notes on curi's analysis+commentary on ch 1-2 of Goldratt's "Theory of Constraints"

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.

@09:00 number of constraints in a system / boy scout analogy

Goldratt has talked elsewhere about how if a system had no constraints it would grow without limit. We don't see that, so there must be at least 1 constraint.

Theory of Constraints, Goldratt says that real-life systems has only a few (like 2 or 3?) constraints. The boy scout analogy doesn't really show that the limit is 2 or 3, IMO.


@10:21 Focusing Step 2: Exploit

curi points out the word "exploit" is unclear. I agree. curi's suggested replacement, "optimize", is an improvement.

Elsewhere Goldratt or one of his people stated that the "exploit" step means: take whatever steps allow you to get more goal units out of a constrained resource *without requiring additional investment*. Here the avoidance of additional *investment* is to be contrasted with additional *expense*, which is OK in this step. And note that TOC classifies employee salaries as expense, and buying a new machine as investment. So adding an additional shift on a bottleneck machine would be an appropriate action for the Exploit step, but buying a second machine would not, even if we assume that either option would enable the system to double the machine's output.

I'm not sure this is said anywhere, but I think Exploit also means local optimizations only. If an improvement involves changing other parts of the system, then it's not part of the Exploit step.


@11:30 Focusing Step 3: Subordinate

curi points out that "subordinate" isn't great wording. Again, I agree, but I'm not sure of a better one here. It's telling that English doesn't yet have a good word for this important concept.

Elsewhere, Goldratt or one of his people said that "subordinate" means: update the policies and priorities of *every other part* of the system in order to maximize (in terms of the goal) the output of the constrained resource.


@12:11 Focusing Step 4: Elevate

curi again points out that this is not a clear word, and I agree, though once again, I'm not sure of a better one.

The meaning is to make investments to directly improve the performance of the constrained resource itself.


@13:53 Moving constraints

> You don't want the constraint to move around a lot, because it takes significant effort to re-organize around wherever it is, so, to some extent you want to figure out like, where is a good place for the constraint to be, because there has to be a weakest link, so it's like, ok, what do you want the weakest link to be? Figure out a good place to put it and then just leave it there and organize around that.

Yeah. The ideal location of the constraint is a function of the underlying structure and economics of the business. For example, for a retail shop, I think Goldratt has said that the fundamental constraint is the amount of walk in traffic the shop gets from qualified customers. That's not going away, so it makes sense to organize the business around that as a constraint.


@14:37 Inertia

Inertia is a huge issue. Even aside from its importance as something to be avoided in the fifth focusing step, Goldratt talks in Beyond the Goal about how inertia keeps people from realizing the benefits of technology. (Discussed at http://curi.us/2094-expanding-our-limits)

In general, People just think that what they have is good enough and carry on. No one is interested enough to look for big improvements in the way things are done.


@15:35 "policy constraints"

Goldratt mentions policy constraints in the book here, but elsewhere he said that he no longer considers policies to be *constraints* as such. I can't find a quote from Goldratt on the topic right now, but I did find a related quote from an informative essay on TOC from 2004:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040803165000/http://www.dbrmfg.co.nz/Bottom%20Line%20Process%20of%20Change.htm

> Although the word “policy constraint” has been more recently disowned, maybe “policy issue” is more apt; there are still many more than one constraint per system.


@16:45 describing focusing steps in another way

> It sounds like he wants to describe the same five steps -- these are called the "focusing steps" -- in some other way... I don't think I've read a second version of these five steps that's like, presented from a different perspective.

Where did curi see this? I read the passage and couldn't find it. Later (1:27:00), Goldratt refers to "[t]he steps which are equivalent to the above five steps, but are expressed in the terminology of the improvement process itself", so curi is right, but what did he see?

Skipping ahead to @1:27:30:

> I've seen this before in terms of like trying to find the right change: what to change/what do you change it to/how do you make it happen, but I didn't know it was meant to be equivalent to the five focusing steps. I thought of it as a different thing, rather than as a different version of the same thing.

