I’m not so much into stealing food, but nihilistic procrastination, yeah I’ve been there. I try to get myself out of it by asking if I would expect people of the opposite sex would find me attractive doing it.
In short whether I am being awesome. Which nihilistic procrastination is not, so it should not be done. Getting that thought out tends to be hard because I tend to do stuff that keeps the mind occupied.
Hugh Macleod (who I linked to in the parent) takes commissions. Not cheap—his clients are primarily businesses—but a Hugh Macleod cartoon of “Am I being awesome?” to put on the wall would be...awesome.
Awesomeness is a great razor when considering the best course of action, but my tendency to use it as the only criteria kept getting me in trouble. Legendary trouble.
But I’m thinking that “awesome” means “fitting with my ideals”, and is a useful and fun way to deflect both the apathy in question and the question itself by not really thinking, just following the programing. Recommendable.
First, people drastically overestimate the expected awesomeness of their plans and underestimate the expected awfulness.
(From now on, I will write just “awful” where I mean “expectedly awful”.)
The way to counteract this natural human bias is to cultivate a visceral aversion to any awful effects of one’s decisions and actions, and never to trade awful effects for even much larger awesome effects. (Some people are too scrupulous about avoiding awful effects, but most should be more scrupulous.) Sure, according to consequentialism, the ends do justify the means, but consequentialism should be used IMHO mainly to evaluate conflicting non-consequentialist systems of ethics. The human mind is too prone to self-serving biases and motivated cognition for anyone to run consequentialism straight.
The other reason this is bad advice for heterosexual men is that many straight women will tolerate extreme awfulness in a sexual partner if the partner has wealth or status. Crime bosses, for example, even convicted ones, have more—and probably better—sexual and relationship options than most men reading these words do.
So for a straight man I would modify parent’s advice about how to try to get himself out of nihilistic procrastination as follows: he should ask himself if he would expect a man he admires and would like to work with to find it attractive.
I didn’t mean it as planning advice, I meant it as evaluating your current action/state. That is you do not have to maximise it, you simply use it as a hack to stop doing things you would regret later, by expecting it to give you a little spurt of feeling awesome for having stopped doing the bad action.
Awesomeness is a person specific state as well as Echoing Horror noted. There is no point being attractive to the members of your preferred sex that are antithetical to your ideals.
Some women like men that can achieve things (even if it isn’t typical money+power), so any thing that helps you achieve your goals can be awesome. Be it Maths or learning ruby on rails.
I’m not so much into stealing food, but nihilistic procrastination, yeah I’ve been there. I try to get myself out of it by asking if I would expect people of the opposite sex would find me attractive doing it.
In short whether I am being awesome. Which nihilistic procrastination is not, so it should not be done. Getting that thought out tends to be hard because I tend to do stuff that keeps the mind occupied.
That is a brilliant heuristic. I am stealing it forever and ever.
Seconded.
T-shirt! Coffee mug slogan! Cube grenade! “Am I being awesome?”
Hugh Macleod (who I linked to in the parent) takes commissions. Not cheap—his clients are primarily businesses—but a Hugh Macleod cartoon of “Am I being awesome?” to put on the wall would be...awesome.
Awesomeness is a great razor when considering the best course of action, but my tendency to use it as the only criteria kept getting me in trouble. Legendary trouble.
But I’m thinking that “awesome” means “fitting with my ideals”, and is a useful and fun way to deflect both the apathy in question and the question itself by not really thinking, just following the programing. Recommendable.
Bad advice—on 2 levels.
First, people drastically overestimate the expected awesomeness of their plans and underestimate the expected awfulness.
(From now on, I will write just “awful” where I mean “expectedly awful”.)
The way to counteract this natural human bias is to cultivate a visceral aversion to any awful effects of one’s decisions and actions, and never to trade awful effects for even much larger awesome effects. (Some people are too scrupulous about avoiding awful effects, but most should be more scrupulous.) Sure, according to consequentialism, the ends do justify the means, but consequentialism should be used IMHO mainly to evaluate conflicting non-consequentialist systems of ethics. The human mind is too prone to self-serving biases and motivated cognition for anyone to run consequentialism straight.
The other reason this is bad advice for heterosexual men is that many straight women will tolerate extreme awfulness in a sexual partner if the partner has wealth or status. Crime bosses, for example, even convicted ones, have more—and probably better—sexual and relationship options than most men reading these words do.
So for a straight man I would modify parent’s advice about how to try to get himself out of nihilistic procrastination as follows: he should ask himself if he would expect a man he admires and would like to work with to find it attractive.
I didn’t mean it as planning advice, I meant it as evaluating your current action/state. That is you do not have to maximise it, you simply use it as a hack to stop doing things you would regret later, by expecting it to give you a little spurt of feeling awesome for having stopped doing the bad action.
Awesomeness is a person specific state as well as Echoing Horror noted. There is no point being attractive to the members of your preferred sex that are antithetical to your ideals.
Some women like men that can achieve things (even if it isn’t typical money+power), so any thing that helps you achieve your goals can be awesome. Be it Maths or learning ruby on rails.