Applied Picoeconomics

(I trust I will be forgiven for the overwrought and repetitive prose that follows. In my defense, on this issue, I really do try to think in such terms, and arguably all this drama is a large part of why the method works as well as it does.)

My improvement program, which has been working fairly well so far, although I am still continually refining things as I will detail below, is based on the opposite principle. Rather than setting explicit measurable goals, I try to continually remind myself that every minute and every dime is precious, and every minute and every dime that you don't spend doing the best thing you can possibly be doing is a mark of sin upon your soul, and furthermore that this is not some extremist dictate, but rather a tautology---that's what the word "best" means: that which you should be doing. Rather than goals to satisfice, I want to have a utility function to maximize. I do not place myself under some dreaded burden to fulfill some oath: I'm just trying to not be stupid. There is no such thing as "leisure"---everything is booked under "Dayjob" or "Lifework" or "Education" or "Maintenance," for every book that you read makes you stronger, every problem that you solve increases your beauty, every line that you write is another stitch in your ball gown. It is not: "Once I finish my homework, I can watch the teevee or play flash games on the internet." As an autodidactic generalist, I either have no homework, or an infinite amount of homework, depending on how you want to phrase things. I don't want to watch the goddam teevee! Mathematics is more fun than those moronic flash games! Slacking off is not a guilty indulgence; it's just stupid, and the entirety of my powers are now devoted to the monumental task of not-being-stupid. I recognize no other intertemporal selves to bargain with---I have but one Self, a timeless abstract optimization process to which this ape is but a horribly disfigured approximation. There have been times when I was tempted to go buy an ice cream ("frozen yogurt") and even took a few steps towards the shop before thinking---is this really what I want? Living as I am on short time, wouldn't have rather have that four dollars which is equivalent to twenty-four minutes at my crappy dayjob? I prefer the money, so I turned and walked back to my car.

All this is not to say I am in no need of more structure---it would be helpful to keep some sort of schedule or timelog, not in the form of an oath to another self from another time, but simply as a guideline to give direction to my full autodidactic fury. I've experimented with this and that, to no notable success so far---but I'm going to keep hacking away at this; sunk costs can't play into your decision theory, so no number of failures can discourage an expected utility maximizer, though such a thing might happen to a goddam ape.

Am I kidding myself?---in some sense, maybe a little. How much writing have I done?--when allegedly my lifework was supposed to be a work of fiction. Does it only seem like I've been being more efficient, because I've been doing so much math and programming which leaves a paper trail, as compared to reading which doesn't? But for once in my life, induction is on my side now: I've gotten better before, so I can do so again. I don't watch teevee any more, and I don't play flash games---I'm not even tempted. I don't know what my limits are. So help me.

My brain clearly has different procedures for dealing with vague responsibilities it can weasel out of, and serious responsibilities it can't, and the oath served to stick studying on the "serious" side of the line.

I doubt it's the oath or the rituals. The key piece (in my experience) that makes this work, is the part where you considered conflicts and consequences. You made explicit under which specific conditions you would do it, and which ones you wouldn't.

To translate this back into Ainslie's model, the success of bargaining at any point in time is dependent on the degree of activation of "interests". If at the time you decide to do something, you envision only the default case, then the interest is only mentally linked to the default, not the situation where "something else comes up".

However, if you explicitly contemplate all the things that might come up, and decide what you'll do in each case, then you are mentally linking your "interest" to those contexts, along with a preferred behavior... thus reducing the willpower load required to make those decisions when the time comes, and giving that "interest" a larger say in the bargaining that occurs at that point in time.

I mentioned this briefly in my New Years' Resolutions video this year, but I've been teaching this concept for some time now. A key variable is how well you can mentally put yourself into the conflict situations that will occur, so that you can actually make realistic tradeoffs in "near" thinking, rather than using over-idealistic "far" thinking.

Related is Martha Beck's concept of "four day wins", which emphasizes the idea that as long as you make changes to behavior in small enough steps that no unmanageable conflicts arise, you can make that behavior "normal" within four days.

For example, the 4-day win approach to studying 2 hours a day would first be to set a time at which you will simply take out your books and look at them for say, 1 minute, without actually opening them, and to do that for four days. Then, for four days, do that and actually open them to what you're supposed to be studying, but don't do any of it. From there on, setting timers for small intervals where you have to stop as soon as the timer goes off.

In either case, whether you do it by exhaustive imagination in advance (as you did), or the 4-day wins method, you are doing the same thing: establishing a conditioned link between the "interest" (in Ainslie's terminology) and the context where you would like that interest to be active, so as to prevent other interests from dominating the negotiation in that context.