Did curi mis-remember what he was thinking 45 minutes ago? At 16:45, he referred to it as a "second version of these five steps", but at 1:27:30 he said he didn't think of it as a "different version" of the five focusing steps.


@18:05 process of ongoing improvement

Goldratt's concept of a "process of ongoing improvement" (POOGI) is like the BoI idea of traditions that enable continual knowledge creation.


@19:00 Figuring out what to change to

In Theory of Constraints, Goldratt wrote:

> We must first of all find - WHAT TO CHANGE... We must [then] clarify to ourselves - TO WHAT TO CHANGE TO...

Yeah. One of my programming mentors once wrote, that, when you are given a programming problem to solve: DON'T IMMEDIATELY START CODING - first, analyze the old requirements and the new requirements.

@20:48 Simple solutions

> People are always trying to look at complicated things instead of just understand[ing] the basic things in a really clear and thorough way and then build[ing] on that. So they try to build up all this complexity, but it's too shoddy. Their foundation isn't solid enough and then they put the next layer [on] and it's not solid enough... and they keep trying to build up all this complexity. They think they need 10 layers to make this advanced, sophisticated thing. But it'd be better if they just had 3 layers and they got them right with no cracks, no holes. Or at least -- it's never going to be perfect, but you can definitely build to a higher standard of no known errors or no known significant errors.

This reminds me of learning math. I enjoy doing stuff that's technically pre-algebra (like Art of Problem Solving's "Prealgebra" book [https://artofproblemsolving.com/store/item/prealgebra]. It's about using middle-school math, but not in a rote way, but in a creative way to solve middle school math contest problems.

There are lots of areas in my life, for instance regarding discussions, in which I try to do complex stuff without understanding the simple stuff well first. For example, I still don't understand basic grammar thoroughly. I've never read through a grammar book and tried to understand it well the way I have with math books.

> The concept of significant errors is interesting. What you have to do with each error is actually understand what the consequences are and then decide if its OK. And if you decide its OK it's not really actually an error, it's just a design feature that's within the tolerances allowable.

Interesting concept from curi that the standard for judging if a decision is an error is to look at its consequences. (Probably its reasonably expected consequences.) If the consequences of a decision are OK, then the decision itself is not an error.

Aside: there's a typo in the book that curi didn't comment on. Goldratt wrote:

> Complicated solutions don't work, simple one's might.

The plural of "one" is "ones", with no apostrophe.

22:30

> If the first two questions of WHAT TO CHANGE? and TO WHAT TO CHANGE TO? are considered to be technical questions, then the last one, HOW TO CAUSE THE CHANGE? is definitely a psychological one.

I think the context Goldratt has in mind here is improving the performance of a system that involves people. Goldratt's advice might apply to the case of self-improvement in that, if you're the typical broken person, changing will involve psychology -- your own.

@24:00 office politics

Static memes are similar between organizations. If you are familiar with the office politics etc of other organizations you have a head start in understanding a new organization's psychology.


@27:00 Any change is a perceived threat to security.

Maybe this applies to self-improvement as well. For the typical person trying to change themselves, there will generally be some part of them that is threatened by the change. If there wasn't this kind of resistance, they might well have made the change already.


@36:00 Being behind on an exponential growth curve

When you're making exponential progress, being behind a competitor by just one year means a continually increasing gap between you and your competitor in absolute terms. Say you both improve at 20% per year, but you waited a year. After 15 years you're behind by 3 units, and at 20 years you're behind by 8 units (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=graph%201.2%5E(x%2B1)%20-%201.2%5Ex,%200%3Cx%3C20)


@44:28 Odd phrasing: "Come with a change"

Goldratt writes:

> Almost all of us have come, at one time or another, with an idea of how to improve something.

