
Beware of Other-Optimizing (2009) - 0x54MUR41
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6NvbSwuSAooQxxf7f/beware-of-other-optimizing
======
inglor
The article makes a fair point which I'm having a hard time agreeing with
based on anecdotal evidence.

A lot of my habits and hobbies stemmed from other people giving me advice.
This includes the physical activities I do, meditation, certain technologies
and ways of learning and so on. I am incredibly grateful to the people who
introduced me to those things.

I will gladly give out similar advice to others. Advice from other people
rather than summarised data and their personal experience has been invaluable
for my personal growth.

I think it's important to acknowledge there are a lot of unknowns and give
advice in a personal way "this worked for me" vs. "this is how it should be
done". I think that if advice is given from a place of "here's something cool
to maybe try" and not "here's what you should do" then it's pretty great -
people just tend to like absolutes a lot better since they're simpler.

Edit: Not to mention the "You should check out this programming thing, it's
pretty cool" which led to a fulfilling career which I love.

~~~
inglor
Also, if a startup solves this for me (hobby and habit matching for an
individual) I will pay $1000 for it or use a subscription service.

These things are very time consuming and there has to be a better way to match
people with ideas.

I think that finding things you can rock at and self efficacy is very
important for career development and I spend considerable amounts of time on
my hobbies.

------
analog31
I once read a hypothesis, which is that _all self help advice works_ because
it makes people pay more attention to their own behavior for a while. And my
own observation is that ideas for becoming more self disciplined always work
for unusually self disciplined people.

Another view of mine is that it's one thing to be rational, and another to be
a good debater. I consider myself to be reasonably rational, but it doesn't
mean I should be at the mercy of someone who's a better debater than I am.

I'm a terrible debater. What it means is that if you present me with a
seemingly well reasoned argument, I might have to find some socially
acceptable way of declining your advice, well short of refuting it. I might
think about your ideas, or I might not, but I won't make any promises on the
spot.

>>> Sometimes—I suppose—people are being lazy.

It may be that laziness is an acquired behavioral trait that confers a
survival advantage under some conditions. I'm lazy. I make my living inventing
gadgets that remove the effort from difficult tasks. Assigning "laziness" is
just an _ad hominem_ argument anyway.

It seems possible that a lot of our seemingly "irrational" traits actually
allow us to survive in a social environment where other people are trying to
manipulate us. Traits such as stubbornness and habit may have evolved for this
reason.

------
dcminter
I'm baffled by this bit:

> "Different things are true for different people" (which is simply false).

I mean, "English is the easiest language to understand" is clearly true for me
and untrue for others. I suppose one could couch it in terms of the specific
point of view but that seems to be finesseing away the counter argument.

I presume I'm missing something. What's the author getting at here?

~~~
jstanley
The statement "English is the easiest language to understand" is either true
or false, and doesn't reference any specific speaker. It may or may not be the
"easiest language to understand _for a specific person_ ", but that is a
different statement, which is also either true or false.

~~~
kgwgk
If it doesn't refer to any speaker at all it will be neither true nor false.
It will just be meaningless.

------
throwawayjava
tl;dr: Everyone is different. Don't be that weirdo who tries to push advice
from random internet listicles on people.

Aside: if a board member tells you that you don't need a raise because you can
use fucking coupon books, and you don't immediately get extremely offended,
then maybe you're under-rating common sense and over-rating "rationalism"...

~~~
Bjartr
What is the value in being offended, like, ever? Surely if you could genuinely
acheive your goals by leveraging coupon books, wouldn't that be worth
considering? And, if after consideration, you Vickie it's not a viable
substitute to a raise, you'll have an understanding of why it won't work
beyond "well it offended me". Assuming that the math work or such that using
coupons would result in the same outcome from the perspective of your bank
statement, the most likely reasons I can think of are either status (you don't
get any from using coupons, but you do for having a higher salary), or the
externalities if putting a coupon book habit into place and the overhead of
actually using them.

Of course the problem in the article was really one of communication. If the
only problem to be solved was "keeping up with inflation" then coupon books
could be a solution... once, until inflation continues and overcomes the
buying power provided by the coupons. However it's a communication problem
because the problem isn't "keep up with inflation", it's "maintain a
consistent quality of life despite inflation". The latter would have meant the
overhead of the coupons was a non starter unless they actually increased QoL
beyond merely overcoming the impact of inflation on my back statement, which,
they don't.

It's a bit of a ramble as I've written it here, but this is the approach I
find valuable (not saying you _should_ do the same, only that I find it works
well for me), and I would never take the time to do this kind of thinking if I
rejected ideas that "should offend me" without consideration.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> What is the value in being offended, like, ever?_

It's a good bullshit detector. Instead of wasting time dealing with my board
member's asinine suggestions, I can study interview questions and get a job at
an employer that doesn't suck.

