Useful maxims

A few maxims that serve me well, which might or might not serve you well. include:

• Reward the behavior I want, ignore the behavior I don't want.

• Get enough sleep. It's amazing how much smarter and more pleasant other people become when I'm not tired.

• Attend to likely motives. In particular, if someone says something, consider what they intend to accomplish by doing so. If I'm not sure, then I don't actually yet understand what they said, regardless of the words they used.

• Attend to the next thing. That is, large projects and future goals and so forth just tend to distract or overwhelm me; to make progress, I need to know what the next action/decision is, and the one after that, and the one after that.

• As K&P put it: "When you make a decision, do something. Don't just go somewhere or make another decision."

Never sign a contract under time pressure. One day per page might be a usable heuristic.

Resist the urge to answer this email right now, especially if it's important. Treat emails as you would postal mail.

Before entering into an agreement with anyone, try to set up a small obstacle that they have to overcome in order to close on the agreement. (For instance: meet you outside of their office, or buy you coffee.) If they fail this dedication test, perhaps they don't really want this deal.

The Marine Corps has two maxims that I find useful in beating akrasia:

-If you can’t get out of it, get into it.

-False motivation is still motivation.

If you have to do something, you might as well find a way to make it fun (even if its a stupid way). Being ridiculously overenthusiastic about whatever it is you don't want to do is often enough to make the activity enjoyable. In the Marine Corps, this usually amounts to Marines yelling silly sounds at the top of their lungs or doing things as fast as they can or in a overly exaggerated manner, but I can attest to the fact that the maxims work well in the my rest of life too.

When you come to move, and a thing you're planning to move is still in a box since the last move, throw it out.

If you are keeping a thing 'because it might come in handy' and the occasion arises when it WOULD have been handy except you forget you have it, throw it out.

On smaller purchases I note that I have a danger zone of between £3 and £8 where it's easy to just spend money without discernible benefit (it's no coincidence that this equals about a coffee and a bun in Starbucks). So I have a rule that unless it's something I actually need Right Now, I make a maximum of one such purchase per non-working day.

In a sense everything under about $300 is already mine in that I could have it if I really wanted it with no real consequences on the rest of my life. This relieves the need to buy lots of stuff, if I ever REALLY need it it will be there.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently what should not be done at all.

-- Peter Drucker

Not doing something is almost always an option. Sometimes it's even the right one.

My instinctive reaction, which is by no means a maxim, is

• when pressured by a hard-sell tactics, disengage immediately

The justification, in retrospect, is that were the merchandise worth the price, chances are the seller would not have to resort to extreme measures. It has served me well when dealing with car salespeople and telemarketers. but is probably not applicable in many other cases.

One I find useful for interpersonal dealings, as well as a lot of other things is:

• If you don't like the effect, don't produce the cause.

Seems like a simple rule to follow, but I'd say at least half of the mistakes I make are due to when I neglect this rule.

• Just because I'm wrong, that doesn't mean you're right.

The truth might be somewhere completely different.

Related to your original maxim: If you want to buy something, always spend at least five minutes, by the clock, thinking about whether the you of three hours from now, three days from now, and three years from now will be glad of your purchase.

This is a maxim that I only just now formalized, but it's something that, in principle, I always try to do.

I'm anti-impulsive by default. In the face of new things to try or do or see, saying no is easy, saying yes is hard. I usually enjoy new experiences when I have them, and I crave them in general, but I have to steel myself to have them. I'm afraid of doing things wrong because they're new, I'm afraid of looking silly because I don't know what I'm doing, I'm afraid of doing things suboptimally, or paying too much, or spending too much time at something, and so on and so on. Reflectively, I endorse none of these fears to the degree I have them. And so:

• Awkward and fresh beats comfortable and stale.

I run this in my head, and get some distance from those little fears, and that often suffices to do awesome things.

Wise men store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.

-Proverbs 10:14

My personal version would go something like this:

More Anki, less debating politics on Facebook.

Get the small serving size. I now have this as a reflex:

"Would you like a small, medium or large ?" "Small."

"Regular, large or jumbo ?" "Small." *

"Would you like to supersize that ?" "No."

"Would you like fries with that ?" "No."

Avoids being flustered by a waiter / waitress looking at you or a queue of hungry people. Avoids overeating regret or plates of of uneaten food. On the rare occasion I finish still hungry, I can usually get a doughnut or something.

(* you don't have to conform to stupid linguistic inflation games, they know what you mean)

Eat sleep and have sex before making any big decision. Getting into that emotional ground state is valuable.

Think of the solution, not of the problem.

-- Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule

Having your thoughts run in a loop about why your situation is horrible won't make it better. If you lock yourself out of your hotel room in your underwear, standing around in the hallway worrying about it isn't going to make going to the front desk any less embarrassing. You need a room key; go figure out a way to get one!

See also.

This helped me to prevent clutter from creeping back into my house after a dedicated decluttering effort: Never put an item on your list of things to buy the first time you feel a need for it. Wait until you feel its absence it 2 or 3 times, because chances are, something you've already got can substitute well enough for the functionality you are missing.

If you ever declutter, you'll find a surprising amount of products that end up in the corners of shelves which were used only once ever and then forgotten. Chances are you'll find 2 or 3 copies of the same thing, because a lot of times you don't even remember you had bought one of them months ago.

