As a teenager I spent 7 years in military school. They adopted the army ethos that if something under your responsibility goes wrong, you get punished. Regardless of whether you could have done anything about it. Trying to produce excuses usually led to being cut off with “I don’t care” followed by increasing the punishment.
This had an interesting effect—if you know you are going to be punished regardless of excuses, you stop thinking about excuses and start trying to head off problems. It’s like the Karate Kid approach to teaching murphyjitsu. From “you can’t possibly blame me for the rain” to “hey, what’s our backup plan if it rains during training”.
It could have equally gone the other way into learned helplessness though, so I don’t know whether it’s a good approach. But perhaps that refocusing could be achieved in other ways? Maybe simply making a rule of never offering excuses—just apologise, make reparations / accept punishment and move on.
… when someone has transgressed a norm we become rightfully wary that they may do it again. The power of apologies, according to Martin, lies in the fact that they help to mitigate this threat of future transgression. They indicate that the person recognises the transgression and is willing to take steps to make sure it does not happen again. [...]
You must make some effort to change yourself (or your organisation) in order to ensure that the same thing does not happen again. The artful way to do this is to demonstrate change, i.e. to show that you are actually doing something. The non-artful way is to be complacent, i.e. to not demonstrate any changes.
If your apology doesn’t include an explanation of why you wronged and how you are not going to do it again, then it’s likely to be ineffective, since the other person has no reason to assume that you even understood what went wrong, nor that you know what you need to do in order to avoid repeating the mistake in the future. (As that linked article notes, there is a difference between an apology and an excuse in general, but here you seem to be using “excuse” as a synonym for “explanation”.)
“You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe,” Harry Potter said. “Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it’s always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she’s not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn’t an excuse, someone else being in charge isn’t an excuse, even trying your best isn’t an excuse. There just aren’t any excuses, you’ve got to get the job done no matter what.” -HPMOR Chapter 75
That analysis of Eliezer is false. He found a low-spoons activity that had a good shot of being high impact. I believe he continued to (and continues to) spend all of his actual spoons on his mainline saving the world plan.
As a teenager I spent 7 years in military school. They adopted the army ethos that if something under your responsibility goes wrong, you get punished. Regardless of whether you could have done anything about it. Trying to produce excuses usually led to being cut off with “I don’t care” followed by increasing the punishment.
This had an interesting effect—if you know you are going to be punished regardless of excuses, you stop thinking about excuses and start trying to head off problems. It’s like the Karate Kid approach to teaching murphyjitsu. From “you can’t possibly blame me for the rain” to “hey, what’s our backup plan if it rains during training”.
It could have equally gone the other way into learned helplessness though, so I don’t know whether it’s a good approach. But perhaps that refocusing could be achieved in other ways? Maybe simply making a rule of never offering excuses—just apologise, make reparations / accept punishment and move on.
The problem with this rule is that a decent apology is commonly seen as including an explanation:
If your apology doesn’t include an explanation of why you wronged and how you are not going to do it again, then it’s likely to be ineffective, since the other person has no reason to assume that you even understood what went wrong, nor that you know what you need to do in order to avoid repeating the mistake in the future. (As that linked article notes, there is a difference between an apology and an excuse in general, but here you seem to be using “excuse” as a synonym for “explanation”.)
Go read Aaron Lazare “on apology” for a more complete picture of apology.
“You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe,” Harry Potter said. “Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it’s always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she’s not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn’t an excuse, someone else being in charge isn’t an excuse, even trying your best isn’t an excuse. There just aren’t any excuses, you’ve got to get the job done no matter what.” -HPMOR Chapter 75
Reality doesn’t grade on a curve.
That advice is ironic, considering that Eliezer started writing HPMOR while procrastinating on his save-the-world rationality book.
Reality doesn’t grade you. Only you can grade yourself. Or you can do what you like and screw the grades :-)
That analysis of Eliezer is false. He found a low-spoons activity that had a good shot of being high impact. I believe he continued to (and continues to) spend all of his actual spoons on his mainline saving the world plan.