textbooks, learning new programming languages, making computer games, etc. And I would gradually prepare an exit plan, so that one day I would quit the job, but the next day I would activate AdSense on the dozen websites I would have made before, and activate purchases of virtual goods in the mobile games I would have made before. (To make it legally okay, that I wasn't making money while working for the government.) These are lost opportunities. And maybe... maybe not... the library is one of them.

Viliam_Bur: Thank you for the suggestions and the examples. I have decided to take the job and spend a couple of years gaining experience here with a pay rate that, while not large, is enough. The job is not such that I can sit on my laurels, so I will be active in the community which will encourage my own personal development and establish contacts. I'll still have free time to write and practice new skills. And, though the money is actually less than I originally was told, I should still have at least two hundred a month to add into my investment porfoli... (read more)

1gwern12y

The comments in the lengthy HN discussion suggest that his tutorials & other documentation are well-written, it's just his personal stuff which is written in his horrible idiosyncratic style.