Group Rationality Diary, Dec. 1-13, 2015

2 weeks ago I realised my current job is making me miserable. I've now started doing something about it and have a trial period of a few hours this weekend for a new job.

The forementioned misery was getting projected onto my boyfriend in the form of finding some of his less awesome behaviours incredibly annoying. I eventually realised that I was projecting and had a chat with him involving an apology and a discussion about what the underlying issues are and what we could potentially both do better in the future.

A friend and I have become accountability buddies in the sense of sharing our lists of goals and asking about their progress every now and then.

Have been trying to do the homework set by my therapist, although it's tough going (which of course is the reason it's such a major ugh field in the first place)

tldr; I’ve created a simple value management system with reflective elements to begin overhauling my previous self, and it’s going great! Yahoo!

Context: I was a person with various non-productive behaviors who was highly compassionate, and luckily noticed Less Wrong. Took a long time to make what didn’t feel like progress; but recently I’ve been in a better state of mind, and decided to initiate a system to overhaul myself with.

Thus I created what I indulgently call my Value Management System. Very fancy for a collection of Word Documents on my desktop, ho-ho! Firstly; the whole system dates and records everything, so I can track my progress reliably. There are also procedures for watching performance of everything, and making changes when appropriate (this also dated/recorded of course). First step to pumping actionable values out of myself is the Wish List, which has a short list of whimsical maybe-later things, as well as a more elaborate list of values that are not already implemented (and that I’m not allowed to act on in a complex fashion). The list uses a set of filters to force me to be coherent about a given desire, and to ensure it is reliably actionable and safe. The values are moved to either a Main or Local document depending on my time estimate. So now I have a system for managing myself in a clear and concise fashion! This is a considerable improvement for someone who had the sorts of issues I did. Some of the procedures are becoming second-nature, slowly, and I hope this will greatly speed up my attempts to get close to auto-strategic movement.

Things accomplished with system: Moved to town, which boosted productivity and provided internet. Noticed several issues with values and goals that were handily taken care of. Provided framework to set up more frameworks, like Cognitive Trigger Training, and study frameworks for when I decide what to do with myself.

I am so very excited to have this up and running; a major aspect is not losing track of values and actions, thusly fumbling about horribly, gehh. The only drawback I’ve encountered is trying to apply everything through the system. Most things are nearly complete, however, and once the bulk of my foundations are down things will become less congested.

I was having a kind of unmotivated day yesterday, and eventually I tried doing an experiment where instead of trying to plan out a bunch of things to do, I just picked one thing, deliberately chosen to not be a super important thing, just a thing I vaguely felt like doing (adding a long-press menu to my app Complice). This led into me doing other useful things, and my day was somewhat recovered :)

• After conducting an extensive survey of world climates and levels of pollution, I reckon the best (based on temperature, extrapolating from weather in Sydney, Australia, unadjusted for thermal comfort) climates are found in certain French speaking African cities - not say, the Canary Islands or the South of France as one might associate with idyllic weather. The French sure got territories with great weather. Here are the best of best cities are their climates: The best climates in the world: Dakar, Senegal, Lome, Toga, Cotonou, Benin, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libreville, Gabon, Abidjan, Ivory Coast. My conclusion is that optimal migration is complex. If I was to base a migration decision based on climate alone, I may misjudge the thermal comfort, then might end up somewhere with lots of crime, political instability and epidemic prone-ness. Another constraint is that in these West African countries pollution is probably underreported. IN the central African countries, all data is generally considered suspect or unavailable anyhow.

• Recognised that I feel scared to issue to a legal threat in a manner I feel wronger. I worry it will damage my social capital (and potentially my financial capital, more than that which may be restituted). I anticipate that if I make a legal threat it will be resolved there and then by the counterparty and it won't go to court, but I reckon word will spread in that community that I'm a 'difficult person' or something.

Established a useful new habit Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Lots of routine and habits related to social interaction mostly in job context:

• Asking questions to get people to understand something instead of stating facts.
• Convincing three intermediaries to convince a third more powerful person.
• Apply the STAR method in dialogs to get the most out of it (in job contexts).

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

I was pointed to The Thing All Women Do That You Don't Know About by a friend and she made clear that it is real for her. I listened, considered it, talked to a few friends about it and changed my mind. I also changed my behavior a bit in response to it.

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Accepted that I will never get acknowledgement for my support from one person and thereby handled my continued frustration from trying.

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Still accumulating advice in my Anki deck. The most recent:

• Don't write emails to ask for something but instead ask for a chat and lunch.
• the "bug model" of errors
• Healthy relationship habits that most people think are toxic
• Equality bias impairs collective decision-making across cultures - despite clearly making decision competence visible and adding stakes (unclear how I should debias)
• Every piece of social commentary is most likely to go to the people who need it the least (unclear how I should debias)

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Most people are not happy if they get information-dense diagrams I'm quite sure provide the information they need and what but apparently in a too dense form to deal with; even people I'd really have expected to appreciate the information. I need to simplify summarize and in many cases probably also reduce inferential distance.

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Still failing to really reliably getting enough sleep.