21-05-02: Layers upon instincts

I.

Here's an example of a thing. By section III we'll get to generalize it. But for now, bear with me.

If somebody dislikes doing something for me, but does it anyway, I feel bad and wish they just wouldn't do it at all.

For example: if I am unpleasant — please don't talk to me. If playing chess with me is boring — don't play chess with me. Don't ever do me any favors.

Some people have a very different approach. You dislike helping them? Well, do you dislike it enough to stop doing it? No? Carry on then.

— Could I drink champagne all night?
— Um, whatever.
— Would you mind?
— No.
— But would you mind?
— I said you could have whatever you like.
— Be honest with me, Jill. Be honest. If I drank champagne, on your money, all night, you would mind.
— ...Yes, I suppose I would.
— Yeah. But would you mind enough not to pay? Even though you mind, would you mind that much?
— No, I wouldn't refuse to pay.
— RIGHT

I'm not sure where this comes from. Probably childhood. Probably parenting. Probably "if somebody does something unpleasant for me, they'll be able to use it later to make me feel bad".

II.

A few well-meaning people try to fix this by saying things like "people have free choice and if they actually didn't want to do <whatever>, they wouldn't". Wrong. I know myself. I would do a shitton of things for people that I absolutely don't want to do.

However, I think biting the bullet and adopting a different approach is still the right thing to do. Not the "free choice" approach, but the actual selfish approach. The one I talked about earlier. "You want to do this thing for me? Yeah, okay, great. I don't care if you dislike doing it, as long as you still do it".

(NB: At this point somebody will imagine a bad person who does this all the time, and will start arguing that "no, don't do it, don't become this person". No-one is proposing to take ideas to their logical conclusion, relax.)

Eventually it will start backfiring. Here are some ways in which it will start backfiring:

• My employees will find better jobs and quit.
• My friends will start talking to me less often (they will feel annoyed in background, they will get tired of my abrasive conversational style, they will feel they aren't getting anything out of the friendship, etc).
• My Twitter followers will mute and/or unfollow me.
• Brick users will find better tools.
• I won't get expelled from my acquaintances' existing meetups/etc, but I won't get invited to new ones.

Etc, etc. Oh no.

III.

From the tactics point of view, this behavior is not a tactic. It is a blunder. In fact, if you are a person who always ignores how others feel, "notice when you're annoying people" would totally be a reasonable tactic.

Before starting section III, I was going to say something like "but eh, I'm going to be selfish anyway because I think it will be useful". However, it's interesting to see why exactly it will be useful. This is a tricky question and requires actual thought. Right now it's all foggy.

Right now I am watching a chess series, "Building habits", that Lovkush recommended in a Substack comment. It is the weirdest thing. The guy (a grandmaster) lays out a bunch of rules, and then keeps playing against low-skilled opponents by those rules. Whenever he sees a win that somebody blindly following the rules would not notice, he does not use that win. He just keeps doing the thing. Then he loses! And starts a new game! It's super weird.

I don't know what is the idea behind it, but I have my own interpretation:

You have instincts. Things that feel nice. In the chess series above, one of the rules is "capture pieces if you can" — it's definitely a thing you don't have to convince yourself to do, because capturing pieces is nice.

Some instincts are basically right and some instincts are basically shit. Capturing free pieces is basically right. Can't come up with an example of a basically shit instinct, but some probably are.

Now, even basically right instincts often result in shitty consequences. Capturing free pieces is basically right, but if you capture a piece and it turns out it was a trap, well, that's shit.

Now, there is the "guilt" approach and the "layers" approach to this problem.

• The "guilt" approach goes: "Don't follow the instinct. The instinct is bad. Always think with your head".
• The "layers" approach goes: "Yeah whatever, just remember a trap whenever you fall into it, and the next time avoid this particular trap."

The layers approach provides a clear path to improvement: remember this trap. Remember that trap. Remember the other trap. Keep doing it. The instinct gets layers upon layers of exceptions. Eventually those exceptions become.. something. Maybe you start noticing patterns. Who knows.

• The guilt approach is inaction. The guilt approach prevents you from action. "Better do nothing at all than do the obviously wrong thing."
• The layers approach is action. The layers approach incentivizes action. "Do the wrong thing, then maybe learn from it."

"Not doing selfish things" is the same. The layers approach, in this case, "do selfish things and learn to mitigate the consequences". Maybe do a lot of selfish things and follow up by doing easy-for-you-but-actually-very-nice things. Etc.

IV.

What are some of the other instincts that people try to kill instead of putting layers on them?

• Writing in a conversational style. Some people write in a conversational style, notice the result is shit, and adopt a formal style — instead of learning how to do the conversational style well.
• Being childish. Instead of learning how to be an adult, people learn how not to be a child. Concrete example: an adult is reliable. A child is spontaneous. Instead of learning how to be reliable (a hard skill!), some people teach themselves that being spontaneous looks bad and is bad.
• Doing what you want. Instead of learning how to extract various benefits from doing what they want, people learn how to do what others want. Concrete example: you can love chess and get to a point where you can use it for good (earn money with it, teach people chess, do meetups, meet new people through chess, whatever). Alternatively, you can say "chess doesn't pay the bills", go get a marketing degree, get a job, and spend your evenings in a TV-and-beer spiral because you have to distract yourself from feeling bored and unsatisfied.
• Eating tasty food. You like burgers, but they are unhealthy. You try to eat salads instead, and it's a struggle. Have you tried eating better burgers instead? Have you tried making better burgers at home? Have you tried eating burgers while also eating a lot of other diverse stuff, instead of going through "McDonald's two times a day, quit cold turkey, eat boring things, give up, feel bad, McDonald's two times a day" over and over?
• Replying to people quickly. You don't know what to reply, or you don't like what you have to reply, so you say nothing. Alternative approach: reply anyway, then you can work on learning how to handle the consequences.

And probably more. If you have other examples, write a comment on Substack.

P.S.

• Hmmmm, "going to sleep late" looks like it's the same kind of problem. I have been trying to fix it by fighting myself, and it's not working. Right now I am writing this post instead of going to sleep. This might actually have a better chance of working, insofar as these posts will help me fix other areas of my life (that in turn lead to poor sleep).
• Alternatively, you can build the right instincts and then put layers upon them where necessary.