Beware of Other-Optimizing (2009)

A lot of my habits and hobbies stemmed from other people giving me advice. This includes the physical activities I do, meditation, certain technologies and ways of learning and so on. I am incredibly grateful to the people who introduced me to those things.

I will gladly give out similar advice to others. Advice from other people rather than summarised data and their personal experience has been invaluable for my personal growth.

I think it's important to acknowledge there are a lot of unknowns and give advice in a personal way "this worked for me" vs. "this is how it should be done". I think that if advice is given from a place of "here's something cool to maybe try" and not "here's what you should do" then it's pretty great - people just tend to like absolutes a lot better since they're simpler.

Edit: Not to mention the "You should check out this programming thing, it's pretty cool" which led to a fulfilling career which I love.

Another view of mine is that it's one thing to be rational, and another to be a good debater. I consider myself to be reasonably rational, but it doesn't mean I should be at the mercy of someone who's a better debater than I am.

I'm a terrible debater. What it means is that if you present me with a seemingly well reasoned argument, I might have to find some socially acceptable way of declining your advice, well short of refuting it. I might think about your ideas, or I might not, but I won't make any promises on the spot.

>>> Sometimes—I suppose—people are being lazy.

It may be that laziness is an acquired behavioral trait that confers a survival advantage under some conditions. I'm lazy. I make my living inventing gadgets that remove the effort from difficult tasks. Assigning "laziness" is just an ad hominem argument anyway.

It seems possible that a lot of our seemingly "irrational" traits actually allow us to survive in a social environment where other people are trying to manipulate us. Traits such as stubbornness and habit may have evolved for this reason.

> "Different things are true for different people" (which is simply false).

I mean, "English is the easiest language to understand" is clearly true for me and untrue for others. I suppose one could couch it in terms of the specific point of view but that seems to be finesseing away the counter argument.

I presume I'm missing something. What's the author getting at here?

Aside: if a board member tells you that you don't need a raise because you can use fucking coupon books, and you don't immediately get extremely offended, then maybe you're under-rating common sense and over-rating "rationalism"...

Somethings really are just a matter of simple advice.

I read a reddit thread where old people were asked what they wished they did different about 7 years ago. I started flossing daily. I quit smoking. I stopped consuming first pop and, later, 95% of my other refined sugar intake. I started biking to get around. I started running. I started doing body weight mobility exercises. I started standing while working for half of the day.

I read in that thread how one of the older people said that the key to getting a new habit to stick was to do it multiple times per week and to not try to change anything else until it had normalized. I'm not sure if that works for everyone, but it really worked for me. Once every month or so I'd introduce a new small change.

I'm so much healthier and attractive now than I was back then. It's changed everything about me. My politics. My mind set. I even came to accept that I wasn't just attracted to women.

This article seems to be attacking something that I also agree should be attacked[0] but he throws the baby out with the bath water. The truth is, unless there is a serious medical condition involved, it is simple to lose weight. It is simple to have a healthy body. It is simple to have a healthy mouth and to keep your teeth into old age.

What's hard is changing your default reaction to information. It's the perceived threat to your sense of self-worth. Some people never learn this lesson or never fully embrace it. If you have the right mind set and someone says "you should eat more veggies and less sugar" the humble person says "how do you make those taste good?"[1] instead of scoffing.

[0] Those incessant listicle articles and garbage one-simple-trick magazine advice articles.

[1] If I ever write an article on how to eat healthy I'm going to spend 50% or more of it on how to have food taste great[2]. The Atkins / keto crowd get flavour by default because fat and meat is naturally flavourful.

[2] Coles notes below.

Salads:

Find fresh herbs, learn what they're useful for, and use them everywhere you can. For salads mix some combination of olive oil, butter, mustard, finely chopped raw garlic, an anchovy or three, salt, pepper. Don't use store bought salad dressing it's loaded with garbage.

Favour mixed greens, kale, and shredded veggies over lettuce.

Breakfast:

Omelettes, make sure to get the right pan and jiggle the eggs. I prefer thyme, mushroom, onion, soy sauce, red hot chillies combos; but red onion, dill, and goat cheese is good too.

If time is a concern you can pre-make breakfast burritos and freeze them or look up overnight oats. When you're not that hungry eat a banana or other fruit. Berries taste better the smaller they are.