Well, if you make it out to Berkeley, you’re welcome to be the drummer in my hypothetical rationalist rock band. I’ve been procrastinating about putting it together for a long time, but we have enough talented instrumentalists and vocalists together to make a great band.
(I play drums too, but realistically actually prefer playing percussion to drum sets, and I always like rock bands with drums + aux percussion...)
Well, we (where we means I) don’t really have any music written and lots of counterfactual disputes about whether we want to optimize for popular appeal or not. The kind of music that I would actually want to write if I was capable of writing it myself, is somewhere between Alcest and Zomby. I’m sure by virtue of collaboration it will end up sounding nothing like that.
Try planning tomorrow out in advance every evening, and iteratively discover what works?
All my motivational breakthroughs came when I stopped trying to figure out what I “really wanted to do”, ala Paul Graham’s How to Do What You Love, and started setting and accomplishing goals because I wanted to goals accomplished for their own sake (as opposed to because I thought the act of working towards the goals themselves would be intrinsically fulfilling).
Well, I can empathise. I spent 1993 sitting on my extremely nice front porch drinking coffee, smoking Lucky Strikes and reading all the newspapers with my burnt-out ex-Communist housemate, and achieving 0. It was the right thing at the right time. I think.
26, had suffered recent horrible experience of working an actual day job, burnt out from doing an indie rock fanzine for several years. We didn’t have Internet then so I had to actually go see my friends or them come visit me. I got a job at the end of that year and then moved from Perth (which is like said porch the size of a city) to Melbourne.
Dude, you know what? That used to work for me! Back when … it worked for me. I don’t think all akrasias are made of the same stuff because that definitely works for some types of them. I just think you don’t know in advance which one and you only realize it’s not working after a wasted few months.
Thanks for sharing. What’s your plan? How much of your time do you think it would be optimal to spend assessing your options with regard to where to live?
I love the idea of living with “agent-y” rationalists, but I definitely don’t love the idea of slowly discovering that I’m intractably not motivated or smart enough to truly “hang.”
My impression is that the majority of aspiring rationalists are willing to work with each other through our flaws, rather than expecting perfection. I suspect the smartest, most popular people in the rationality community take up a disproportionate amount of our attention, which can make inadequacy feel more plausible than it really is. If we try, I don’t think we’ll have trouble finding awesome living environments.
So I’m looking at monthly living expenses of $1200 in NYC, $1250 in Berkeley, and $1100 in Northampton. Which means I realistically only accrue savings if I live in Northampton or get a different job or more students.
My experience with budgeting my life suggests that your margin of calculational error will swamp the given differences.
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Well, if you make it out to Berkeley, you’re welcome to be the drummer in my hypothetical rationalist rock band. I’ve been procrastinating about putting it together for a long time, but we have enough talented instrumentalists and vocalists together to make a great band.
(I play drums too, but realistically actually prefer playing percussion to drum sets, and I always like rock bands with drums + aux percussion...)
Who else would be in it?
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Well, we (where we means I) don’t really have any music written and lots of counterfactual disputes about whether we want to optimize for popular appeal or not. The kind of music that I would actually want to write if I was capable of writing it myself, is somewhere between Alcest and Zomby. I’m sure by virtue of collaboration it will end up sounding nothing like that.
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Alcest reminds me of Leaves’ Eyes.
Try planning tomorrow out in advance every evening, and iteratively discover what works?
All my motivational breakthroughs came when I stopped trying to figure out what I “really wanted to do”, ala Paul Graham’s How to Do What You Love, and started setting and accomplishing goals because I wanted to goals accomplished for their own sake (as opposed to because I thought the act of working towards the goals themselves would be intrinsically fulfilling).
Keep in mind that people are strongly affected by the people they hang out with.
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I didn’t understand this bit. What do you mean?
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Well, I can empathise. I spent 1993 sitting on my extremely nice front porch drinking coffee, smoking Lucky Strikes and reading all the newspapers with my burnt-out ex-Communist housemate, and achieving 0. It was the right thing at the right time. I think.
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26, had suffered recent horrible experience of working an actual day job, burnt out from doing an indie rock fanzine for several years. We didn’t have Internet then so I had to actually go see my friends or them come visit me. I got a job at the end of that year and then moved from Perth (which is like said porch the size of a city) to Melbourne.
Dude, you know what? That used to work for me! Back when … it worked for me. I don’t think all akrasias are made of the same stuff because that definitely works for some types of them. I just think you don’t know in advance which one and you only realize it’s not working after a wasted few months.
Cool, now I have something to blame my post-PhD akrasia on.
Thanks for sharing. What’s your plan? How much of your time do you think it would be optimal to spend assessing your options with regard to where to live?
My impression is that the majority of aspiring rationalists are willing to work with each other through our flaws, rather than expecting perfection. I suspect the smartest, most popular people in the rationality community take up a disproportionate amount of our attention, which can make inadequacy feel more plausible than it really is. If we try, I don’t think we’ll have trouble finding awesome living environments.
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My experience with budgeting my life suggests that your margin of calculational error will swamp the given differences.
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I enjoyed reading your analysis. If there’s anything in particular you want input on, I’d be happy to share my perspective.
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My curiosity requests an update on outcome/progression of your considerations in this comment and its children. :)
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