General ambitious-ness, in any given field, where {X} is not accomplishing much and {Y} is committing to projects you don’t have the skills for: Adam has opportunities to do some important things and is skilled enough that they aren’t too hard for him. Bob has a range of opportunities of varying significance, so he needs to think about whether something is at his level before trying it. Charles is newer to this field than Bob, so he has to be extra-careful not to be overambitious. David would be in the same situation as Bob, but his boss has really high standards, so if he’s careful not to be overambitious, he’ll take criticism for not getting enough done. Edgar didn’t know he was going to need this skillset, but has been forced into it for one reason or another.
Having a detailed plan, where {X} is disorganization and {Y} is lack of flexibility. Affordance widths depend on what it is that you’re planning—how organized and flexible it needs to be.
Self-improvement (or any kind of effort to improve something), where {X} is inefficiency and {Y} is premature optimization. Affordance widths depend on how beneficial your default behavior is, and how much effort it takes to change.
This does bother me, but I’ve come to the conclusion that “How are you?” usually isn’t really a question—it’s a protocol, and the password you’re supposed to reply with is “Fine.” Almost no-one will take this to mean that you actually are fine, in my experience—they will take it to mean that you are following the normal rules of conversation, which is true. It’s much like how I can tell jokes, use idioms, or read a passage from a novel out loud—the information I’m conveying is true, even if the literal meaning of the words is not.
So here’s a rule that seems better in some ways than the wizard’s literal-truth rule—don’t try to cause people to have false beliefs. Of course, this removes much of your ability to deceive by clever phrasing; it’s a stricter standard of honesty than the wizard’s rule.
This doesn’t really tell me much. It just raises the question of “What standards of honesty does an unusually honest person follow?”, which doesn’t seem much easier a question than we started out with.