I have a fairly wide variety of friends. Here’s some advice I find myself giving often, because it seems to cover a lot of what I think are the most common problems. The wording here isn’t how I’d say it to them.
Health and lifestyle
Don’t engage the services of any non-evidence based medical practitioner.
If you have a health problem, you’re receiving treatment/advice, and not obviously improving, get a second opinion. And probably also a third. (I am not in the US)
Don’t smoke cigarettes. If you already smoke cigarettes, buy an e-cigarette (like, right now), even if you’re sure you’ll never use it. Once you’ve bought it, do try to use it, even if you don’t think you’ll like it.
Always use barriers for vaginal and anal penetration outside a monogamous relationship
Use either barriers or hormonal birth control for p-in-v intercourse
If you or your partner is having non-monogamous sex, get STI tests twice a year
If you frequently feel depressed or anxious, see a psychologist who practices cognitive behavioural therapy. Do not see one who practices psychoanalysis (see “evidence based health care”). Expect to trial several psychologists before finding one who is a good fit for you (see: “if health care not working, seek second opinion”).
Personal finance
Don’t buy cars new. There’s an established value-point for depreciation vs maintainence costs for cars. Use that.
Don’t get a credit card
Don’t take personal loans unless the interest is dominated by the cost of having no liquidity (e.g. eviction)
If you can’t maintain a monthly budget, give yourself a weekly budget. If you still can’t maintain a weekly budget, give yourself a daily budget. A budget over a shorter time period is much less convenient—but failing to maintain a budget at all and going broke is less convenient still.
Never gamble, including playing the lottery
Don’t invest in individual stocks, or pay someone else to invest your money in individual stocks.
Comply with your local tax laws, including filing your taxes on time. Know that people smarter than you are being employed to catch tax cheats who are also smarter than you. You will likely lose.
Career
Avoid “winner takes all” professions, e.g. sports, music, academia in fields with no industrial application, etc
Judge potential careers by expected value, not best or worst possible outcome. Look at median salaries and working conditions.
Only enrol in tertiary/graduate education with a specific career outcome in mind
Recognise the true cost of tertiary degrees, in opportunity cost as well as course fees. e.g. a full-fee-paid PhD program with a modest stipend is still enormously expensive
Recognise that reputational capital distorts labor markets. Teachers are paid low because they’re well respected, not despite being well respected. The how-do-you-do value of having a well respected career is not that enduring, so it’s probably over-valued. It’s better to avoid careers with excess reputational capital.
Consider careers in the allied health professions . These professions have the best job security: the aging population ensures rising demand, they must be performed locally, and most seem like unlikely targets for automation or disruption. They also offer lots of human contact, which many find produces good job satisfaction. But, because they don’t require medical degrees, they are fairly neutral in reputational capital, so your peers don’t just work themselves to death to win zero-sum positional games against you.
Law and the justice system
Avoid dominance contests. Learn to display submission readily, meekly and convincingly.
Regard police officers as people who have power over you. They do. Their power is broad, and not constrained by some set of written rules. If you challenge them to a dominance contest, you will likely lose. They will fuck you up. And even if you “win”, it’ll be a pyrrhic victory—you’ll still have been better off not getting into it in the first place.
Power is not moral authority. Someone may have real power over you, with no legitimate right to it.
Moral authority is not power. Even if you have the legitimate right to do something, someone may have the power to stop you.
Make that “never gamble large sums of money”—spending €7 for a poker tournament with your friends isn’t obviously worse than spending €7 on a movie ticket IMO.
I agree about pretty much all of the list—and most of it is also good advice for pretty much all people, not just normal ones.
Don’t hold a credit balance on a credit card might be valid general advice. There are however many cases where the miles or cashback you can get through credit cards provide a valuable benefit.
It also builds a credit rating that might be valuable to get a mortage and given the tax reducted status of mortages for buying a home they aren’t completely bad.
I don’t think miles and cashback are the primary benefit of a credit card, although they’re handy. A credit rating on the other hand is very important: at least in the US, finding housing (including apartment housing) is seriously complicated by having bad or no credit, and the same goes for buying vehicles or anything else customarily paid for on an installment plan. Making major purchases on credit is a good deal if you think hanging onto the money is worth more to you yearly than the APR, which isn’t unlikely if you’re investing; basically it’s leverage.
If you find credit cards morally objectionable or are absent-minded enough not to always pay them off on time, can probably drop the card once you’ve been approved for an automotive loan or something comparably serious. I use mine to handle gas and certain other predictable expenses.
