Well… we clearly have different models of how most people work, then. People fail to achieve their full potential for not challenging themselves. PJEby thinks that this is due to the fear of failure leading to unhappiness and lack of self-worth, so he tries to convince people that failing is all right and doesn’t make them an awful person. I worry that this means they won’t try hard enough. It doesn’t even ring true, to me.
So I take the route of—it’s okay to take on even those challenges that provide you with genuine information about yourself, and that may even provide you with negative information. Being told that you aren’t as good as you thought is, itself, not the end of the world. Being a little unhappy now and then isn’t the end of the world. It’s okay to throw all of yourself against a challenge. And it’s okay not to make your excuses in advance—though your temptation to do so may tell you where you need improvement.
In the Matrix of the inside of your mind, you are not always strong where you believe you are strong, but you are weak where you believe you are weak. PJEby tells you that failure doesn’t have to hurt. To me this seems to amount to telling people that they are weak and cannot withstand hurt; that their mental landscape has to be smoothed out into a world where nothing bad ever happens, and so they can dare anything. But what else does that smoothing lose? How much strength is that really?
I won three AI-Box experiments, then lost two. I threw all of myself into winning, and I still lost. It hurt. I survived.
Losing the stakes of yourself that you gambled—that hurts and it’s okay for it to hurt, but even that is not the end of the world. You keep moving forward, afterward.
(Of course, on some occasions it IS the end of the world.)
I worry that this means they won’t try hard enough.
So did I. So do they. And we’re all right: They don’t “try hard enough”.
They stop trying and start doing, instead. Moves things along much faster, I must say. ;-)
PJEby tells you that failure doesn’t have to hurt. To me this seems to amount to telling people that they are weak and cannot withstand hurt
Okay, now this is where you have the poor model of me. See e.g. Fritz on affirmations, and Dweck on mindsets. Failure is something to embrace and learn from… not to be avoided.
Losing the stakes of yourself that you gambled—that hurts and it’s okay for it to hurt, but even that is not the end of the world. You keep moving forward, afterward.
This is where we agree.… and also where you sound more like you’re in the “growth” mindset.
The trouble is, a person in the “growth” mindset can take a “no pain, no gain” stance and have it motivate them. A fixed-mindset person cannot, because they see failure as a permanent reflection on their character… which leads to paralysis.
I group most self-help gurus into two categories: Hardassians (“no pain, no gain”) and Fairylanders (“think happy thoughts and it will all turn out”). In your above comment, you’re speaking like a Hardassian who’s mistaken me for a Fairylander. Thing is, both the Hardassian and Fairylander strategies work fine for people in the growth mindset, and not at all for people in the fixed mindset. As someone else said:
I think PJEby is on target for most people to the extent that most people do not resemble Eliezer.
...because most people (at least most intellectuals AFAICT) do not operate out of the “growth” mindset, and therefore find fear of failure paralyzing, rather than stimulating.
I don’t teach people to avoid pain, I teach them to remove their pain-avoidance compulsions, so that pain doesn’t bother them any more, and they have no need to avoid it.
And there’s a huge difference between that, and what you’re saying I do.
I endorse PJEby on focusing attention on growth potential, the psychological literature seems to put some weight behind this view. Focusing your attention (and thus modifying your emotional reactions and mental energy) doesn’t have to involve self-deception about your ability to grow.
Maybe the difference there is that you’ve started on the right foot in life. The very first tries, you gave it your all, and succeeded enough to see that more could be achieved, and so went spiraling on, upwards. For some people, the contrary may hold true. In their case, it may make sense to negate further blows to their ego and self confidence, because they’re already hurt and weakened. You, on the other hand, are on the move, and have been acquiring a lot of momentum along the way.
So people who didn’t start well, maybe need to pause, and restart, slowly but surely, building up their own momentum, doing it right this time, and forgetting as fast and thoroughly about their past failures as they can.
On another point, sometimes it may make sense to decentralize some of your tasks on other people, who are better able to do them for you. Not too much, since otherwise you may end up not doing anything by yourself anymore, but not too little, or else, you end up doing too much by yourself, including tasks that you aren’t good at, tasks for which you must invest a lot more mental energy than someone else would. In that case, it makes sense to trade your help, in a domain where you can efficiently, effortlessly use your energy, for the help of someone else in a domain where they are efficient and you not.
For some people, the contrary may hold true. In their case, it may make sense to negate further blows to their ego and self confidence, because they’re already hurt and weakened. (...) So people who didn’t start well, maybe need to pause, and restart, slowly but surely, building up their own momentum, doing it right this time, and forgetting as fast and thoroughly about their past failures as they can.
And the critical point here, that I’m not sure Eliezer realizes, is that you are probably describing the majority of people.
So people who didn’t start well, maybe need to pause, and restart, slowly but surely, building up their own momentum, doing it right this time, and forgetting as fast and thoroughly about their past failures as they can.
Yes. One of the most important things to teach people is that they can actually succeed at something—anything.
