Quantified hedonism - Personal Key Performance Indicators

The phrase burn the boats comes from the VIking practice of burning boats on the shore before invading so they have to win and settle. No retreat, it's an inspiring analogy, but I heard it in the context of another Real Social Dynamics video, so the implication is to approach sets as if there is no retreat? Bizaare, those guys.....anyway that RSDPapa video suggested that personal KPI's were useful. What's measured gets improved, or so the saying goes. So which KPI's should you choose? After some though, I reckon psychological distress, a construct referring to anxiety and depression which conceptualise enduring hedonic losses, and PERMA, a construct referring to the key determinants of subject well-being, seem like appropriate KPI's.

So how do you measure them? There are validated psychological scales for each.

Psychological distress

PERMA:

• Positive emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning - no known scale?
• Achievement?

Unfortunately, things get a bit tricky here with achievement. Many psychological scales are paywalled such that you need to buy them specifically (academic institution access is insufficient). If anyone can post a workaround.. :)

• Achievement

If you administer these scales on yourself monthly, you can start to build a picture of your hedonic progress in life, quantitatively, albeit abstractly. Too difficult for you? Try this unvalidated scale for PERMA.

Tourism isn't this esoteric, life changing right of passage experience people will tell you that it is

Or: Why I would want to move to the Cayman Islands (but I don't have retirement savings of substance or hospital or finance career capital)

I think the urge to travel just to see different countries is a kind of OCD. Unhealthy! The way tourism tends to work commodifies it. It doesn’t accrue that benefit that experience hunting usually does, hedonically. Plus, it’s super expensive and moving tends to accrue hedonic costs anyway. Even though climate does accrue hedonic benefits, it would be unsustainable and lead to negative self past comparison since you are returning to your home country. Not to mention when you travel you tend to compromise on your lifestyle - fitness, exercise, relationships, nutrition, sleep...unacceptable!

Virtual tourism. It’s my new hobby. Sure, it might be interesting to check out the Northern Lights or mecca (both literally desserts, that you are paying for!) but really any place can, by a business or government, be turned into a tourist spot with a bit of work. In real time, moment to moment, I find travellng super boring except when it’s ongoing constant novelty of like, sitting on the roof of a van in a rural area, or I’m on my computer!

I keep hearing about how great travel is. My conclusion is that no, it's not worth the cost. Or at least, the component I thought they were referring to - sight seeing, isn't. Other parts of travel are okay, but certainly not lifechanging after the first or second time of eye-openingness.

Case study: Machu Pichu. If that rock in Guatape was difficult enough, consider the downsides of Machu Pichu to get your mind off it. Then put the nail in the coffin with the danger statistics. Consolation prize? Machu pichu on Google street view.

So what is worthwhile when travelling. One, of course, is doing so with the intend of moving - when a place has better opportunities than your past residence. Let's consider a case that will be relevant to already very high standard of living Westerners - moving to the Carribean. Because really, I can find no better place one might like to move than the Cayman Islands. English is spoken, close to the US and UK, Strategic advantages in the financial industry, without a unsophisticated undiversified economy, as with the rest of the Carribean competitors honestly that tend to dependent on fish or petrol. And, you're in the Carribean, with enviable climate (a known determinant of subjective wellbeing!). It's a country that knows the importance of having a strategic advantage that doesn't mean it's just a mine, like say Australia, where pushes to develop a more sophisticated economy have failed and derived, which I think is a good sign of a country that won't thrive in the 21st century....anywho, Google Images the place, it looks way better than the rest of Central and South America and the Carribean as a whole! I'm very suprised I don't see it topping lists of expat wellbeing or quality of life indexes but I guess it gets it might get missed cause of its size. With the greater income inequality, you can probably hire a personal chef even as a minimum wage worker from the Western world to cook you Chinese food or whatever it is you want, healthy and convenient (not to mention they can belp with maintenance and such).

Alas, maybe I am just in a bad mood. I am travelling right now and have a return flight that is way too far away and I have nothing I left I want to do on this continent. It sucks when the street smells like shit, it's dusty and smoggy enough to irritate your eyes, cars are loud and dangerous, people are suspicious and don't move out of the way, and the hotel locks up early for the night, but you don't know exactly when, and after a certain time you can't buy water outside so if you don't have enough you go thirsty and non-brushed cause the water from the tap is unsafe. At least I came across this which will aid my quest to become a better blogger: This is effective copywriting and feedback giving.

Open questions

Thoughts on the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover archetypes? Useful?

Cause prioritisation - community vs institutions*

I'm interested in crowdsourcing identifying disparities between community and institutional cause prioritisation attitudes.

If you could spare a minute could you please rate from 1-10, with a _ _% rating of your estimates of the:

• (1) potential impact
• (2) prospective neglectedness
• (3) political tractability

...of individual media campaigns that would advocate for public debate, discussion and law reform without a specific agenda around each of the following areas:

• (a) labour mobility
• (b) tobacco control (incl. smoking in developing countries)
• (c) risks from artificial intelligence
• (d) research re-prioritisation and infrastructure
• (e) factory farming
• (f) biosecurity
• (g) land use reform
• (h) developing world health
• (i) nuclear security
• (j) trade reform
• (k) migration
• (l) humanitarian aid
• (m) lizardmen

Thank you.

In place of a media thread

Extraordinary series - check out 'how women judge men'

experience often doesn’t matter as much as GMA (g factor) for job performance. - parenthesis mine - GMA is an unconventional term, 'g' is more common.

precommitment smart contracts for happiness and health

I feel horrible saying this but I think I would be really upset if I had a kid (adopted or genetic) and they were born or become mentally handicapped or miserable like my biggest fear. It can happen whether you adopt (e.g. car crash) or your give birth, so I will not get myself a dependent. You can't give them away without suffering lots of hedonic and altruistic losses, anyhow! But, once you get 'clucky and partnered, things change!

Maybe I should do one of those things where I give a trusted reliable person (perhaps even a independent (commercial? automated?) service that does this so they won't pity me) information I don't want revealed (like linking all my personal and contact details of this account!) to if I have children to pre-empt doing so! I could put in a waiver for if the weight of objective evidence for having children increasing my happiness according to a tribunal of them and a selected few other intelligent, educated, good-willed people shifts.