i’m really not the demographic for things like this, so take this with a grain of salt, but this sort of beeminder-flavored “do the thing or a negative consequence will happen” really seems to me like just about the worst way to cultivate skilled and insightful work. like, could i force myself to write at least 500 words a day if someone put a gun to my head? sure, as you say, it’s extremely goodhart-able. however i would expect the writing i produced under those circumstances to be...kinda shit? i often spend up to a month on a single essay, and if i was trying to do some sort of formal research paper it would take even longer. creating a situation where people MUST WRITE OR ELSE, seems like a good way to get a large quantity of slop. i guess it could be helpful if someone needs to get their foot in the door as a writer at all, but i’ve already got my foot well in the door so this sort of event seems more likely to hinder my writing quality than improve it. i felt this way about inkhaven but never said anything because meh, it’s just not my thing. however, your idea here seems to be that you want to help people produce outputs that are more valuable and not slop, and i do think the format is kinda directly at odds with that.
I think it’s pretty fine/normal to produce slop alongside your “good” thinking.
A thing I dislike about Inkhaven is, it’s sorta necessary to output some amount of “Inkslop”, but, there’s not a super clear distinction between “posts you shat out because you had to” and “posts that you really wanna promote as interesting.”
I think there is totally a muscle to “keep it up” that I found useful even though I think I know how to think and write already. I think Inkhaven and Thinkhaven are both meant to work alongside a spirit-of-the-law intention to be trying to push yourself in some way.
For some people, just getting the words out is the bottleneck. If that’s easy for you, focus on whatever the next skill in the chain you want to work.
I think I am a prime example of one that has a serious bottleneck in terms of getting things out of my head and on paper when I try. As you say, developing that ability requires some type of “muscles”, just as being able to lift weights or do physically demanding activities. There is also the habit forming aspect. Like noted in one of the comments we forget to do things (often the new things we’re trying to do) because they just don’t fall into our normal behavior patterns[1].
I would also pose a question about slop concerns. Sure, not bad to avoid if one has a specific target they are aiming for I think but then if we look back as history, I wonder how many of the serendipitous discoveries or starting points wouldn’t fall into a slop bucket when views from what the discover was actually trying to do.
Which in the Thinkhaven vein of at least one new thought a day, seem to lead towards “What don’t I know?” What are the gaps in areas one does have some, even a lot, of knowledge about. Seems like a very positive behavioral pattern to cultivate.
Much of the benefit probably comes from being somewhere with people doing the same and consciously shooting for a specific goal. On the consequences side, for many the social consequence of mildly dissapointing their friends, along with being able to show off to them or mak them happy, has a high motivation to negative valence ratio.
i’m really not the demographic for things like this, so take this with a grain of salt, but this sort of beeminder-flavored “do the thing or a negative consequence will happen” really seems to me like just about the worst way to cultivate skilled and insightful work. like, could i force myself to write at least 500 words a day if someone put a gun to my head? sure, as you say, it’s extremely goodhart-able. however i would expect the writing i produced under those circumstances to be...kinda shit? i often spend up to a month on a single essay, and if i was trying to do some sort of formal research paper it would take even longer. creating a situation where people MUST WRITE OR ELSE, seems like a good way to get a large quantity of slop. i guess it could be helpful if someone needs to get their foot in the door as a writer at all, but i’ve already got my foot well in the door so this sort of event seems more likely to hinder my writing quality than improve it. i felt this way about inkhaven but never said anything because meh, it’s just not my thing. however, your idea here seems to be that you want to help people produce outputs that are more valuable and not slop, and i do think the format is kinda directly at odds with that.
I think it’s pretty fine/normal to produce slop alongside your “good” thinking.
A thing I dislike about Inkhaven is, it’s sorta necessary to output some amount of “Inkslop”, but, there’s not a super clear distinction between “posts you shat out because you had to” and “posts that you really wanna promote as interesting.”
I think there is totally a muscle to “keep it up” that I found useful even though I think I know how to think and write already. I think Inkhaven and Thinkhaven are both meant to work alongside a spirit-of-the-law intention to be trying to push yourself in some way.
For some people, just getting the words out is the bottleneck. If that’s easy for you, focus on whatever the next skill in the chain you want to work.
I think I am a prime example of one that has a serious bottleneck in terms of getting things out of my head and on paper when I try. As you say, developing that ability requires some type of “muscles”, just as being able to lift weights or do physically demanding activities. There is also the habit forming aspect. Like noted in one of the comments we forget to do things (often the new things we’re trying to do) because they just don’t fall into our normal behavior patterns[1].
I would also pose a question about slop concerns. Sure, not bad to avoid if one has a specific target they are aiming for I think but then if we look back as history, I wonder how many of the serendipitous discoveries or starting points wouldn’t fall into a slop bucket when views from what the discover was actually trying to do.
Which in the Thinkhaven vein of at least one new thought a day, seem to lead towards “What don’t I know?” What are the gaps in areas one does have some, even a lot, of knowledge about. Seems like a very positive behavioral pattern to cultivate.
Much of the benefit probably comes from being somewhere with people doing the same and consciously shooting for a specific goal. On the consequences side, for many the social consequence of mildly dissapointing their friends, along with being able to show off to them or mak them happy, has a high motivation to negative valence ratio.