Ciphergoth's maxim for purchases of expensive items is excellent. I'm going to be using it, thanks!

In the same vein, never be the sole arbiter of expensive purchasing decisions; pick another person to discuss the decision with. If you're married or dating, you have a good choice there.

This has several advantages; one which may come in particular handy for you in high-pressure situations, is that you can honestly say that you have to discuss the purchase with somebody else. Another is that discussing the issue forces you to articulate your reasons, which will give you a clearer idea of whether or not you really want it.

Pillage then burn!

More seriously, the things you don't want to do right now are probably the things that you should be doing. Works for me.

Working Mantras

Quote from Tom West (guy in Soul of the New Machine): Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.

The courage mantra: Courage is being well calibrated with respect to risk; for small games you play often (ie social interaction), if your scariest actions aren't failing as hard as they succeed, you're not being courageous enough.

If you can't predict the outcome with the outside view, do it just to get the data. (Be sensible: don't if you suspect large negative payoffs)

Model people causally, not morally.

This works for romance/sex, too. Have a hard wall on how far you'll go, and only move it when you're alone and calm. When you're in the heat of the moment, keep in mind that you can move it when you're alone and calm. You can even intend to do so -- and if when the time comes, you still think so, there you go.

Having that pressure release helps actually stay within the bounds you set. Otherwise it requires a great dal more patience.

My recent favorite maxim is "stabilize, modularize, upgrade". It means first get a working prototype or proof of concept built, then make sure the components are as modular and independent of each other as possible, then upgrade each module one by one until you have a complete system. It applies most directly to software engineering, but probably works in other domains as well.

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Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Related:

• Procedural knowledge gaps
• Rationality Quotes in general

Incidentally, probably the biggest mistake I have ever made could have been avoided by a similar maxim. I should have said "Yes, let's meet up to discuss these issues and try to make sure it will go well if you move in, but we won't decide while we're both in the room; we'll talk about it, then I'll sleep on it and let you know the next day."

Most people seem to giving a lot of rules of thumb, or even imperatives, instead of what I'd call maxims.

My rule of thumb: write down your maxims, and review them often.

Maxims that cheer you, maxims that motivate you, maxims that kick you out of bad habits, maxims that encourage good habits.

The most important are the maxims that touch you and move you. The best in that regard are quotes from a character in a movie or a book - that quote becomes a touchstone for a full context of meaning.

Two of my new favorites:

Sucker Punch (Sweet Pea)

Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us, and at the same time sings that we will never die? Who teaches us what's real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend? Who chains us? And Who holds the key that can set us free... It's You. You have all the weapons you need. Now Fight!

HPMOR (Harry)

And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star, they won't tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they're old enough to bear it; and when they learn they'll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed!

I think high level generalizations are found in aphorisms and teaching stories from all around the world. They can sometimes be shorthand for a whole story, for example I often remind myself not to eat my money referencing this story:

Mulla Nasrudin, as everyone knows, comes from a country where fruit is fruit and meat is meat, and curry is never eaten. One week he was plodding along a dusty Indian road, having newly descended from the high mountains of Kafiristan, when a great thirst overtook him. "Soon," he said to himself, "I must come across somewhere that good fruit is to be had." No sooner were the words formed in his brain than he rounded a corner and saw sitting in the shade of a tree a benevolent-looking man with a basket of fruit in front of him. Piled high in the basket were huge, shiny red fruits. "This is what I need," said Nasrudin. Taking two tiny coppers from the knot at the end of his turban, he handed them to the fruit-seller. Without a word, the man handed him the whole basket, for this kind of fruit is cheap in India, and people usually buy it in smaller amounts. Nasrudin sat down in the place vacated by the fruiterer and started to much the fruits. Within a few seconds, his mouth was burning. Tears streamed down his cheeks; fire was in his throat. The Mulla went on eating. An hour or two passed, and then an Afghan hillman came past. Nasrudin hailed him, "Brother, these infidel fruits must come from the very mouth of Sheitan!" "Fool!" said the hillman. "Hast thou never heard of the chillis of Hindustan? Stop eating them at once, or death will surely claim a victim before the sun is down." "I cannot move from here," gasped the Mulla, "until I have finished the whole basketful." "Madman! those fruits belong in curry! Throw them away at once." "I am not eating fruit any more," croaked Nasrudin, "I am eating my money."

--Idries Shah's "The Pleasntries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin

• I am not interested in what someone is against until I have seen what they are for.

A rule I have just applied here. It's easy to be against things. Anyone can do it, there are whole blogs created just to be against something or other. I don't read sucks blogs.

There are only so many words it is useful to expend on explaining why X sucks. Once you've given all the reasons, there is nowhere to go but to repeat yourself. To whine. It's the safe thing to do, because if you thought about what, specifically, you want instead ("Not X" isn't it), then you would be faced with the task of creating it.

(I won't go into an alternative way of avoiding the work, which is to magnify what you do want into an impossibly huge and far-off goal, except to say that it's a standard transhumanist failure mode.)

• Be comfortable in uncertainty.

• Do whatever the better version of yourself would do.

• Simplify the unnecessary.