Something about Beeminder always rubbed me the wrong way, especially those days when it was very popular on Less Wrong. But I didn’t have a better alternative. Doing violence to myself felt wrong. Yet, the work needs to be done, and things that seem important in short term sometimes feel like a waste of time the next day.
I thought that a better inner harmony could be achieved by some kind of peaceful self-talk, generating an inner consensus. Like, if I know I should be doing X, but I feel an urge to do Y, instead I should just lie down on a couch, and do neither X nor Y, but contemplate the reasons why I wanted to do X in first place. (Perhaps use some technique for communicating with unconsciousness, such as visualizing the outcome.) If I am right, at some moment I should start feeling an actual urge to do X. And that is the right moment to actually start doing X.
Problem is, this takes some time (though maybe not more than the time wasted doing Y instead), and more importantly, it looks very bad to external observers.
For example, even if you are going to exercise regularly, it’s not clear that a home gym is a good investment: a gym membership may be a better idea.
Dunno; gym membership also feels like a form of blackmail (although preferable to the alternative forms of blackmail), while home gym reduces the inconvenience of exercising.
I think I’ve heard that “people buying gym membership, and then not going there” is a significant source of income for gym. They are willing to sell a year-long membership quite cheaply compared to the one-time visit, because they know that a majority of people will go there maybe three times at all. Which suggests that buying the membership is probably not a good idea.
Generally, it seems like the problem is signaling. You buy the gym membership to signal your strong commitment to yourself. Then you feel good about sending a strong signal. And then the next day you feel just as lazy as previously, and the fact that you already paid for the membership probably feels bad. So it’s like taking a financial debt in order to give yourself an undeserved psychological reward—you reward yourself for buying the membership, not for actual exercising.
(Yeah, buying the home gym is also a kind of financial blackmail. You should start exercising with your own weight, or maybe just buy a few tools, like $100 max, and see where it goes.)
Dunno; gym membership also feels like a form of blackmail (although preferable to the alternative forms of blackmail), while home gym reduces the inconvenience of exercising.
I’m not sure what differentiates these in your mind. They both reduce the inconvenience of exercising, presumably? Also, in my post I’m pretty clear that it’s not meant as a punishment type incentive:
And it’s prudent to take into account the chance of not exercising in the future, making the investment useless: my advised decision process counts this as a negative, not a useful self-motivating punishment.
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Generally, it seems like the problem is signaling. You buy the gym membership to signal your strong commitment to yourself. Then you feel good about sending a strong signal. And then the next day you feel just as lazy as previously, and the fact that you already paid for the membership probably feels bad.
That’s part of why I’m thinking an important step is checking whether one expects the action to happen if the initial steps are taken. If not then it’s less likely to be a good idea.
There is some positive function of the signaling / hyperstition, but it can lead people to be unnecessarily miscalibrated.
Something about Beeminder always rubbed me the wrong way, especially those days when it was very popular on Less Wrong. But I didn’t have a better alternative. Doing violence to myself felt wrong. Yet, the work needs to be done, and things that seem important in short term sometimes feel like a waste of time the next day.
I thought that a better inner harmony could be achieved by some kind of peaceful self-talk, generating an inner consensus. Like, if I know I should be doing X, but I feel an urge to do Y, instead I should just lie down on a couch, and do neither X nor Y, but contemplate the reasons why I wanted to do X in first place. (Perhaps use some technique for communicating with unconsciousness, such as visualizing the outcome.) If I am right, at some moment I should start feeling an actual urge to do X. And that is the right moment to actually start doing X.
Problem is, this takes some time (though maybe not more than the time wasted doing Y instead), and more importantly, it looks very bad to external observers.
Dunno; gym membership also feels like a form of blackmail (although preferable to the alternative forms of blackmail), while home gym reduces the inconvenience of exercising.
I think I’ve heard that “people buying gym membership, and then not going there” is a significant source of income for gym. They are willing to sell a year-long membership quite cheaply compared to the one-time visit, because they know that a majority of people will go there maybe three times at all. Which suggests that buying the membership is probably not a good idea.
Generally, it seems like the problem is signaling. You buy the gym membership to signal your strong commitment to yourself. Then you feel good about sending a strong signal. And then the next day you feel just as lazy as previously, and the fact that you already paid for the membership probably feels bad. So it’s like taking a financial debt in order to give yourself an undeserved psychological reward—you reward yourself for buying the membership, not for actual exercising.
(Yeah, buying the home gym is also a kind of financial blackmail. You should start exercising with your own weight, or maybe just buy a few tools, like $100 max, and see where it goes.)
I’m not sure what differentiates these in your mind. They both reduce the inconvenience of exercising, presumably? Also, in my post I’m pretty clear that it’s not meant as a punishment type incentive:
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That’s part of why I’m thinking an important step is checking whether one expects the action to happen if the initial steps are taken. If not then it’s less likely to be a good idea.
There is some positive function of the signaling / hyperstition, but it can lead people to be unnecessarily miscalibrated.