There is something I find problematic about the Derive method. It seems to require lying convincingly to yourself which I think is a bad idea.
Find a striking piece of advice that you have an aversion to, because you are attached by vanity to your current identity.
Wouldn’t this be labeled in my head as bad advice? If there is a part of myself that identifies it as good advice, and I realise that it is based on vanity, isn’t that enough to accept the advice?
Modify it in a wacky and idiosyncratic way. This can be a useful upgrade, but it doesn’t have to be. Rebrand it to be catchy or personal.
Ok, if I modify it enough maybe I can actually take pride in my reformulation (though I could argue that even this is partly deceitful). But if it ‘doesn’t have to be a useful upgrade’ then I have to rebrand it by lying to myself. As stated above I believe lying to yourself is a very bad idea. I would agree with Jordan Peterson that this would result in pathologising the thinking process.
I understand that this is an attempt to hack the vanity mechanism for motivational purposes. I just think that the more traditional ways of overcoming pride such as 1) observing behavior with honesty, identifying instances of self-inflationary behavior or thought, and 2) practice humility, are better strategies as they are addressing the cause and not the symptom[1].
Thoughts?
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[1] Notice how honesty/sincerity and humility have to be developed together as the one does not work without the other. Apparent humility can actually be disguised vanity etc.
I think this is a very serious issue and part of the reason I wrote that Derive and Reverse is a short-term strategy. I consider the Derive method as a mental game of make-believe which allows you to recognize unproductive vanity at work. Originally I intended the exercise of rebranding primarily as a mechanism to notice self-inflationary behavior as you described, and secondarily as a mechanism to hack vanity for motivation. On reflection I think the second purpose is not worth the cost of serious self-deception.
In this light, I would weaken Derive to something like this: when a perfectly good piece of advice like “keep a Gratitude journal” falls into your lap but you have an instinctive immunoreaction to it, one way to notice and dispel the part of that aversion that comes from vanity is to walk through Derive in your head and notice changes in your gut reaction to a trivial rebranding. It is important to be remain honest about the quality of your contribution—the point of the exercise is to notice pieces of your System 1 rejecting other people’s ideas.
Thank you for yet another interesting post!
There is something I find problematic about the Derive method. It seems to require lying convincingly to yourself which I think is a bad idea.
Wouldn’t this be labeled in my head as bad advice? If there is a part of myself that identifies it as good advice, and I realise that it is based on vanity, isn’t that enough to accept the advice?
Ok, if I modify it enough maybe I can actually take pride in my reformulation (though I could argue that even this is partly deceitful). But if it ‘doesn’t have to be a useful upgrade’ then I have to rebrand it by lying to myself. As stated above I believe lying to yourself is a very bad idea. I would agree with Jordan Peterson that this would result in pathologising the thinking process.
I understand that this is an attempt to hack the vanity mechanism for motivational purposes. I just think that the more traditional ways of overcoming pride such as 1) observing behavior with honesty, identifying instances of self-inflationary behavior or thought, and 2) practice humility, are better strategies as they are addressing the cause and not the symptom[1].
Thoughts?
----------------------------------------
[1] Notice how honesty/sincerity and humility have to be developed together as the one does not work without the other. Apparent humility can actually be disguised vanity etc.
I think this is a very serious issue and part of the reason I wrote that Derive and Reverse is a short-term strategy. I consider the Derive method as a mental game of make-believe which allows you to recognize unproductive vanity at work. Originally I intended the exercise of rebranding primarily as a mechanism to notice self-inflationary behavior as you described, and secondarily as a mechanism to hack vanity for motivation. On reflection I think the second purpose is not worth the cost of serious self-deception.
In this light, I would weaken Derive to something like this: when a perfectly good piece of advice like “keep a Gratitude journal” falls into your lap but you have an instinctive immunoreaction to it, one way to notice and dispel the part of that aversion that comes from vanity is to walk through Derive in your head and notice changes in your gut reaction to a trivial rebranding. It is important to be remain honest about the quality of your contribution—the point of the exercise is to notice pieces of your System 1 rejecting other people’s ideas.
Does this help?