The phrase "come with an idea" is non-standard, but it has 6.5 million results on Google:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22come+with+an+idea%22

That's too common to be a typo. Maybe "come with a <foo>" is from a dialect of English like Indian English or Israeli English.


@44:57 resisting change

> By the way, Goldratt himself has talked elsewhere -- he said that people don't exactly *resist* change, because there's some changes that they embrace. Like, getting married is a big change, or having a kid is a big change, but people often want those changes and seek out that change. So, just saying "people resist change, they're conservative" is not a good explanation. They resist *some* changes and they embrace some other changes. They like some changes and they don't want some changes. So, there's actually a judgment call involved, rather than just "they hate change itself". No one hates change itself. No one's against every single change.

Right. There's also a phrase for this flawed concept: "change-averse". But as you say, people don't resist change, they resist changes they don't think are worth it.

> So if someone's against YOUR proposed change, there's a reason for it other than the fact that it's a change. There's something about it that they think might be bad. They might not have thought it through super-well, it might not be the most logical resistance, but it's not just straight "I hate change". There's more to it than that.

Good point - needs to be said. I find it especially tempting to apply the "change-averse" label to others who resist not abstract changes, but changes *I* proposed. But curi's reasoning above still applies.


@56:04 disliking criticism

Goldratt writes:

>> Most of us don't like to be criticized. Vicious criticism, we like even less. But there is one thing we simply cannot tolerate--constructive criticism. Constructive criticism means that there is something correct in the criticism. It's under the belt. It's unfair. We are certainly going to hold it against the one who criticized us for a long time.

curi:

> There are a lot of people for whom, at some point in their life, there was a criticism they liked receiving. I've had discussions with people. I've had someone say to me, "I don't like criticism.", and I say back to them, "But I said several criticisms of you like half an hour ago, earlier in this discussion." And I go copy/paste them and quote the criticisms to the person. "Here, I said this criticism, I said this criticism. And your reaction was positive. You didn't say `fuck you'. You didn't get mad. You totally liked those comments. And now you're telling me you don't like criticism." And their response was basically, "Oh, I didn't think those counted because I liked them." People like criticism reasonably often. They just don't associate the criticisms that they liked, that they found reasonable, with the criticisms they don't like, the ones they found mean or threatening or unreasonable.

> So, I think most people, they like some criticisms some times. There's different factors that go into it. It's not just how reasonable is the criticism. It's also how reasonable is the person who's receiving the criticism about this particular thing. Because people, they're unreasonable at some things, there's some things where you could give a really nice criticism that's really useful, it's explained really well, and they're not going to like it just because they're so unreasonable about this particular topic. There's some thought processes in their mind about this topic that are not rational and things go wrong and even though the criticism is really good, it doesn't work for them.

> But the same person, if it's a totally different topic, there's something they're good at in life, and that they could take some criticism about. Often, it's whatever they're good at is what they can take criticism about, because that's how they got good. It's the area of life that they were willing to listen to some criticism; that's how they got better at it. So now what happens later on is you see the thing they're good at is the thing they take criticism about; it goes together. One causes the other.

> So you get like a good sports player and, maybe they're not the most rational guy most of the time, but then you talk to them about sports strategy and they get really rational. Or you talk to them about practice routines and they get really rational or something. Because that's how they ended up being good at sports, is because they were actually pretty rational about it. It doesn't work every time but there's some themes there.

> And for the less rational sports players, that's part of what coaches are for, is the coach has to figure out a way to talk to this guy so that they can actually take criticism and make some changes so they can fit the team's strategy better. And they do have to be rational in some way, like there's some way to reach them. They don't just hate criticism no matter what. There's something the coach can say that will get through to them. Otherwise they wouldn't actually be able to be on the team. There has to be some way to talk to them and get them to make some changes, for them to actually be valuable to a sports team.

