I think it's important that zigdon only talked about things he would ask of other people in his comment, and you only talked about things you would do for other people in yours. I think that's the source of the difference. In particular, you're talking about going out of your way for other people who did not necessarily ask you to, which is a pretty different kettle of worms from making and accepting requests. He's not describing what he's willing to do for his friends; he's describing how big a request he's comfortable making of his friends. Choices about which requests to accept and when to be altruistic without prompting (which is what your examples sound like) use different heuristics.

(I'm comfortable speaking for zigdon a little bit because I know him fairly well, but I'll nudge him to fill those in himself if he cares to.)

I totally agree with you--I just find that a different enough thing from simple role reversal that I wouldn't call it that.

Your example about money is one that comes up a lot for me. I've been a student for only a few weeks, but I've been unemployed and broke for more than a year, and do my best to avoid awkwardness about it--I'll accept someone covering me but try to make sure they don't feel obliged to. I do worry about it happening too often, though, because while I certainly would repay the favor given the means, I'm not going to have the means in the forseeable future.

Just looking at the second paragraph, I don't think I agree with your definition of an unreasonable request. I think very few exchanges are really equal, but that doesn't make all interactions unreasonable.

In my mind, the stronger your relationship is, the more uneven the request could be. You could ask a stranger in the movies to perhaps remove their hat, but you can ask your best friend to watch your cats for 3 weeks.

I suspect that part of the reason it's okay to ask more of people with whom you have stronger relationships is that there is an expectation that they will at some point ask the same of you. The stranger in the movie you're never likely to see again. But your best friend will be around when YOU go out of town for a month. It's not really a "they'll be around to repay the favour" as much as "over the expected lifetime of the relationship there will be enough back-and-forth to come out even".

Thanks, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

This one is fairly easy to solve: flip the roles in your head.

I actually don't agree with this, for reasons suggested by the power balance discussions going on elsewhere. The two people aren't the same; notably, they have different needs, wants, and capabilities. Even in a roughly equal relationship, the participants are able to give each other different things; it's reasonable to ask for something the other person can give, but which you could not give them.

This does a good job of defining the gray area in which it's hard to answer this question, though: it's when asking for something which one of you could give but the other could not. (If you could give it, it might seem reasonable when it isn't; if the other could give it, it might seem unreasonable when it isn't.)

OK, I'll try and answer with fairly straight-forward points, as you seem to be in need of practical ways of judging these kinds of decisions:

1) When thinking about "things that need changing", it is very important to know two things first: a) How important is it to you? b) How easy is it to obtain?

You then decide if or not the combination of the two surpasses your "internal threshold". Or, if you're so inclined, think of it as an equation: if (difficulty / importance) > threshold: go for it.

In human language: If something is important to you, but it is extremely/impossibly difficult, you might want to just let it go. This is basically what the prayer alludes to.

Of course, you realize by now that the wisdom actually lies in being able to judge importance, difficulty and your internal threshold. This is something which you will simply have to practice all your life. If you keep yourself mindful about what worked/what didn't work and what made you happy/what didn't, this is doable.

Another helpful tip in this area is to realize that your idea of what is important is inherently subjective. Most philosophical thinkers will then tell you that you should tune down the importance of "need" (for physical stuff especially) and tune up the importance of moral values (e.g. loyalty, etc).

2) This one is fairly easy to solve: flip the roles in your head. What if someone were to ask you in exactly the same circumstances for the same thing? What would you feel about that? This should give you guidance in the appropriateness of the question. (This is by the way pretty much the "do unto others as you would them do unto you" rule.)

3) Productivity that simultaneously makes you unhappy while doing it and provides you with long-term happiness is as undesirable as non-productivity ("comfort") that makes you happy in the instant and unhappy in the long-term. Why not go for productivity and non-productivity that makes you happy both in the instant AND in the long-term? None of these things are mutually exclusive. Breaking this down is fairly easy: do a job you enjoy (no excuses!) and give yourself well-deserved breaks when you've earned them (no excuses). Neither of those situations should make you feel guilty in the slightest, otherwise you're doing something wrong.

Psychologically, consider this: in the long-term, you will only remember the fun and exciting bits (both work-wise and leisure-wise). You will not even remember the "hard but boring work" in a few years! This implies that your long-term happiness relies on being able to aggregate whole series of happy memories, none of the boring bits are important.

Caveat 1: Sometimes you do have to do something you don't enjoy. Just don't make it a life-style. Caveat 2: Some "comfort" gives you as little positive memories as boring work does. I'd put doing drugs and playing a lot of video-games in that category, but you can make up your own mind about that.

Your idea of "otherwise-sane people" seems off to me. "Sanity" is not a binary equation, a switch that you can flip on or off. In fact, you're probably well aware that extremely rational people are susceptible to a lot of the same psychological effect as "the rest". And there is no reason to think that awareness of such effects as mass hysteria is a full-proof shield for it.

In any case, on to your question. A room full of hardcore scientists can still easily be fooled by a skilled magician and if they are not told they are dealing with a magician, they can even be fooled into a "shared vivid hallucination". Worse still, in all likelihood some of these hypothetical scientists and "otherwise-sane people" might be the most prominent defenders of their "observations".