I asked this question for the Q&A: > Non-profit organizations like SI need robust, sustainable resource strategies. Donations and grants are not reliable. According to my university Social Entrepreneurship course, social businesses are the best resource strategy available. The Singularity Summit is a profitable and expanding example of a social...
Presenting: Shikamaru vs. the Logical Fallacies, a rationalist fanfic set in the Naruto universe and starring a realistically rational Shikamaru. The writer is a friend of mine going under the alias FanFicBias, and I am an editor along with the author. We welcome reviews on FanFiction.Net and both reviews and...
Me too.
If you do decide to try it, start with a very low dose.
Where this chain of reasoning breaks down for me is in the "without resistance" phase of "take right action without resistance". If the resistance, both conscious and unconscious, is too strong, there will be no right action taken, whether I will it or no. So what I do instead is undermine the resistance itself. This is my precondition for taking right action. Do you see what I mean? Wu-wei prevents hedonism if wu-wei is essential to hedonism but there can be no wu-wei.
The similarity between our approaches is as you say: the realization that akrasia defeats frontal assaults with heavy casualties. The difference is that you are doing something like the "take right action without resistance" approach that I've encountered before in Buddhism, which matches up nicely with anhedonia (personally I am a hedonist, so this does not work for me); while I am attempting to root out the basic causes of my akrasia, down to the very sources, to change the way I feel in the first place. Both approaches have their merits, and I agree that proper choice of approach relative to the individual depends on factors like personality and culture. Have you encountered any other indirect approaches to defeating akrasia, as we are attempting at present?
Two Disclaimers: First, I am not a doctor. Second, beware of other-optimizing. This advice is working well for me, but it may not work well for others.
The depression became obvious and major enough that I was forced to take action to stop it. The rationalizations had run dry, so I fully realized in both System 1 and System 2 that I was not "unmotivated", I was mentally ill. Years of life hacks and half-assed lifestyle interventions had accomplished some, but not enough, so it was time for medications, which I had previously feared due to bad experiences with bupropion years earlier.
The constraints in my investigation: something effective for major depressive disorder in... (read 510 more words →)
Agreed. Personal anecdote: once I redefined my "motivation problem" as a "depression and anxiety problem" a number of months ago, and began treating this depression and anxiety instead of wearily trying out yet another willpower hack, I have made more progress in being motivated in months than I had in the previous years.
Your point on a description of Harry's thinking is well-taken. I just had my brother submit this as a review, to err on the side of caution:
"With NickRoy's permission, I am submitting his solution, which I agree with, with additional evidence appended, just in case that is necessary; so consider this as superseding NickRoy's submission:
[the relevant text is here in the submission, but I don't need to repeat it in this comment]
Appended:
Harry does not know the full prophecy for certain, but he can guess it, based on: Harry's thought on star lifting in response to this prophecy in Ch. 21, Harry noticing Quirrelmort's interest in the same prophecy in Ch. 86, Quirrelmort's... (read more)
Voldemort would be skeptical, yes, but he would also be interested, because "6. It is impossible to tell lies in Parseltongue" and because all this speech has to do is raise the risk enough that it makes more sense to stop and gather more information before killing Harry, thus it "allow[s] Harry to evade immediate death". What do you think would improve the believability?
Sure. Along with the centaur evidence, there's: Harry's thought on star lifting in response to this prophecy in Ch. 21, Harry noticing Quirrelmort's interest in the same prophecy in Ch. 86, Quirrelmort's talk of the stars' vulnerability to "sufficiently intelligent idiocy" in Ch. 95, Voldemort's "while the stars yet live" remark in Ch. 111, Voldemort's more explicit talk on the prophecy and his great fear of it in the next chapter, and how the Unbreakable Vow is framed in the most recent chapter. If Harry connects these dots, he'll have a good idea of what the full prophecy says.
I asked this question for the Q&A:
Non-profit organizations like SI need robust, sustainable resource strategies. Donations and grants are not reliable. According to my university Social Entrepreneurship course, social businesses are the best resource strategy available. The Singularity Summit is a profitable and expanding example of a social business. Is SI planning on creating more social businesses (either related or unrelated to the organization's mission) to address long-term funding needs?
I also recently asked this of Luke for his feedback post before the Q&A was up, and he mentioned in his response that SI is continuing to grow the Summit brand in a multifarious manner. Luke also asked me for additional social business
Presenting: Shikamaru vs. the Logical Fallacies, a rationalist fanfic set in the Naruto universe and starring a realistically rational Shikamaru. The writer is a friend of mine going under the alias FanFicBias, and I am an editor along with the author.
We welcome reviews on FanFiction.Net and both reviews and discussion (naturally) are welcome here. We are looking to improve our work, so please be as honest and as harsh in constructive criticism as you like. Praise, however, is also always welcome!
This story does contain SPOILERS for the Naruto series. Readers who are unfamiliar with Naruto may have a hard time understanding what's going on, but it would still be interesting to hear... (read more)
Taken.