> So, for some of the people it's easier. The coach doesn't have to try so far, and they're pretty rational, and that's why they're good at sports. And then there's some people where talking to them can be pretty hard, but the coach does have a way of doing it. And they don't just sit there going, "Oh, coach gave me constructive criticism, I'm going to hold a grudge for a long time, it's so unfair." There has to be some sort of better attitude than that, where things can go more smoothly than that.

> So I think the world's not as grim as Goldratt is talking about.

Yeah. Goldratt is making the same mistake about people's reaction to criticism that he warned people not to make about people's reaction to proposed changes.


@1:24:00 The Goal as literature

Goldratt wrote:

> The Goal is certainly not an exceptionally good piece of literature.

curi gives a nice way of evaluating this claim: Would you read the goal if it didn't have the business content? Just for the story and the characters? Probably not. As curi says, you'd rather read Brandon Sanderson.

[Elliot Temple]

On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.

> @14:37 Inertia
>
> Inertia is a huge issue. Even aside from its importance as something to be avoided in the fifth focusing step, Goldratt talks in Beyond the Goal about how inertia keeps people from realizing the benefits of technology. (Discussed at http://curi.us/2094-expanding-our-limits)
>
> In general, People just think that what they have is good enough and carry on. No one is interested enough to look for big improvements in the way things are done.

sad. and so very wrong. either you're making rapid progress or you're fukt. problems are inevitable, and soluble. life is a race to increase your problem solving power before you get fukt. if you don't do this, you will lose, guaranteed. progress or disaster are the only possible ways forward. there is no good enough. there is no sustainable life. people fool themselves with rationalizations. they say their life is "pretty good" while accepting having a billion dollars less than they'd prefer and a billion years less lifespan than they'd prefer (and a sexual partner who is less hot than they'd prefer, and a job that is sometimes boring or frustrating, so on. people compromise a lot and then say things are good b/c they are not counting any of the problems they already decided to compromise about.).

> @15:35 "policy constraints"
>
> Goldratt mentions policy constraints in the book here, but elsewhere he said that he no longer considers policies to be *constraints* as such. I can't find a quote from Goldratt on the topic right now, but I did find a related quote from an informative essay on TOC from 2004:
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20040803165000/http://www.dbrmfg.co.nz/Bottom%20Line%20Process%20of%20Change.htm
>
>> Although the word “policy constraint” has been more recently disowned, maybe “policy issue” is more apt; there are still many more than one constraint per system.
>
>
> @16:45 describing focusing steps in another way
>
>> It sounds like he wants to describe the same five steps -- these are called the "focusing steps" -- in some other way... I don't think I've read a second version of these five steps that's like, presented from a different perspective.
>
> Where did curi see this?

search for this text in the book, it was earlier:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L7XYW2Q/?tag=curi04-20

> Once these are defined, we can describe the next steps in two different ways. One, in which we are using the terminology of the system that we are trying to improve. The other, using the terminology of the improvement process itself. We find that both descriptions are very helpful and only when both are con sidered together, does a non-distorted picture emerge.


end quote

> I read the passage and couldn't find it. Later (1:27:00), Goldratt refers to "[t]he steps which are equivalent to the above five steps, but are expressed in the terminology of the improvement process itself", so curi is right, but what did he see?
>
> Skipping ahead to @1:27:30:
>
>> I've seen this before in terms of like trying to find the right change: what to change/what do you change it to/how do you make it happen, but I didn't know it was meant to be equivalent to the five focusing steps. I thought of it as a different thing, rather than as a different version of the same thing.
>
> Did curi mis-remember what he was thinking 45 minutes ago? At 16:45, he referred to it as a "second version of these five steps", but at 1:27:30 he said he didn't think of it as a "different version" of the five focusing steps.

no i didn't misremember, i was referring to my old thinking before i began reading this book. the "didn't know" and "i thought" were both meant to be pre-video/pre-book rather than prior to reading the specific passage on screen.

> @18:05 process of ongoing improvement
>
> Goldratt's concept of a "process of ongoing improvement" (POOGI) is like the BoI idea of traditions that enable continual knowledge creation.

