We already have a common leveling scale set out by the universe itself: how many surviving children you have.
If you don’t like that one, and prefer an easier proxy, we already have several: the most obvious being your annual income. (Corrected for education level if you prefer.)
If you don’t like any of those, and you’re looking for easier proxies still, I can only ask: Why? What exactly are you trying to accomplish with the scales you are trying to derive? Once you figure that out, it may be easier to decide what the scales should measure.
Going to the gym does’t require figuring out your cosmic goals first. Typically, leveling up is not a game objective in itself, but it’s supposed to help you achieve game objectives, whatever they are.
Cosmic goals no—those being far mode beliefs, if anything they are likely to be counterproductive. But it seems to me that leveling up is something to be done in the service of game objectives, not vice versa. For example, consider the following strategies:
I’m trying to optimize for lifespan. The available evidence says exercise is beneficial for that, so I will set out a program of going to the gym on a permanent sustainable basis as well as cutting down on calorie intake and driving, and aiming within the next decade to move to a region where cryonics is available. To help me achieve these goals, I will design a metric to measure them.
Everybody seems to think you should go to the gym, so I guess I’ll go to the gym.
I think the former strategy is, apart from anything else, more likely to have you still going to the gym in six months time. -shrug- It seems most people disagree, based on the vote total; so be it.
I don’t understand this. It seems like you should want to maximize the amount of things that you really care about that you get done. You should focus your effort on your actual goals. Not some set of parallel goals that you don’t care about called “levels.”
If you want to maximize how much you get done that you do care about, you should aim to minimize the amount of self-improvement that you do. You should make only those improvements that are necessary to get done what you are trying to get done right now. You shouldn’t upgrade yourself speculatively.
I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing—frankly, I have no statistical data on what most people who are interested in self-improvement are striving towards. What I’m saying is that if you are interested in something else, it might be better to figure out why, and just what that something else is, and why you are trying to come up with a metric; the answers to those questions might help you figure out what the metric should be.
if you are interesting in something else, it might be better to figure out why, and just what that something else is [etc.]
How do you think people are planning on constructing this “level system”, if not through assessment of personal goals (“what you’re interested in”) and appropriate metrics for those goals? I see no difference between what you’re suggesting as “better” and what the OP and discussants suggested.
Well, take a look at one of the concrete proposals that have been made, say memorizing the Gettysburg address. Is this a good or a bad idea? I don’t know. Personally I have an explicit policy of delegating that kind of long-term memory to machines; if I were going to try any kind of memory exercise, I’d go for something like dual N-back that tries to train working memory. Does that mean memorizing the Gettysburg address is a bad suggestion? Well, I don’t know. It wasn’t presented with any accompanying rationale. For all I know, maybe there’s actually a very good reason why at least some people might want to thus train long-term memory, that the person who suggested it is seeing and I’m not. It would be easier to assess proposals if they were accompanied by discussion of how they are intended to meet some objective.
Using N-Back is a good measure, actually. What do you think that would come under? Memory? What do you think would be level 1? Dual 1-back? and level 2 would be dual 2-back?
I see you’ve edited the wiki page to add dual 1-back to “memory”. I have some doubts about this, because a) no one really knows whether n-back is good for anything except improving n-back performance, b) I’d like to only include things that clearly and obviously sound like good ideas to the average person, and avoid things that may sound like snake oil (even if they aren’t in fact snake oil). Would you mind reverting that edit? I don’t want to do it myself because that would mark the beginning of a passive-aggressive edit war.
Also, nice idea about pancakes! It’s pretty much the perfect level 1 task.
Oh ok. I didn’t know that about N-back. I guess, from hearing about it so much here, that I thought it was more solid than that. No problem I’ll revert it.
and I wouldn’t mind if you reverted it as long as I had the explanation :)
Sounds reasonable. Might be worth further subdividing into working memory versus long-term memory since they would seem likely to be useful for different things?
Ok, and have removed it again at a request from cousin_it, who says that it’s not confirmed that n-back has any effect on actually improving short-term memory (except as applied to playing n-back). I am not qualified to continue that discussion—if you’d like to continue it… it’s in one of cousin_it’s comments on the page somewhere… feel free to take up the thread ;)
I think you are confusing the terminal and instrumental goals in this situation.
The “leveling up system” is a means to the desired end. It’s an instrumental goal intended to be a fun way in which some of us see that we could motivate ourselves towards our “real” (terminal) goals.
If it’s not for you—then no problem. It’s not going to be for everybody.
I basically agree. I do think that how many surviving children you have is not quite the right metric though. In the developed world we are now emphasizing quality over quantity in offspring. I would rather have 2 children that I have put a lot of time into and who will carry some of my beliefs and values into the future than 8 kids from 4 different baby mamas that will barely recognize me if they see me.
We already have a common leveling scale set out by the universe itself: how many surviving children you have.
