I’m curious to hear examples of other worthwhile things in the direction that you have in mind!
VipulNaik
Karma: 1,575
Entitlement as a major amplifier of unhappiness
[Linkpost] Review: Happiness
Thanks—good points and well-presented with precision and flair!
Good point! It could be that both kinds of mental exercise (excess stimulation and lack of stimulation) are important for building mental strength; modern society provides the former in abundance (and particularly so for LessWrong readers!), so the form of exercise we’re constrained on is the lack-of-stimulation kind (and that’s where meditation helps). How far-fetched does that sound?
The case for “mental strength”
Miscellaneous thoughts on handling a stressful life
An anonymous friend to whom I sent this post writes:
He has a good point that most people just want to do the universal “safety” precautions. I think a big reason that he doesn’t mention is that reasonable precautions are how all businesses defend themselves from lawsuits (e.g. sexual harassment and DEI training); as long as they take the reasonable precautions, then they are immune from lawsuits. But I don’t buy “safety” as an explanation for what policies are possible. It sounds like a just-so story for why we are in the mess that we are in. Vaccines are available and thus a reasonable precaution because the government subsidized them. Respirators and HVAC filters could have been a reasonable precaution if governments had subsidized and encouraged them. I think better leadership could have made a difference.
I wish the federal government made it patriotic to make PPE and safety retrofits. They should have announced programs to set up melt blown respirator manufacturing in America. They should have made a tax credit (like the solar tax credit) for retrofits that improve ventilation in retail or offices.
I just got my booster dose today (December 24) and intend to monitor closely. I’ll be regularly updating https://github.com/vipulnaik/diet-exercise-health/blob/master/notes/2021-12-24-pfizer-covid-vaccine-booster-dose.md with temperature readings and subjective details of my experience.
I did similar logging after the second dose, that you can see here: https://github.com/vipulnaik/diet-exercise-health/blob/master/notes/2021-06-25-pfizer-covid-vaccine-dose-2.md
By “this way” do you mean the way I wrote it or the way Alexei would have preferred?
Good point; I added a section clarifying this focus: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CRAzG386t3suSqDgd/chris-voss-negotiation-masterclass-review#Low_level_execution_focus_rather_than_domain_specific_tactical_or_business_school_style_strategy_focus
Thanks for the feedback! It seems like you’re saying I should first have done “negotiation techniques” then “do these negotiation techniques have a place in rational discourse?” as separate sections. So if we make a table with rows as techniques and columns as lenses, then I should have traversed it column major instead of row major.
Did I misunderstand or miss an angle to what you’re saying?
Good point! Voss talks a bit about how many of these techniques feel odd. Two points he makes:
Practice in low-stakes situations to get more comfortable with it. Don’t try any negotiation technique in a high-stakes situation that you don’t have practice with!
In many cases the discomfort you experience saying it isn’t noticed by others. Voss gives examples related to mirroring as well as to the calibrated question “How am I supposed to do that?” People feel apprehensive asking the question but it usually works despite their apprehension.
I would also add that it’s more important to stick to things you believe in than to try to literally apply something that you feel is bad or wrong. If you’re convinced that, in a given situation, a label of “it sounds like you’re very happy with the way this turned out” is a gaming of the other person, don’t use it. But if in a situation you think it’s actually an accurate label that helps summarize the situation and correctly shows the other person that you are tuned in to what they are feeling and expressing, do it! Just keep an open mind to the possibility of using labels.
Summary (added): Basically I think if you use low-stakes practice and only selectively apply to the real world the skills you are comfortable with, you don’t need to experience an intermittent dip in effectiveness due to not feeling authentic.
Chris Voss negotiation MasterClass: review
We cover a larger period in the overall summary and full timeline. The summary by year starts 2013 because (it appears that) that’s around the time that enough started happening per year. Though we might expand it a little further to the past as we continue to expand the timeline.
[Question] Benefits of “micro-tracking” for personal health measurements?
<describe lockdowns as social engineering>
Did you intend to expand this?
<Michael Mina stuff here>
Did you intend to expand this?
Do you mean PDT instead of PST in the title?
I did some rewording of the post that made it a little more wordy, but fingers crossed that that part has now become less confusing.
Somewhat related, though different in various ways, is this post by Bryan Caplan: https://www.econlib.org/the-cause-of-what-i-feel-is-what-i-do-how-i-eliminate-pain/