:)

> @19:00 Figuring out what to change to
>
> In Theory of Constraints, Goldratt wrote:
>
>> We must first of all find - WHAT TO CHANGE... We must [then] clarify to ourselves - TO WHAT TO CHANGE TO...
>
> Yeah. One of my programming mentors once wrote, that, when you are given a programming problem to solve: DON'T IMMEDIATELY START CODING - first, analyze the old requirements and the new requirements.

this applies to lots of stuff. but it depends. take essays. you can do an outline, or think about things and plan it out. like first you could brainstorm some important points to include, then select btwn them, then figure out a good order to talk about them, then write it. but if you have an idea, you can just start writing it. this can end up as pre-writing, and you rewrite it later after you organize, and it was still worth it to write out your idea immediately when you were inspired. but also you can just keep your first draft as your own notes, or share it and maybe others will benefit even if it's not the best essay you could write. doing a more organized essay could be more expensive and not worth it in this case.

when i write FI replies, often i think i could be more helpful to the person i'm replying to if i read their whole post and then considered their problem situation and what would help them. but it's often better for me to just write whatever interests me as i go along, and it's still free stuff for them.

part of this is b/c i have intentionally tried to get good at first drafts and intuitive writing. making good stuff without stopping to think much first is a skill that can be developed.

> @20:48 Simple solutions
>
>> People are always trying to look at complicated things instead of just understand[ing] the basic things in a really clear and thorough way and then build[ing] on that. So they try to build up all this complexity, but it's too shoddy. Their foundation isn't solid enough and then they put the next layer [on] and it's not solid enough... and they keep trying to build up all this complexity. They think they need 10 layers to make this advanced, sophisticated thing. But it'd be better if they just had 3 layers and they got them right with no cracks, no holes. Or at least -- it's never going to be perfect, but you can definitely build to a higher standard of no known errors or no known significant errors.
>
> This reminds me of learning math. I enjoy doing stuff that's technically pre-algebra (like Art of Problem Solving's "Prealgebra" book [https://artofproblemsolving.com/store/item/prealgebra]. It's about using middle-school math, but not in a rote way, but in a creative way to solve middle school math contest problems.
>
> There are lots of areas in my life, for instance regarding discussions, in which I try to do complex stuff without understanding the simple stuff well first. For example, I still don't understand basic grammar thoroughly. I've never read through a grammar book and tried to understand it well the way I have with math books.

your intuitive understanding of grammar is a source of errors, but maybe a reasonably small and manageable one compared to some of your other discussion problems. (this is not a generic statement, it's a statement about Alisa.)

>> The concept of significant errors is interesting. What you have to do with each error is actually understand what the consequences are and then decide if its OK. And if you decide its OK it's not really actually an error, it's just a design feature that's within the tolerances allowable.
>
> Interesting concept from curi that the standard for judging if a decision is an error is to look at its consequences. (Probably its reasonably expected consequences.) If the consequences of a decision are OK, then the decision itself is not an error.
>
> Aside: there's a typo in the book that curi didn't comment on. Goldratt wrote:
>
>> Complicated solutions don't work, simple one's might.
>
> The plural of "one" is "ones", with no apostrophe.

i comment on typos and grammar errors somewhat sporadically without a clear plan. just when i feel like it. i see some and don't comment, and see others and comment. i'm not really worried about it because i don't see a problem with the current policy. there's no need for completeness here.

i can't remember if i saw that one. i could easily have missed it (finding errors like this was not my goal). just commenting in general.

> 22:30
>
>> If the first two questions of WHAT TO CHANGE? and TO WHAT TO CHANGE TO? are considered to be technical questions, then the last one, HOW TO CAUSE THE CHANGE? is definitely a psychological one.

this is a book quote. some other times you quoted me. in the future, you should differentiate which you're quoting. you could attribute each quote, default to one and attribute the other, or double quote for the book.