My suggestion for your next experiment would be for you to see how much less ritual you can get away with, as long as you satisfy the criterion of linking your preferred decision and the feeling of your "interest" to as many explicit, specific contexts where other interests might be in conflict.

with the knowledge that if I succeeded I would have a great method of self-improvement and if I failed I would be dooming myself to a life of laziness forever (Ainslie's theories suggest that exaggeration is good in this case).

So do Tony Robbins's theories, as described in his 1991 book, "Awaken the Giant Within". However, this is an area where I disagree with both Robbins and Ainslie!

For certain personality types, creating this sort of bargain is dangerous and damaging if you fail, for reasons that are actually brought up in Ainslie's book. And those personality types are very likely to fail, for the simple reason that they will not actually do the critical task of considering all the ways in which they might fail.

For example, how many Republican senators and Baptist ministers would you guess have sworn mighty oaths to never have gay sex?

If the subject of your oath is an ideal-belief-reality conflict, you will not "negotiate fairly" with your other interests, which means you won't really think about the areas where conflicts will arise, which means those other interests will dominate, and your oaths will eventually fall by the wayside.

So I'm glad it worked for you, but I strongly recommend that others NOT add this sort of "leverage" - it's not necessary and can be damaging. The critical factor is inter-interest linkage, not consequences of failure.

Richard Bandler actually encourages people embarking on something new that they might backslide on, to actually visualize themselves backsliding... repeatedly! And then to imagine this making them MORE motivated to proceed.

And if you think about it, this is actually an example of the same principle I described above - linking an interest to a context where a conflict might occur. In this way, even if backsliding does occur, it still contributes to the goal, rather than detracting from it.

In contrast, what you have done sets up an expectation that a single failure will lead to the destruction of someone's entire life... and that is NOT a responsible thing to suggest or prime, EVER.

I have been using this exact method for a few years. It is absolutely the most reliable method for getting something specific and critical done in an intermediate time frame (say 2 weeks to 3 months), but it's kind of the nuclear option of willpower and should be used sparingly since 1) it relies on being the nuclear option, if you ever fail then you would lose faith in the method 2) it absolutely sucks, since it's usually something sucky you decide to do and you have bargained away the usual weaseling out tactics 3) Cthulhu doesn't like it when you break your promises.

I've been inspired by Yvain and ZM, so I wrote up my resolution, printed it, signed it, and taped it to the wall in front of my desk so I see it when I look up. All with a bit of ceremony of course. My full resolution is below. ZM inadvertantly provided some of the language. Feel free to copy and/or modify for your own resolution.

Also, the short time frame is due to my summer arrangements. On June 29, I fly to California to begin a 6 week internship. After I get a feel for how much time I can realistically apply to studying while there, I'll write up a new resolution that takes those particular circumstances into account.

I, Matthew Simpson, realize that I am not a monkey brain, but am a timeless abstract optimization process to which this ape is but a horribly disfigured approximation. As such, I take it upon myself to improve this approximation.

First and foremost, I promise to continually remind myself that every minute and every dime is precious, and every minute and every dime that I don't spend doing the best thing I can possibly be doing is a mark of sin upon my soul. Thus I resolve to spend every minute and every dime I have maximizing my utility function. I resolve to ask myself before every decision to spend money or time whether the chosen activity or good is utility maximizing.

In order to achieve this end, I promise to perform the following specific duties beginning Thursday, June 18, 2009 and ending Sunday, June 28, 2009:

Second, I promise to do mathematics for two hours a day, every day in order to prepare for the Iowa State Ph.D. Statistics program this fall. The television must be off during the math session and time spent talking on the phone does not count. Phone calls are not to be answered and text messages are not to be replied to unless there is a non social reason for doing so. The mathematics must be performed by working through the sections of and doing practice problems in the following books (in no particular order):

• Probability: The Logic of Science, E.T. Jaynes
• Probability and Statistical Inference 7e, Hogg and Tanis
• A First Course in Real Analysis 2e, Protter and Morrey
• Topology 2e, Munkres
• Calculus 5e, Stewart
• Elementary Linear Algebra 5e, Grossman
• Elementary Differential Equations 6e, Edwards and Penney
• Contemporary Abstract Algebra 6e, Gallian

The following exceptions apply:

• Medical emergencies for myself, family, or friends, a car emergency, or other family emergency
• Once during the period, a math session can be replaced with a two hour economics session using a suitable economics textbook that uses math extensively
• Once during the period, a session can be skipped for any reason I deem fit

By attaching my signature to this document, I, Mathew Simpson, do solemnly swear on science, Bayes, and all that is rational to perform the above duties without exception, save those listed above.

The original website is down. This is an archived version around the same time the article was published: https://web.archive.org/web/20090703042537/http://www.picoeconomics.com/breakdown.htm

Ainslie's answer is that he should set a hard-and-fast rule: "I will never drink alcoholism".