An employer who suggests coupon books in lieu of CoL adjusted salaries is
probably out-of-touch or manipulative in a lot of other ways. Call me
irrational, but I don't want to spend my days working for a super manipulative
employer...

 _> Surely if you could genuinely acheive your goals by leveraging coupon
books, wouldn't that be worth considering?_

Sure. But in lieu of raises that keep up with CoL? Hell No.

 _> you'll have an understanding of why it won't work beyond "well it offended
me"._

Again, I suggested common sense!

Until I start seeing 2 for 1 mortgages, 1/2 off gasoline, BOGO surgeries, and
25% off tuition in coupon books? Well, it doesn't even take a spreadsheet for
me to know that the things moving my CoL up aren't stocked in the Target or
grocery stores...

Again, hyper-rationalism that distracts you from using common sense is silly.

 _> However it's a communication problem because the problem isn't "keep up
with inflation", it's "maintain a consistent quality of life despite
inflation"._

CoL is a quantitative measure of QoL. I'm having a really hard time imagining
situations where inflation in the face of stagnant wages doesn't translate
into lower QoL. Especially for folks who work for a living.

 _> and I would never take the time to do this kind of thinking if I rejected
ideas that "should offend me" without consideration._

So you would really response neutrally to your employer handing out coupon
books instead of annual raises?

Then you're being had.

~~~
Bjartr
> I suggested common sense!

Common sense is far from infallible and in the face of an apparent in-good-
faith suggestion I'm willing to question my common sense rather than follow it
blindly. Note that this isn't the same as ignoring it, I'm just willing to
admit that I might be wrong to start with.

> Until I start seeing 2 for 1 mortgages, 1/2 off gasoline, BOGO surgeries,
> and 25% off tuition in coupon books?

If I were really offered coupons as a solution to CoL, I would look into if
such things existed. Sometimes what exists if you care to look for it can
surprise you.

> So you would really response neutrally to your employer handing out coupon
> books instead of annual raises?

Realistically I would react as follows:

A) Immediate surprise and perhaps some incredulity depending on how the
suggestion was delivered, but still thank them for the suggestion and let them
know I would consider it.

B) Knowing basically nothing about using coupon books in this context, I'd
take a few tens of minutes to look into how viable such a solution would be.

C) Conclude that while potentially useful in isolation, the overhead involved
in implementing the suggestion wipes out the usefulness.

D) Return to my employer and inform them that their suggestion is not a viable
solution and that I wish to continue salary negotiations in good faith.

This whole process would take less than a day.

------
3pt14159
Eh. I disagree.

Somethings really are just a matter of simple advice.

I read a reddit thread where old people were asked what they wished they did
different about 7 years ago. I started flossing daily. I quit smoking. I
stopped consuming first pop and, later, 95% of my other refined sugar intake.
I started biking to get around. I started running. I started doing body weight
mobility exercises. I started standing while working for half of the day.

I read in that thread how one of the older people said that the key to getting
a new habit to stick was to do it multiple times per week and to not try to
change anything else until it had normalized. I'm not sure if that works for
everyone, but it really worked for me. Once every month or so I'd introduce a
new small change.

I'm so much healthier and attractive now than I was back then. It's changed
everything about me. My politics. My mind set. I even came to accept that I
wasn't just attracted to women.

This article seems to be attacking something that I also agree should be
attacked[0] but he throws the baby out with the bath water. The truth is,
unless there is a serious medical condition involved, it is simple to lose
weight. It is simple to have a healthy body. It is simple to have a healthy
mouth and to keep your teeth into old age.

What's hard is changing your default reaction to information. It's the
perceived threat to your sense of self-worth. Some people never learn this
lesson or never fully embrace it. If you have the right mind set and someone
says "you should eat more veggies and less sugar" the humble person says "how
do you make those taste good?"[1] instead of scoffing.

[0] Those incessant listicle articles and garbage _one-simple-trick_ magazine
advice articles.

[1] If I ever write an article on how to eat healthy I'm going to spend 50% or
more of it on how to have food taste great[2]. The Atkins / keto crowd get
flavour by default because fat and meat is naturally flavourful.

[2] Coles notes below.

Salads:

Find fresh herbs, learn what they're useful for, and use them everywhere you
can. For salads mix some combination of olive oil, butter, mustard, finely
chopped raw garlic, an anchovy or three, salt, pepper. Don't use store bought
salad dressing it's loaded with garbage.

Favour mixed greens, kale, and shredded veggies over lettuce.

Breakfast:

Omelettes, make sure to get the right pan and jiggle the eggs. I prefer thyme,
mushroom, onion, soy sauce, red hot chillies combos; but red onion, dill, and
goat cheese is good too.

If time is a concern you can pre-make breakfast burritos and freeze them or
look up overnight oats. When you're not that hungry eat a banana or other
fruit. Berries taste better the smaller they are.