> I think the context Goldratt has in mind here is improving the performance of a system that involves people. Goldratt's advice might apply to the case of self-improvement in that, if you're the typical broken person, changing will involve psychology -- your own.

goldratt generally has some specific kinda contexts (like large business organizations) in mind, but some of what he says works more broadly. and he knows that, at least sometimes, e.g. his books have examples of using the evaporating clouds problem solving method for family problems :). and especially in The Choice he talks about how to use his ideas more generally than business.

> @44:57 resisting change
>
>> By the way, Goldratt himself has talked elsewhere -- he said that people don't exactly *resist* change, because there's some changes that they embrace. Like, getting married is a big change, or having a kid is a big change, but people often want those changes and seek out that change. So, just saying "people resist change, they're conservative" is not a good explanation. They resist *some* changes and they embrace some other changes. They like some changes and they don't want some changes. So, there's actually a judgment call involved, rather than just "they hate change itself". No one hates change itself. No one's against every single change.
>
> Right. There's also a phrase for this flawed concept: "change-averse". But as you say, people don't resist change, they resist changes they don't think are worth it.

this reminds me of, in general, ppl say "X is the same as Y" and the answer is always, "No, X is the same as Y in some respects and different in some respects, and you have to specify which respects you care about."

it comes up with induction. ppl say you need to do repeated observation then extrapolate. well what is a repeated observation? it means observing the same thing repeatedly. but the same in which respects?

and it comes up with induction with "the future resembles the past" which they try to use as a premise to make induction work, and they say that reality would be chaos if the future had no resemblance to the past. but it's not just one or the other, the same or totally different. no matter what happens, the future resembles the past in some ways and not others. you need to try to understand which ways the future will and won't resemble the past. there are infinitely many patterns that break at any moment, but still infinitely many that are holding.

this comic has a bunch of concrete examples of how a new event MUST break some pattern, b/c there are always patterns that have held in the past but which contradict about the next event. https://xkcd.com/1122/

>> So if someone's against YOUR proposed change, there's a reason for it other than the fact that it's a change. There's something about it that they think might be bad. They might not have thought it through super-well, it might not be the most logical resistance, but it's not just straight "I hate change". There's more to it than that.
>
> Good point - needs to be said. I find it especially tempting to apply the "change-averse" label to others who resist not abstract changes, but changes *I* proposed. But curi's reasoning above still applies.

it comes up a ton with parenting. parent says something and then interpret child as "not listening". actually child thinks there's something bad about what parent is saying. child could be right, or have a misconception, or maybe child doesn't yet understand what parent is saying (could easily be parent's fault, though could also be child's fault. if it was just cuz communication is hard, they wouldn't be fighting over it, they'd just be making further efforts to communicate, so in the cases where it's a problem, usually it is someone's fault.)

parent doesn't want to address this – to deal with the dissent rationally by understanding the reason (child's misconception, child's correct criticism, a misunderstanding, whatever) and addressing it. instead parent blames the child and the problem doesn't get solved and the parent's orders become oppressive and tyrannical.

