The highest-level hack I've found useful is to make a habit of noticing and recording the details of any part of my life that gives me trouble. It's amazing how quickly patterns start to jump out when you've assembled actual data about something that's vaguely frustrated you for a while.
Not the prettiest example, but I had a log-running acne problem that I could never seem to get a handle on. So a few years ago, I started writing down, every morning, whether I had new zits that day, what I was using on my face, and any other factors (like diet) I thought might be relevant. It suddenly became quite easy to zero in on the right solution (a low concentration benzoyl peroxide facewash), and I've been happy with the results ever since.
A second example is that I started a (rather involved and silly) spreadsheet tracking my time working one semester. It was far too complicated a system in retrospect, but the mere fact of observing my time-wasting led me to use my time moderately better than before.
And a third thing is keeping explicit track of what you spend, so that you notice what patterns are costing you money and can ask whether they're worth it. (Or, in the other direction, I learned that I shouldn't be so worried about marginal spending on clothes, since that amount is dwarfed by rent, food, etc. So I buy new clothes a bit more often.) There are automatic tools for budgeting (like Mint.com) if you trust them.
The Intel story's source should be cited. It's in Only The Paranoid Survive by Grove, Chapter 5:
I remember a time in the middle of 1985, after this aimless wandering had been going on for almost a year. I was in my office with Intel's chairman and CEO, Gordon Moore, and we were discussing our quandary. Our mood was downbeat. I looked out the window at the Ferris wheel of the Great America amusement park revolving in the distance, then I turned back to Gordon and I asked, "If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?" Gordon answered without hesitation, "He would get us out of memories." I stared at him, numb, then said, "Why shouldn't you and I walk out the door, come back and do it ourselves?"
Currently, the website directly follows ("without hesitation") but slightly mutates this ("brought in" => "brings in", "memories" => "the memory business").
But the problem with Intel — it was in the wrong market! — was so deep that the place to intervene was at a very low level, the foundations of the entire company.
Wouldn't this be better described as a very high level, not a very low level? You seem to adopt this mapping later on:
Or, if you're in a crippling environment like North Korea or Nigeria or Detroit, then perhaps the highest level intervention for you is to get up and move someplace better.
Ask whether you're hitting 'the basics of what normal people think makes people healthy.' Sebastian Marshall has a good list:
- Drink lots of water
- Enough high quality sleep
- Not too much sleep
- Eat fruits and vegetables
- Scale back on any intoxicants
- Spend time in nature
- Spend time with people you respect
- Read books you enjoy
- Think/plan on what your goals are
- Some light moving around/exercise (even just a walk)
- Fresh air
- Clean up your environment a little
- Get small, achievable wins
Intuition pump: you have a low-powered genie who can grant wishes to the level of contemporary technology available on the open market. What do you ask for before you get to "man, I wish I could consciously regulate broad measures of neurological activity inside my brain"?
There are a few answers to this:
OKCupid does actually ask quite a lot of personal questions, which people do answer. A few years ago the answers were kept private, but now users have the option to make them public, and there exists a certain amount of pressure to do so. I imagine this change results in less honest / accurate answers, but you would still be surprised what people admit to.
The service wouldn't have to tell you it was keeping track of your self-esteem over time, and matching you with concordant suitors at points when you'd both be most vulnerable to each other's charms. It would just ask you questions, like a curious but candid friend.
The questions I proposed above were gauche semi-serious examples. There are probably a number of more subtle questions that would correlate strongly with self-esteem without setting off alarm bells in the people that answer them.
Part of the reason for me talking about it is how unpalatable and creepy the idea is, and how a lot of the factors surrounding people being attracted to each other are not available to dating website service providers without a lot of effort they're probably not prepared to invest. There are probably some areas they can capitalise upon, however.
Michael Keenan pointed out that Scott Adams recommends maximizing one's energy should be the priority. That sounds pretty plausible.
In my experience, one doesn't notice things that are wrong until there is something to contrast them to. For example, you might not even notice that you need new glasses until seeing the world through better ones.
So a first step might just be radical change. Be mindful of the adjustments you're making when changing food, location, or employment. Flail about a bit and do informal self-experimentation along as many dimensions as possible. This should help highlight location / emotional / physical conditions and suchlike that are getting in the way.