You probably meant to write "alcohol" here.

All data, even anecdotal, on how to beat akrasia is great, and this sounds like a method that might work well in many cases. If you wanted to raise your odds of succeeding even more you could probably make your oath in front of a group of friends or family members, or even include a rule about donating your money or time if you failed, preferably to a cause you hated for bonus motivation.

I'd like to give a public oath myself, but I'm going away shortly and will be busy with various things, so I don't know how much time I will have for self-improvement. In somewhat of a coincidence, I just received "Breakdown of Will" in the mail yesterday. How about this.. I proudly and publicly swear to read the entire book "Breakdown of Will" by George Ainslie and write an interesting post on LW based on the book before July 17th 2009, so help me Bayes.

Correction to the Ainslie link: http://picoeconomics.org/breakdown.htm

That's encouraging news. I'm going to use this; next month I'll tell you how it went.

This is a rather reductive approach to Ainslie. He's not writing a self-help book. The upshot of his view is not simply that people get distracted from long-term goals by short-term goals, but rather that the self emerges from the need to manage conflicts between a variety of internal goals. Fervid declarations like "I have but one Self, a timeless abstract optimization process to which this ape is but a horribly disfigured approximation" gets it exactly backwards. You don't have a Self, except as a hacked-together construct that helps your goals get along.

More discussion here and especially more in the links to bhyde's commentary.

I purchased AI: A Modern Approach by Norvig and Russell in march 2008, and by December I'd read a pathetic 80 pages due to work and general cant be botheredness. So I decided to choose a deadline that had some sort of symbolic significance. I would have to finish the book before the end of the 2008. Yes, that meant over 1000 pages of textbook material before the year was out.

I calculated it would take 40 pages a day; skimming was not allowed nor was moving ahead without a solid understanding of the material. I knew that the end of the book would be a cushion, since there were a number of pages on philosophical issues that were pretty familiar for me.

The result was successful and I learned a few things similar to what Yvain has posted. One of them is leave yourself outs, don't be too ambitious, because the damage of a failure is persistent beyond a particular case. If you don't have a good idea of how demanding the objective will be, err on the side of laziness, or do a smaller test run. Choose small short term objectives, because if you don't calibrate well and end up having to strain, it won't be for long and you'll get a better idea what you can do. In my case I went on 5 day trip and had to drag the book along and steal time to read, not good. But thanks to the experience I know that a 1000+ page text book per month is not realistic for me.

I do solemnly swear by the great Wiki that from now until April 1st, I will finish every part of every homework assignment by the midnight before it is due, on pain of food deprivation until the work be complete.

Thanks Yvain, you have inspired me to commit to some important things for the next month. I have written them down.

I promise to write about my achievements here on LW on the 18th July.

My brain clearly has different procedures for dealing with vague responsibilities it can weasel out of, and serious responsibilities it can't, and the oath served to stick studying on the "serious" side of the line.

an interesting insight. I shall try this.

calling upon various fictional deities for whom I have great respect.

Just curious... can you clarify this statement? It sounds a lot like Chaos Magick to me, and that surprises me, coming from you (not necessarily in a bad way).

This reminds me of certain behaviours I have read about in, for example, books by Walter Scott, where he is writing about Covenanters. Their behaviour is very similar to setting an oath and never allowing it to be broken. They usually did not allow exceptions, not even ones which are included in the initial oath. Or only after the most careful analysis.

They also had a refinement where they could identify "falling off on the left", as straightforward failure and "fallingoff on the right" as, basically, over-doing it. Three hours study instead of two, that sort of thing.

Likewise, in his book "Surely you are joking", Feynman discusses his family trait for always telling the truth, no matter how inconvenient, which seems to me to have similar overtones to the ideas here.

My point is that the behaviour is not uncommon and I would guess that in general, it was followed for intuitive reasons, not on the kind of formalism that picoeconomics is. If picoeconomics describes this kind of behaviour then that would be good.

The link to the original article is dead; is there a copy lying around somewhere?

Does hyperbolic discounting mean that the sunk-cost fallacy can actually be adaptive, by "locking in" earlier decisions?

I've used a similar approach in the past to get myself to do things. One addition to it I find useful l is to also include a reasonable penalty of sorts for failure. For example, I will study for my test for the next two hours, and if I fail or attempt to weasel out of it, I will eat X amount of spinach. This way, even if you assign yourself an unreasonable goal and fail, you still have to pay a price, so you'll a. Hopefully assign yourself more reasonable oaths in the future and b. The effect of breaking the oath is "lessened" since you are paying a price for failure.

s/drink alcoholism/drink alcohol