Examples:
a friend who teaches music to poor kids at a sink school. He shows up with a mohawk and teaches them how to make good noise. The light in their eyes is so rewarding he puts up with the stifling bureaucracy.
student newspapers, which to a large extent exist to be written rather than to be read.
sports clubs for kids, even.
Teaching people what success feels like is really important. Really, really important.
I suspect that if others tried to follow you down this road, most would fail to achieve their full potential due to crushing failure of self-worth.
Well… we clearly have different models of how most people work, then. People fail to achieve their full potential for not challenging themselves. PJEby thinks that this is due to the fear of failure leading to unhappiness and lack of self-worth, so he tries to convince people that failing is all right and doesn’t make them an awful person. I worry that this means they won’t try hard enough. It doesn’t even ring true, to me.
So I take the route of—it’s okay to take on even those challenges that provide you with genuine information about yourself, and that may even provide you with negative information. Being told that you aren’t as good as you thought is, itself, not the end of the world. Being a little unhappy now and then isn’t the end of the world. It’s okay to throw all of yourself against a challenge. And it’s okay not to make your excuses in advance—though your temptation to do so may tell you where you need improvement.
In the Matrix of the inside of your mind, you are not always strong where you believe you are strong, but you are weak where you believe you are weak. PJEby tells you that failure doesn’t have to hurt. To me this seems to amount to telling people that they are weak and cannot withstand hurt; that their mental landscape has to be smoothed out into a world where nothing bad ever happens, and so they can dare anything. But what else does that smoothing lose? How much strength is that really?
I won three AI-Box experiments, then lost two. I threw all of myself into winning, and I still lost. It hurt. I survived.
Losing the stakes of yourself that you gambled—that hurts and it’s okay for it to hurt, but even that is not the end of the world. You keep moving forward, afterward.
(Of course, on some occasions it IS the end of the world.)
So did I. So do they. And we’re all right: They don’t “try hard enough”.
They stop trying and start doing, instead. Moves things along much faster, I must say. ;-)
Okay, now this is where you have the poor model of me. See e.g. Fritz on affirmations, and Dweck on mindsets. Failure is something to embrace and learn from… not to be avoided.
This is where we agree.… and also where you sound more like you’re in the “growth” mindset.
The trouble is, a person in the “growth” mindset can take a “no pain, no gain” stance and have it motivate them. A fixed-mindset person cannot, because they see failure as a permanent reflection on their character… which leads to paralysis.
I group most self-help gurus into two categories: Hardassians (“no pain, no gain”) and Fairylanders (“think happy thoughts and it will all turn out”). In your above comment, you’re speaking like a Hardassian who’s mistaken me for a Fairylander. Thing is, both the Hardassian and Fairylander strategies work fine for people in the growth mindset, and not at all for people in the fixed mindset. As someone else said:
...because most people (at least most intellectuals AFAICT) do not operate out of the “growth” mindset, and therefore find fear of failure paralyzing, rather than stimulating.
I don’t teach people to avoid pain, I teach them to remove their pain-avoidance compulsions, so that pain doesn’t bother them any more, and they have no need to avoid it.
And there’s a huge difference between that, and what you’re saying I do.
I endorse PJEby on focusing attention on growth potential, the psychological literature seems to put some weight behind this view. Focusing your attention (and thus modifying your emotional reactions and mental energy) doesn’t have to involve self-deception about your ability to grow.
Anecdotal observation: the mindset Eliezer describes seems, in my experience, to be correlated with an individual’s autodidactic tendencies.
That is to say, I think PJEby is on target for most people to the extent that most people do not resemble Eliezer.
Maybe the difference there is that you’ve started on the right foot in life. The very first tries, you gave it your all, and succeeded enough to see that more could be achieved, and so went spiraling on, upwards. For some people, the contrary may hold true. In their case, it may make sense to negate further blows to their ego and self confidence, because they’re already hurt and weakened. You, on the other hand, are on the move, and have been acquiring a lot of momentum along the way.
So people who didn’t start well, maybe need to pause, and restart, slowly but surely, building up their own momentum, doing it right this time, and forgetting as fast and thoroughly about their past failures as they can.
On another point, sometimes it may make sense to decentralize some of your tasks on other people, who are better able to do them for you. Not too much, since otherwise you may end up not doing anything by yourself anymore, but not too little, or else, you end up doing too much by yourself, including tasks that you aren’t good at, tasks for which you must invest a lot more mental energy than someone else would. In that case, it makes sense to trade your help, in a domain where you can efficiently, effortlessly use your energy, for the help of someone else in a domain where they are efficient and you not.
And the critical point here, that I’m not sure Eliezer realizes, is that you are probably describing the majority of people.
Yes. One of the most important things to teach people is that they can actually succeed at something—anything.
Examples:
a friend who teaches music to poor kids at a sink school. He shows up with a mohawk and teaches them how to make good noise. The light in their eyes is so rewarding he puts up with the stifling bureaucracy.
student newspapers, which to a large extent exist to be written rather than to be read.
sports clubs for kids, even.
Teaching people what success feels like is really important. Really, really important.
Downvoted for ignoring PJEby’s well though out reply on an important point.