> @56:04 disliking criticism
>
> Goldratt writes:
>
>>> Most of us don't like to be criticized. Vicious criticism, we like even less. But there is one thing we simply cannot tolerate--constructive criticism. Constructive criticism means that there is something correct in the criticism. It's under the belt. It's unfair. We are certainly going to hold it against the one who criticized us for a long time.
>
> curi:
>
>> There are a lot of people for whom, at some point in their life, there was a criticism they liked receiving. I've had discussions with people. I've had someone say to me, "I don't like criticism.", and I say back to them, "But I said several criticisms of you like half an hour ago, earlier in this discussion." And I go copy/paste them and quote the criticisms to the person. "Here, I said this criticism, I said this criticism. And your reaction was positive. You didn't say `fuck you'. You didn't get mad. You totally liked those comments. And now you're telling me you don't like criticism." And their response was basically, "Oh, I didn't think those counted because I liked them." People like criticism reasonably often. They just don't associate the criticisms that they liked, that they found reasonable, with the criticisms they don't like, the ones they found mean or threatening or unreasonable.
>
>> So, I think most people, they like some criticisms some times. There's different factors that go into it. It's not just how reasonable is the criticism. It's also how reasonable is the person who's receiving the criticism about this particular thing. Because people, they're unreasonable at some things, there's some things where you could give a really nice criticism that's really useful, it's explained really well, and they're not going to like it just because they're so unreasonable about this particular topic. There's some thought processes in their mind about this topic that are not rational and things go wrong and even though the criticism is really good, it doesn't work for them.
>
>> But the same person, if it's a totally different topic, there's something they're good at in life, and that they could take some criticism about. Often, it's whatever they're good at is what they can take criticism about, because that's how they got good. It's the area of life that they were willing to listen to some criticism; that's how they got better at it. So now what happens later on is you see the thing they're good at is the thing they take criticism about; it goes together. One causes the other.
>
>> So you get like a good sports player and, maybe they're not the most rational guy most of the time, but then you talk to them about sports strategy and they get really rational. Or you talk to them about practice routines and they get really rational or something. Because that's how they ended up being good at sports, is because they were actually pretty rational about it. It doesn't work every time but there's some themes there.
>
>> And for the less rational sports players, that's part of what coaches are for, is the coach has to figure out a way to talk to this guy so that they can actually take criticism and make some changes so they can fit the team's strategy better. And they do have to be rational in some way, like there's some way to reach them. They don't just hate criticism no matter what. There's something the coach can say that will get through to them. Otherwise they wouldn't actually be able to be on the team. There has to be some way to talk to them and get them to make some changes, for them to actually be valuable to a sports team.
>
>> So, for some of the people it's easier. The coach doesn't have to try so far, and they're pretty rational, and that's why they're good at sports. And then there's some people where talking to them can be pretty hard, but the coach does have a way of doing it. And they don't just sit there going, "Oh, coach gave me constructive criticism, I'm going to hold a grudge for a long time, it's so unfair." There has to be some sort of better attitude than that, where things can go more smoothly than that.
>
>> So I think the world's not as grim as Goldratt is talking about.
>
> Yeah.

i take it you particularly liked that part, since you transcribed a bunch. but you didn't say much about it. why did it stand out to you?

> Goldratt is making the same mistake about people's reaction to criticism that he warned people not to make about people's reaction to proposed changes.

and Goldratt talks about how "People Are Good" (that's a chapter title!) in _The Choice_. he could have been more consistent about his own philosophy! though, to be fair, he wrote _The Choice_ ~18 years later than _Theory of Constraints_.


Elliot Temple
www.elliottemple.com

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > @16:45 [curi said in his notes on the TOC book regarding] describing focusing steps in another way

> >
> >> It sounds like he wants to describe the same five steps -- these are called the "focusing steps" -- in some other way... I don't think I've read a second version of these five steps that's like, presented from a different perspective.
> >
> > Where did curi see this?
>
> search for this text in the book, it was earlier:
>
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L7XYW2Q/?tag=curi04-20

> > Once these are defined, we can describe the next steps in two different ways. One, in which we are using the terminology of the system that we are trying to improve. The other, using the terminology of the improvement process itself. We find that both descriptions are very helpful and only when both are con sidered together, does a non-distorted picture emerge.
>
>
> end quote

I see what you mean. I also just now found this on the page you were looking at during the part of the video I was commenting on:

> As we said before, the only way not to cause severe distortions, is to describe the same process, but this time using the terminology of the improvement process itself.

