Do you know of any techniques to measure your own manipulability somewhat objectively?
jasticE
Karma: 75
I find your basic proposal sympathetic, since I have more or less been following the idea of optimal employment myself, but with different preferences. In that light, I find your advice highly specific, which is very useful for people with similar preferences, but less interesting for others like me.
To add my current personal choice to the mix: Here in Germany the cost of being enrolled at university is relatively low: from 50-500€ / semester, depending on federal state and university. On the other hand, you get the benefit of being able to work as “Werkstudent”, where you pay only a flat amount of social security, which is usually the largest deduction from income. I work as a programmer on that basis, and have very flexible working hours, and lots of free time to pursue academic interests, and enough money to pay my bills. If I want or need extra money, I can choose to work more. I think this is a good choice if you like to live in an urban environment, especially since most German cities have a good public transport system and biking everywhere is reasonable.
I may act in accordance with different values without resulting in undirected floppyness.
For instance, I could value both animal life and wearing traditional Bavarian lederhosn, and act on these values by producing, buying and wearing lederhosn while donating money to a save-the-cows fund. But I guess I could just donate an amount relative to how much I value the cows over/under lederhosn. Hm. Okay.
Is not being hypocritical a moral value in itself, or is it above morality? Either way, why?
If my values contradict, but I don’t care about hypocrisy, should it matter to me?
Out of interest, how many of the people who listened to your pitch subsequently gave donations?
Munich, Germany
A method to apply the “lottery technique” to overcome an Ugh field might be to report any relevant subgoal to a partner, who decides on a set of rewards and a mode of giving them, whereas each subgoal is a “lottery ticket”. This has the advantages: this precise chances of winning are hidden, which may lead to motivation to figure out “the system”, there can be hidden prizes and social accountability
You may do likewise for the partner. If this proves successful, it could be facilitated by a website where people track each others goals.
That definition may be problematic in respect to life-and-death decisions such as cryonics: Once I am dead, I am not around to regret any decision. So any choice that leads to my death could not be considered bad.
For instance, I will never regret not having signed up for cryonics. I may however regret doing it if I get awakened in the future and my quality of life is too low. On the other hand, I am thinking about it out of sheer curiosity for the future. Thus, signing up would simply help me increasing my current utility by having a hope of more future utility. I am just noticing, this makes the decision accessible to your definition of preference again, by posing the question to myself: “If I signed up for cryonics today, would I regret the [cost of the] decision tomorrow?”
If the actual preference is neither acted upon, nor believed in, how is it a preference?
Well, hello. I like this place and it gives me things to think about, but I don’t have the energy to post more than a wee comment or question occasionally.
Cheers!
although I think the act of taking thr tests repeatedly would tend to increase introspection, in the manner of observation effecting the outcome
It may also just increase the “ability” of taking the test such that it produces outcomes that match better with your (desired) self-perspective. I’ve noticed a slight drift from INTP to INFP (which I identify with a bit more) in repeated self-administrations of the test. Possibly that’s just due to how I feel on a particular day, but partly I may be choosing answers which favor F over T without outright lying in cases where I am not very sure.
I am interested. Could you give some examples of those blogs, and possibly describe in what way their approach is completely different?
What Barry said, however, I have heard that you may not be able to work as a foreign student. But then, I have a colleague from Canada. I’ll ask him for specifics. Austria may also be a good choice, as there are no admission fees, but I don’t know any details.