...In fact, I suspect almost nobody is that self-optimized. We do things like neurofeedback because (1) we don't think enough about choosing the highest-leverage self-interventions, (2) in any case, we don't know how to figure out which interventions would be higher leverage for ourselves, (3) even if there are higher-leverage interventions to be had, we might not successfully carry them through, but neurofeedback or whatever happens to be fun and engaging for us, and (3) sometimes, you gotta stop analyzing your situation and just do some stuff that looks li
I don't think it's setting a good example for the CFAR to use an unreliable (self-serving, given from hindsight) anecdote to make a point. The source listed for that story is an autobiography by one of the people in it.
If the truth of the events doesn't matter, why not use a more accessible urban legend than one that requires knowledge of microprocessors vs memory chips and the timeline of Intel's relative success?
North Korea or Nigeria or Detroit
These seem to go in increasing order of "that really needs to be made more specific before calling it a 'crippling environment'."
Nothing new but doing thorough predictions about things you think you understand and follow up on them, being very fastidious about concreteness about predictions prevents me from re(miss)interpreting vague predictions when I get the results.
What algorithm could be used for discovering the next best intervention one can make to improve oneself?
Trying a bit of this, a bit of that, and comparing results? I doubt it can get any more precise, because the interventions on different levels can be, well, different.
For small changes I would recommend trying each strategy one week (to filter out work-day cycle and other noise), and having a set of similar tasks, randomly assigned to those weeks; or one repetitive task. But some level of change would probably disrupt such setting. As an example, if m...
The first place to improve is stop doing stupid things. If you don't know what you're doing that's stupid, then figure that out, and stop doing it.
The "What is Rationality?" page on the new CFAR website contains an illuminating story about Intel:
Semiconductor giant Intel was originally a memory chip manufacturer. But by 1985, memory chips had been losing them money for years. Co-founders Andy Grove (CEO) and Gordon Moore met to discuss the problem. The mood was grim. At one point, Andy turned to Gordon and asked, “If we get kicked out and the board brings in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?”
Gordon replied without hesitation. “He would get us out of the memory business.”
“Okay,” said Andy. “Then why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back, and do it ourselves?”
That year, Andy and Gordon shifted the focus of the company to microprocessors, and created one of the greatest success stories in American business.
I presume Andy and Gordon had considered intervening at many different levels of action: in middle management, in projects, in products, in details, etc. They had probably implemented some of these plans, too. But the problem with Intel — it was in the wrong market! — was so deep that the place to intervene was at a very low level, the foundations of the entire company. It's possible that in this situation, no change they could have made at higher levels of action would have made that big of a difference compared to changing the company's market and mission.
In 1997, system analyst Donella Meadows wrote Places to Intervene in a System, in which she outlined twelve leverage points at which one could intervene in a system. Different levels of action, she claimed, would have effects of different magnitudes.
This got me thinking about levels of action and self-improvement. "I want to improve myself: where should I intervene in my own system next?"
My bet is that if the next greatest leverage point you can push on is something like neurofeedback, then you're pretty damn self-optimized already.
In fact, I suspect almost nobody is that self-optimized. We do things like neurofeedback because (1) we don't think enough about choosing the highest-leverage self-interventions, (2) in any case, we don't know how to figure out which interventions would be higher leverage for ourselves, (3) even if there are higher-leverage interventions to be had, we might not successfully carry them through, but neurofeedback or whatever happens to be fun and engaging for us, and (3) sometimes, you gotta stop analyzing your situation and just do some stuff that looks like it might help.
Anyway, how can one figure out what the next highest-leverage self-interventions are for oneself? Maybe I just haven't yet found the right keywords, but I don't think there's been much research on this topic.
Intuitively, it seems like hacking one's motivational system is among the highest leverage interventions one can make, because high motivation allows on to carry through with lots of other interventions, and without sufficient motivation one can't follow through with many interventions.
But if you've got a crippling emotional or physical condition, I suppose you've got to take care of that first — at least well enough to embark on the project of hacking your motivation system.
Or, if you're in a crippling environment like North Korea or Nigeria or Detroit, then perhaps the highest level intervention for you is to get up and move someplace better. Only then will you be able to fix your emotions or hack your motivational system or whatever.
Maybe there's something of a system to this that hasn't been discovered, or maybe there's no system at all because humans are too complex. I'm still in brainstorm mode on this topic.
"Make new mistakes" has been my New Year's Resolution for several years now. I highly recommend it (as long as it's understood to refer to social risks and not physical ones).