Ooh, I think there’s a lot of implicit Beeminder criticism here that I’m eager to understand better. Thanks for writing this up!
We previously argued against similar claims—https://blog.beeminder.com/blackmail/ -- and said that the “just get the different parts of yourself to get along” school of thought was insufficiently specific about how to do that. But here you’ve suggested some smart, specific ideas and they sound good!
My other Beeminder defense is that there are certain bare minimums that you know it would be irrational to fall below. So I recommend having the Beeminder goal as insurance and then also implementing all the strategies you describe. If those strategies work and it’s easy-peasy to stay well above Beeminder’s bright red line, then wonderful. Conflict avoided. If those strategies happen to fail, Beeminder will catch you. (Also you get a nice graph of your progress, quantified-self-style.)
PS: More recently we had a post about how compatible Beeminder turns out to be with CBT which I think also argues against the dichotomy you’re implying here with Conflict vs Cooperation. https://blog.beeminder.com/cbt/
Didn’t expect this reply, thanks for taking your time. I do mention Beeminder briefly at one point, and yes, a lot of the post is about how beeminder-esque motivational strategies tend to backfire.
To start with: I have friends that thrive on coercive motivational strategies. I’m pretty sure my claims aren’t universally applicable. However, coercive approaches seems to be a strong cultural norm, and a lot of people use coercive strategies in unskillful ways (leading to procrastination etc). These people might find a lot of value in trying out non-coercive motivational strategies.
Reading your linked pages, I start thinking about what makes coercive motivations (or “self-discipline”, as you write on your page) a good fit for some and a bad fit for others. Might write up something about that on my substack in the future, I’ll link it to LW if I remember. Also, I’m curious is there a pre/trans dynamic here, where non-coercion after coercison is different to non-coercion from the beginning.
As for your concrete claims:
What are the “smart, specific ideas” I suggested? In this post I mainly attempted to describe what not to do, and ended with some basic non-coercion. I’m curious what you found valuable.
Re: bare minimum that would be irrational to fall below/insurance. Maybe this is correct! I think I would find it hard to mix strategies in this way, since coersion vs non-coersion are pretty far apart as paradigms. A lot of the difference is about how you view yourself. I’m concerned that the coercion might “leak” through, if you keep it as a plan B. But then again, I haven’t thought about this, so take it with a pinch of salt :)
Re: CBT & “Conflict vs Cooperation” (I interpret as coersion vs non-coersion). This feedback really tickled my nerd-spot. I’m a practicing stoic, and CBT is basically stoicism without the ontologies/eudaimonia.
In my mind, CBT/Stoicism is about shifting personality traits and behavior patterns through changing actions, judgements and thought patterns.
These are interconnected, in just the way you’re saying, and I agree that it’s possible to bootstrap new thought patterns by changing one’s actions.
However, this is orthogonal to my post. I’m not claiming that coercive motivational strategies are bad because they are “shallow”, I’m claiming that they are bad because they lead to unnecessary friction, and might be full-out counter-productive since it’s easy to misuse and act in unskillful ways. The “it doesn’t affect fundamental things, we need to be holistic” is a common critique of CBT therapy as well, and I always find it ironic. I find it ironic because the critique assumes it’s possible to shift actions without affecting personality, which is a non-holistic perspective on the psyche. Hoisted by their own petard.
Ooh, I think there’s a lot of implicit Beeminder criticism here that I’m eager to understand better. Thanks for writing this up!
We previously argued against similar claims—https://blog.beeminder.com/blackmail/ -- and said that the “just get the different parts of yourself to get along” school of thought was insufficiently specific about how to do that. But here you’ve suggested some smart, specific ideas and they sound good!
My other Beeminder defense is that there are certain bare minimums that you know it would be irrational to fall below. So I recommend having the Beeminder goal as insurance and then also implementing all the strategies you describe. If those strategies work and it’s easy-peasy to stay well above Beeminder’s bright red line, then wonderful. Conflict avoided. If those strategies happen to fail, Beeminder will catch you. (Also you get a nice graph of your progress, quantified-self-style.)
PS: More recently we had a post about how compatible Beeminder turns out to be with CBT which I think also argues against the dichotomy you’re implying here with Conflict vs Cooperation. https://blog.beeminder.com/cbt/
Didn’t expect this reply, thanks for taking your time. I do mention Beeminder briefly at one point, and yes, a lot of the post is about how beeminder-esque motivational strategies tend to backfire.
To start with: I have friends that thrive on coercive motivational strategies. I’m pretty sure my claims aren’t universally applicable. However, coercive approaches seems to be a strong cultural norm, and a lot of people use coercive strategies in unskillful ways (leading to procrastination etc). These people might find a lot of value in trying out non-coercive motivational strategies.
Reading your linked pages, I start thinking about what makes coercive motivations (or “self-discipline”, as you write on your page) a good fit for some and a bad fit for others. Might write up something about that on my substack in the future, I’ll link it to LW if I remember. Also, I’m curious is there a pre/trans dynamic here, where non-coercion after coercison is different to non-coercion from the beginning.
As for your concrete claims:
What are the “smart, specific ideas” I suggested? In this post I mainly attempted to describe what not to do, and ended with some basic non-coercion. I’m curious what you found valuable.
Re: bare minimum that would be irrational to fall below/insurance. Maybe this is correct! I think I would find it hard to mix strategies in this way, since coersion vs non-coersion are pretty far apart as paradigms. A lot of the difference is about how you view yourself. I’m concerned that the coercion might “leak” through, if you keep it as a plan B. But then again, I haven’t thought about this, so take it with a pinch of salt :)
Re: CBT & “Conflict vs Cooperation” (I interpret as coersion vs non-coersion). This feedback really tickled my nerd-spot. I’m a practicing stoic, and CBT is basically stoicism without the ontologies/eudaimonia. In my mind, CBT/Stoicism is about shifting personality traits and behavior patterns through changing actions, judgements and thought patterns. These are interconnected, in just the way you’re saying, and I agree that it’s possible to bootstrap new thought patterns by changing one’s actions.
However, this is orthogonal to my post. I’m not claiming that coercive motivational strategies are bad because they are “shallow”, I’m claiming that they are bad because they lead to unnecessary friction, and might be full-out counter-productive since it’s easy to misuse and act in unskillful ways. The “it doesn’t affect fundamental things, we need to be holistic” is a common critique of CBT therapy as well, and I always find it ironic. I find it ironic because the critique assumes it’s possible to shift actions without affecting personality, which is a non-holistic perspective on the psyche. Hoisted by their own petard.