Group Rationality Diary, September 16-30

As I was finishing my run today, I noticed that I felt a lot less grumpy and worn out and "whew I'll be glad when this is over" than I often do, which I attribute to finishing my mileage on a gentle decline, rather than at the top of a hill. Then I remembered Kahnemann's colonoscopy study and realized I might be able to harness the peak-end rule to lessen my aversion to running!

This is the first time (that I remember) that I feel like I've gotten my hands on a cheat code and known how to use it. Still trying to decide whether to start by trying to optimize every aversive task or cackling maniacally!

Sometimes at my job when I get angry or anxious about something, I start reading the web to calm down. Of course, that often leads to a lot of reading, and then not much work gets done.

So this week I decided, when I will feel the need to read the web, to listen to one of my favorite songs (using headphones) instead. It worked like a miracle! I still did some browsing the first day, although less than usual, but then almost nothing.

Yeah, I listened to a lot of songs. However, each song ends after cca 3 minutes, and I have set my software to automatically stop when the song is over; unlike the internet which is unlimited.

Productivity tricks that still seem to work for me after several months of use:

• Autofocous TODO lists on a paper notebook. There's a single notebook page with 20-30 TODO items, and that'll be the only TODO list I pick tasks from until all the items are done, abandoned or migrated to a new page.
• Pomodoro-style timeboxed work sessions listening to a noise track. Trying out this one linked on Cal Newport's blog now.

I also recently found out about Bullet Journal notation for notebooks and started using that alongside the autofocus. Basically you collect everything chronologically in a single notebook and build a table of contents and add special topic pages as needed. I'm using the monthly calendar pages idea from Bullet Journal to have a page where I have a single-line description of what I did on the day for each day of the month.

EDIT: The notes the noise track plays every 10 minutes started to grate after many repeats. Switched to this one

Cryonics and I Can't Do Math:

I've noticed something in my thinking of late regarding cryonics. I only discovered cryonics through LW. I only grew enthusiastic about cryonics through LW. I have a belief that, had I never read any LW articles or Yudkowsky or Hansom discussions on the subject, cryonics would not matter to me.

In other words, the bulk of evidence for my estimation of cryonics has been the enthusiasms of other people, people whose opinions I've come to take seriously and use as tools to calculate my own predictions. My doubts about cryonics stem from the opinions of doubting people, so that even my uncertainties are not original from my own estimates. This bothers me because cryonics is something I have come to take seriously. I have expended resources considering the implications of it and weighing the costs and payouts of it in my own life without building a foundation for why I should even be thinking about it. This is not the fault of anyone but me, and my failure in this department is aggravating.

When I decided to sit down earlier this week and figure out an actual estimate using my own resources for the probability of cryonics, I found I could not do it. Let me rephrase that: I did not do it. I did not know how to do the math, I did not know what numbers to use, and I finally classified the problem as too costly in time for the payout because the payout would likely be mismeasured given my obvious lack of knowledge and ability. I could probably come up with a probability, but it would rely entirely on the work of others and give me no greater satisfaction on this topic than I already have.

I'm not writing this to ask for someone else's numbers. That's the very problem I've found in my way of thinking. I realize that I support my belief that cryonics is worthwhile with emotional responses and rely on the numbers of other people to validate that response. When I meet people like lukeprog with other numbers, then my enthusiasms wanes, even though my own personal calculations haven't changed. I update entirely on whether someone whose opinion I take seriously is supporting the belief or not. I do not like this.

I have personally found myself being confused when people bring up many-worlds in discussions on whether cryonics works or not. I will admit that I have not internalized any idea of many-worlds as impacting on my decisions, and, much like cryonics, my acceptance of it as an idea is much too dependent on others' work. When I think of cryonics, I do not think of multitudes of futures. I think "is it worth the $200/month it would cost me?" The idea of good futures and bad futures and waking up in a green room versus a red room do not figure into my personal calculations. Which is probably another reliance on other peoples' work. The furthest my math goes is "cost of cryonics versus likelihood of it working." It's the second number that I've let trouble me.

Because I am confused and because I am inadequately attempting to fix that confusion, I've decided I will not accept my current thoughts and beliefs on cryonics. I'll learn from this that, if I'm to become entangled in an emotionally stimulating topic, I need to establish a foundation from the start on that topic, one that I can build and update upon.

Low-hanging fruit: I increased my average intake of vegetables with minimal effort by acquiring microwaveable frozen vegetable bags, which have become my default "I want to eat something but don't want to spend effort preparing it" food. Each bag can be transferred directly from freezer to microwave and takes an average of five minutes therein, and then you cut open the bag and transfer to a serving dish (or, like me, just plop the open bag into a plastic tray and eat directly from it).

It's not perfect (for example, I cannot find green leafy vegetables in this packaging - then again, given the texture of frozen chopped spinach I probably wouldn't want to), but it's an improvement over most other foods that take similar amounts of preparation.

I am tracking happiness, using Beeminder + TagTime + a program I made to average numerical tagtime inputs over a day. I started trying to use actual tags, then got annoyed doing that and just did the happiness score. However, I notice that while I am using the tracker I am NOT so good at using my journal. My TIL evernotes and tagtime may soon obviate the need for a carry-around journal.