The primary objective of every organization is to perpetuate itself.
Evolution is the opposite. It defaults toward subtraction because random mutation biases change in favor of the removal of genes. (Note: Life has evolved many ways to minimize genetic drift towards noise. Genetic repair can only slow this effect. Life has not fully overcome entropy.)
I first realized the worthlessness of stuff when I lived in Italy for a year. All I took with me was one large backpack of stuff. The rest of my stuff I left in my landlady’s attic back in the US. And you know what? All I missed were some of the books. By the end of the year I couldn’t even remember what else I had stored in that attic.
I wonder how much the author’s thesis applies to hunter-gatherers like the !Kung who have to carry everything on their backs? I guess a tendency toward “more” wouldn’t hurt them much because their way of life places a hard limit on what they can amass. The analogy to overeating applies.
These people live below Dunbar’s number, so there is no need to amass wealth to impress strangers. What does matter is impressing people in your community by amassing personal connections. Therefore the tendency is to give away conspicuous material wealth rather than amassing it for onesself.
The idea that stockpiling is an instinct makes sense. Lots of rodents do it.
As a side note (from me, not Klotz), this has reversed to some extent in the modern world. Just as thinness is high-status in a world of abundant calories even for the poor, the minimalist aesthetic exemplified by Marie Kondo et al is high-status in a world where even relatively poor people (in the developed world, at least) can accumulate lots of material goods.
Yes, though I wonder how much is hipstering. It’s not like the royal family of Qatar is living a minimalist lifestyle. Then again, in The Promised Land, Barack Obama write about how his greatest personal fantasy is to walk down the street without a convoy.
Even when removing a word or section objectively improves some text, readers usually don’t know that a section was removed.
People don’t notice the removal of a single thing but people do notice the collective effect of many removals. One of my favorite things about Less Wrong is how clean Oliver keeps it. He doesn’t even allow underlines in posts.
Analysis: the review part
By your description, it feels like the kind of book where an author picks a word and then rambles about it like an impromptu speaker. If this had an extraordinary thesis requiring extraordinary evidence like Manufacturing Consent then lots of anecdotes would make sense. But the thesis seems too vague to be extraordinary.
I get the impression of the kind of book which where a dense blogpost is stretched out to the length of a book. This is ironic for a book about subtraction.
It seems to me like this book would be worth reading iff you want gentle nudges toward removing things from your life.
If Klotz wanted to rewrite each chapter to argue the opposite of what it does, I think he’d be able to.
By your description, it feels like the kind of book where an author picks a word and then rambles about it like an impromptu speaker. If this had an extraordinary thesis requiring extraordinary evidence like Manufacturing Consent then lots of anecdotes would make sense. But the thesis seems too vague to be extraordinary.
I get the impression of the kind of book which where a dense blogpost is stretched out to the length of a book. This is ironic for a book about subtraction.
Yup, very well-put.
Your point about anecdotes got me thinking; an “extraordinary thesis” might be conceptualized as claiming that the distribution of data significantly shifted away from some “obvious” average. If so, showing the existence of a few data points greater than, say, 4 standard deviations from the “obvious” average actually can be strong evidence in its favor. However, the same is not true for a few examples ~2 standard deviations away. Maybe Klotz’s error is using anecdotes that aren’t far enough away from what intuitively makes sense.
Probably didn’t explain that very well, so here is a Tweet from Spencer Greenberg making the point:
1. By Bayes Factor: suppose hypothesis “A” says a data point is nearly impossible, and hypothesis “B” says the data point is quite likely. Then the existence of that one data point (by Bayes’ rule) should move you substantially toward believing hypothesis B (relative to A).
Example: you have had a rash on your arm for 10 years (with no variability). You buy some “rash cream” off of a shady website, and within 2 hours of applying it, the rash is gone. You can be confident the cream works because it’s otherwise highly unlikely for the rash to vanish.
Your comment makes sense. I think the problem goes even deeper.
Many nonfiction books project all of human experience onto a single axis and then ramble about that axis. In this case, the axis is “more” vs “less”. If you don’t understand what “more” and “less” are then this can be educational. But if you do know what “more” and “less” are then the important thing to understand is when should you apply this axis and when shouldn’t you. It is one half of a bravery debate.
