Makes me wonder if a good way to deal with rationality or akrasia or self-improvement would be the kind of support group where everyone tries to find fault with everyone else. It’s so easy to see flaws in others compared to flaws in ourselves, why not use that to our advantage?
Finding the right people to do this who could both handle it and keep it from turning into an insult trading group might be difficult.
I tend to find focussing on developing strengths to better than focussing on weaknesses. Mind you there is a place for constructive criticism. But there are relatively few sources from whom such criticism is valuable.
I was thinking of a group more like “you said your piano teacher suggested practising with a metronome—have you actually done so this week?”
“you’ve said a priority is learning the piano, yet you aren’t keeping track of your practise or recording yourself or making any way to check your progress and get feedback. Have you noticed that is inconsistent with your stated desire?”
“Do you realise how much you are talking about your commute to work compared to it’s real impact on your life?”
It’s so easy to see flaws in others compared to flaws in ourselves, why not use that to our advantage?
That is difficult. I prefer the approach of Toastmasters of focussing more on the stuff done, well and some improvable points at once. Such a critique group can segway into a everyone-holds-everyone-down one very fast.
Perhaps the right way to do this is to focus on a particular topic rather than just a general-purpose fault-finding group. That would help people to evaluate others even if they weren’t very close, and also help to keep the criticism about something external and less personal.
For example, a group of people might work together on a project and criticize each others’ anti-akrasia skills purely in terms of work output on that project.
Makes me wonder if a good way to deal with rationality or akrasia or self-improvement would be the kind of support group where everyone tries to find fault with everyone else. It’s so easy to see flaws in others compared to flaws in ourselves, why not use that to our advantage?
Finding the right people to do this who could both handle it and keep it from turning into an insult trading group might be difficult.
I think it’s not just faults. People don’t always appreciate their good points.
The group should be for identifying blind spots in general.
I tend to find focussing on developing strengths to better than focussing on weaknesses. Mind you there is a place for constructive criticism. But there are relatively few sources from whom such criticism is valuable.
I don’t follow. If you never focus on things you can’t do well, you’ll never do anything different or build any new abilities.
Piano teacher: You’re not keeping time very well, you could benefit from practising playing to a metronome.
wedrifid: I prefer to focus on developing strengths, and I’m really good at playing loudly so I’ll just do that, thanks.
?
The most important part in that comment:
Followed closely by:
Definitely not:
I was thinking of a group more like “you said your piano teacher suggested practising with a metronome—have you actually done so this week?”
“you’ve said a priority is learning the piano, yet you aren’t keeping track of your practise or recording yourself or making any way to check your progress and get feedback. Have you noticed that is inconsistent with your stated desire?”
“Do you realise how much you are talking about your commute to work compared to it’s real impact on your life?”
not
“you really suck at the piano”
“and have you noticed how stupid you are?”
“and how you talk forever about boring things?”
Isn’t that exactly what we do here (and on other forums)?
A lot of failings people have are things that are hard to notice online.
Good point.
That is difficult. I prefer the approach of Toastmasters of focussing more on the stuff done, well and some improvable points at once. Such a critique group can segway into a everyone-holds-everyone-down one very fast.
Perhaps the right way to do this is to focus on a particular topic rather than just a general-purpose fault-finding group. That would help people to evaluate others even if they weren’t very close, and also help to keep the criticism about something external and less personal.
For example, a group of people might work together on a project and criticize each others’ anti-akrasia skills purely in terms of work output on that project.