I have a fairly wide variety of friends. Here’s some advice I find myself giving often, because it seems to cover a lot of what I think are the most common problems. The wording here isn’t how I’d say it to them.
Health and lifestyle
Don’t engage the services of any non-evidence based medical practitioner.
If you have a health problem, you’re receiving treatment/advice, and not obviously improving, get a second opinion. And probably also a third. (I am not in the US)
Don’t smoke cigarettes. If you already smoke cigarettes, buy an e-cigarette (like, right now), even if you’re sure you’ll never use it. Once you’ve bought it, do try to use it, even if you don’t think you’ll like it.
Always use barriers for vaginal and anal penetration outside a monogamous relationship
Use either barriers or hormonal birth control for p-in-v intercourse
If you or your partner is having non-monogamous sex, get STI tests twice a year
If you frequently feel depressed or anxious, see a psychologist who practices cognitive behavioural therapy. Do not see one who practices psychoanalysis (see “evidence based health care”). Expect to trial several psychologists before finding one who is a good fit for you (see: “if health care not working, seek second opinion”).
Personal finance
Don’t buy cars new. There’s an established value-point for depreciation vs maintainence costs for cars. Use that.
Don’t get a credit card
Don’t take personal loans unless the interest is dominated by the cost of having no liquidity (e.g. eviction)
If you can’t maintain a monthly budget, give yourself a weekly budget. If you still can’t maintain a weekly budget, give yourself a daily budget. A budget over a shorter time period is much less convenient—but failing to maintain a budget at all and going broke is less convenient still.
Never gamble, including playing the lottery
Don’t invest in individual stocks, or pay someone else to invest your money in individual stocks.
Comply with your local tax laws, including filing your taxes on time. Know that people smarter than you are being employed to catch tax cheats who are also smarter than you. You will likely lose.
Career
Avoid “winner takes all” professions, e.g. sports, music, academia in fields with no industrial application, etc
Judge potential careers by expected value, not best or worst possible outcome. Look at median salaries and working conditions.
Only enrol in tertiary/graduate education with a specific career outcome in mind
Recognise the true cost of tertiary degrees, in opportunity cost as well as course fees. e.g. a full-fee-paid PhD program with a modest stipend is still enormously expensive
Recognise that reputational capital distorts labor markets. Teachers are paid low because they’re well respected, not despite being well respected. The how-do-you-do value of having a well respected career is not that enduring, so it’s probably over-valued. It’s better to avoid careers with excess reputational capital.
Consider careers in the allied health professions . These professions have the best job security: the aging population ensures rising demand, they must be performed locally, and most seem like unlikely targets for automation or disruption. They also offer lots of human contact, which many find produces good job satisfaction. But, because they don’t require medical degrees, they are fairly neutral in reputational capital, so your peers don’t just work themselves to death to win zero-sum positional games against you.
Law and the justice system
Avoid dominance contests. Learn to display submission readily, meekly and convincingly.
Regard police officers as people who have power over you. They do. Their power is broad, and not constrained by some set of written rules. If you challenge them to a dominance contest, you will likely lose. They will fuck you up. And even if you “win”, it’ll be a pyrrhic victory—you’ll still have been better off not getting into it in the first place.
Power is not moral authority. Someone may have real power over you, with no legitimate right to it.
Moral authority is not power. Even if you have the legitimate right to do something, someone may have the power to stop you.
Make that “never gamble large sums of money”—spending €7 for a poker tournament with your friends isn’t obviously worse than spending €7 on a movie ticket IMO.
I agree about pretty much all of the list—and most of it is also good advice for pretty much all people, not just normal ones.
Don’t hold a credit balance on a credit card might be valid general advice. There are however many cases where the miles or cashback you can get through credit cards provide a valuable benefit.
It also builds a credit rating that might be valuable to get a mortage and given the tax reducted status of mortages for buying a home they aren’t completely bad.
I don’t think miles and cashback are the primary benefit of a credit card, although they’re handy. A credit rating on the other hand is very important: at least in the US, finding housing (including apartment housing) is seriously complicated by having bad or no credit, and the same goes for buying vehicles or anything else customarily paid for on an installment plan. Making major purchases on credit is a good deal if you think hanging onto the money is worth more to you yearly than the APR, which isn’t unlikely if you’re investing; basically it’s leverage.
If you find credit cards morally objectionable or are absent-minded enough not to always pay them off on time, can probably drop the card once you’ve been approved for an automotive loan or something comparably serious. I use mine to handle gas and certain other predictable expenses.
That’s an interesting list. Without going into individual items, what goal structure does it support?
In other words, what is it that you want to do (or, maybe, be) that following the advice on this list enables you?