Bravery debates are more about the listener than the facts. Whether you should subtract from your life depends on who you are.
He inhabited a sparse, unheated cell, its concrete walls radiating the late-fall chill. A wooden-plank tucket served as both bed and day couch, with a small stand alongside for perching texts to read—and little else. As befits a monk, the room was empty of any private belongings.
From the early-morning hours until late into the night, Khunu Lama would sit on that bed, a text always open in front of him. Whenever a visitor would pop in—and in the Tibetan world that could be at just about any time—he would invariably welcome them with a kindly gaze and warm words.
Khunu’s qualities—a loving attention to whoever came to see him—struck Dan as quite unlike, and far more positive than, the personality traits he had been studying for his degree in clinical psychology at Harvard. That training focused on negatives: neurotic patterns, overpowering burdensome feelings, and outright psychopathology.
Khunu, on the other hand, quietly exuded the better side of human nature. His humility, for instance, was fabled. The story goes that the abbot of the monastery, in recognition of Khunu’s spiritual status, offered him as living quarters a suite of rooms on the monastery’s top floor, with a monk to serve as an attendant. Khunu declined, preferring the simplicity of his small, bare monk’s cell.
―Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson
I don’t think Khunu needs to read about how he should subtract from his life.
The problem with Subtract is that the truth-value of its thesis depends on who is reading it. I prefer to read books with observer-independent (i.e. objective) truth values.
The primary objective of every organization is to perpetuate itself.
Evolution is the opposite. It defaults toward subtraction because random mutation biases change in favor of the removal of genes. (Note: Life has evolved many ways to minimize genetic drift towards noise. Genetic repair can only slow this effect. Life has not fully overcome entropy.)
I wonder how much the author’s thesis applies to hunter-gatherers like the !Kung who have to carry everything on their backs? I guess a tendency toward “more” wouldn’t hurt them much because their way of life places a hard limit on what they can amass. The analogy to overeating applies.
These people live below Dunbar’s number, so there is no need to amass wealth to impress strangers. What does matter is impressing people in your community by amassing personal connections. Therefore the tendency is to give away conspicuous material wealth rather than amassing it for onesself.
The idea that stockpiling is an instinct makes sense. Lots of rodents do it.
Yes, though I wonder how much is hipstering. It’s not like the royal family of Qatar is living a minimalist lifestyle. Then again, in The Promised Land, Barack Obama write about how his greatest personal fantasy is to walk down the street without a convoy.
People don’t notice the removal of a single thing but people do notice the collective effect of many removals. One of my favorite things about Less Wrong is how clean Oliver keeps it. He doesn’t even allow underlines in posts.
Analysis: the review part
By your description, it feels like the kind of book where an author picks a word and then rambles about it like an impromptu speaker. If this had an extraordinary thesis requiring extraordinary evidence like Manufacturing Consent then lots of anecdotes would make sense. But the thesis seems too vague to be extraordinary.
I get the impression of the kind of book which where a dense blogpost is stretched out to the length of a book. This is ironic for a book about subtraction.
It seems to me like this book would be worth reading iff you want gentle nudges toward removing things from your life.
Yes.
Yup, very well-put.
Your point about anecdotes got me thinking; an “extraordinary thesis” might be conceptualized as claiming that the distribution of data significantly shifted away from some “obvious” average. If so, showing the existence of a few data points greater than, say, 4 standard deviations from the “obvious” average actually can be strong evidence in its favor. However, the same is not true for a few examples ~2 standard deviations away. Maybe Klotz’s error is using anecdotes that aren’t far enough away from what intuitively makes sense.
Probably didn’t explain that very well, so here is a Tweet from Spencer Greenberg making the point:
Your comment makes sense. I think the problem goes even deeper.
Many nonfiction books project all of human experience onto a single axis and then ramble about that axis. In this case, the axis is “more” vs “less”. If you don’t understand what “more” and “less” are then this can be educational. But if you do know what “more” and “less” are then the important thing to understand is when should you apply this axis and when shouldn’t you. It is one half of a bravery debate.
Bravery debates are more about the listener than the facts. Whether you should subtract from your life depends on who you are.
I don’t think Khunu needs to read about how he should subtract from his life.
The problem with Subtract is that the truth-value of its thesis depends on who is reading it. I prefer to read books with observer-independent (i.e. objective) truth values.