If you don’t like that one, and prefer an easier proxy, we already have several: the most obvious being your annual income. (Corrected for education level if you prefer.)
If you don’t like any of those, and you’re looking for easier proxies still, I can only ask: Why? What exactly are you trying to accomplish with the scales you are trying to derive? Once you figure that out, it may be easier to decide what the scales should measure.
Going to the gym does’t require figuring out your cosmic goals first. Typically, leveling up is not a game objective in itself, but it’s supposed to help you achieve game objectives, whatever they are.
Cosmic goals no—those being far mode beliefs, if anything they are likely to be counterproductive. But it seems to me that leveling up is something to be done in the service of game objectives, not vice versa. For example, consider the following strategies:
I’m trying to optimize for lifespan. The available evidence says exercise is beneficial for that, so I will set out a program of going to the gym on a permanent sustainable basis as well as cutting down on calorie intake and driving, and aiming within the next decade to move to a region where cryonics is available. To help me achieve these goals, I will design a metric to measure them.
Everybody seems to think you should go to the gym, so I guess I’ll go to the gym.
I think the former strategy is, apart from anything else, more likely to have you still going to the gym in six months time. -shrug- It seems most people disagree, based on the vote total; so be it.
I don’t understand this. It seems like you should want to maximize the amount of things that you really care about that you get done. You should focus your effort on your actual goals. Not some set of parallel goals that you don’t care about called “levels.”
If you want to maximize how much you get done that you do care about, you should aim to minimize the amount of self-improvement that you do. You should make only those improvements that are necessary to get done what you are trying to get done right now. You shouldn’t upgrade yourself speculatively.
Income and kids aren’t what most people who are interested in self-improvement are striving towards. Do you really disagree with that?
I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing—frankly, I have no statistical data on what most people who are interested in self-improvement are striving towards. What I’m saying is that if you are interested in something else, it might be better to figure out why, and just what that something else is, and why you are trying to come up with a metric; the answers to those questions might help you figure out what the metric should be.
How do you think people are planning on constructing this “level system”, if not through assessment of personal goals (“what you’re interested in”) and appropriate metrics for those goals? I see no difference between what you’re suggesting as “better” and what the OP and discussants suggested.
Well, take a look at one of the concrete proposals that have been made, say memorizing the Gettysburg address. Is this a good or a bad idea? I don’t know. Personally I have an explicit policy of delegating that kind of long-term memory to machines; if I were going to try any kind of memory exercise, I’d go for something like dual N-back that tries to train working memory. Does that mean memorizing the Gettysburg address is a bad suggestion? Well, I don’t know. It wasn’t presented with any accompanying rationale. For all I know, maybe there’s actually a very good reason why at least some people might want to thus train long-term memory, that the person who suggested it is seeing and I’m not. It would be easier to assess proposals if they were accompanied by discussion of how they are intended to meet some objective.
Using N-Back is a good measure, actually. What do you think that would come under? Memory? What do you think would be level 1? Dual 1-back? and level 2 would be dual 2-back?
I see you’ve edited the wiki page to add dual 1-back to “memory”. I have some doubts about this, because a) no one really knows whether n-back is good for anything except improving n-back performance, b) I’d like to only include things that clearly and obviously sound like good ideas to the average person, and avoid things that may sound like snake oil (even if they aren’t in fact snake oil). Would you mind reverting that edit? I don’t want to do it myself because that would mark the beginning of a passive-aggressive edit war.
Also, nice idea about pancakes! It’s pretty much the perfect level 1 task.
Oh ok. I didn’t know that about N-back. I guess, from hearing about it so much here, that I thought it was more solid than that. No problem I’ll revert it.
and I wouldn’t mind if you reverted it as long as I had the explanation :)
Sounds reasonable. Might be worth further subdividing into working memory versus long-term memory since they would seem likely to be useful for different things?
Ok, and have removed it again at a request from cousin_it, who says that it’s not confirmed that n-back has any effect on actually improving short-term memory (except as applied to playing n-back). I am not qualified to continue that discussion—if you’d like to continue it… it’s in one of cousin_it’s comments on the page somewhere… feel free to take up the thread ;)
Have added them as “sub” goals of Memory as “long-term” and “short-term” memory. They don’t need to be top-level skills, I think.
I think you are confusing the terminal and instrumental goals in this situation.
The “leveling up system” is a means to the desired end. It’s an instrumental goal intended to be a fun way in which some of us see that we could motivate ourselves towards our “real” (terminal) goals.
If it’s not for you—then no problem. It’s not going to be for everybody.
I basically agree. I do think that how many surviving children you have is not quite the right metric though. In the developed world we are now emphasizing quality over quantity in offspring. I would rather have 2 children that I have put a lot of time into and who will carry some of my beliefs and values into the future than 8 kids from 4 different baby mamas that will barely recognize me if they see me.