Rest left for context. Back to Alisa:

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.
>
>
> > @14:37 Inertia
> >
> > Inertia is a huge issue. Even aside from its importance as something to be avoided in the fifth focusing step, Goldratt talks in Beyond the Goal about how inertia keeps people from realizing the benefits of technology. (Discussed at http://curi.us/2094-expanding-our-limits)
> >
> > In general, People just think that what they have is good enough and carry on. No one is interested enough to look for big improvements in the way things are done.
>
> sad. and so very wrong. either you're making rapid progress or you're fukt. problems are inevitable, and soluble. life is a race to increase your problem solving power before you get fukt. if you don't do this, you will lose, guaranteed. progress or disaster are the only possible ways forward.

Progress means solving actual, relevant problems. I learn a math or programming thing every day or so, but those particular bits of knowledge aren't the missing pieces that hold me back in life overall.

> there is no good enough. there is no sustainable life.

Regarding the second sentence: as discussed in BoI's "unsustainable" chapter.

> people fool themselves with rationalizations. they say their life is "pretty good" while accepting having a billion dollars less than they'd prefer and a billion years less lifespan than they'd prefer (and a sexual partner who is less hot than they'd prefer, and a job that is sometimes boring or frustrating, so on. people compromise a lot and then say things are good b/c they are not counting any of the problems they already decided to compromise about.).

In order not to fool yourself about the need for improvement, you need to decide objectively what is or is not a problem, and not just arbitrarily decide not to count something because "you already decided to compromise about it".

[Elliot Temple]

On Mar 2, 2018, at 12:37 AM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.
>>
>>
>>> @14:37 Inertia
>>>
>>> Inertia is a huge issue. Even aside from its importance as something to be avoided in the fifth focusing step, Goldratt talks in Beyond the Goal about how inertia keeps people from realizing the benefits of technology. (Discussed at http://curi.us/2094-expanding-our-limits)
>>>
>>> In general, People just think that what they have is good enough and carry on. No one is interested enough to look for big improvements in the way things are done.
>>
>> sad. and so very wrong. either you're making rapid progress or you're fukt. problems are inevitable, and soluble. life is a race to increase your problem solving power before you get fukt. if you don't do this, you will lose, guaranteed. progress or disaster are the only possible ways forward.
>
> Progress means solving actual, relevant problems. I learn a math or programming thing every day or so, but those particular bits of knowledge aren't the missing pieces that hold me back in life overall.

yes it's important to make progress *on your power level itself* – your ability to reason and solve problems.

one way to see this is it WILL become the constraint (the weak link) if you stop making progress on it. this might take some time but it has to happen.


Elliot Temple
www.elliottemple.com

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > There are lots of areas in my life, for instance regarding discussions, in which I try to do complex stuff without understanding the simple stuff well first. For example, I still don't understand basic grammar thoroughly. I've never read through a grammar book and tried to understand it well the way I have with math books.
>

> your [Alissa's] intuitive understanding of grammar is a source of errors, but maybe a reasonably small and manageable one compared to some of your other discussion problems.

Agreed. Some other problems I have with serious intellectual public discussion include:

- Not discussing a topic persistently enough. Giving up too early.

I haven't seen myself get stuck for long on a problem on which I continue to discuss consistently.

Also, presenting as an individual with a history of replying consistently over time could elicit replies and assistance that I wouldn't otherwise have gotten. See Elliot's post "Expose an API" (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/messages/14687).

- De-legitimizing disagreement. Talking in a way that leaves no room that the other person might be right and I have something to learn from them.

- Lying, as explained in http://rationalessays.com/lying , especially when talking about myself, my feelings, my ideas, or my life. I don't like to admit to feeling scared or embarassed for instance. Then I deny it when called on it. I think posting under a shared anonymous account could help with this.

- Not reading what people say precisely, the way like I would read math or computer code.

I'd say that my most urgent problem is the first one: not discussing persistently.

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> this is a book quote. some other times you quoted me. in the future, you should differentiate which you're quoting. you could attribute each quote, default to one and attribute the other, or double quote for the book.

Yeah. My quoting was a mess in a few places. I think the problem was caused by typing quotes first (e.g. as I listened) and adding attributions later. I need a better policy so I don't make this mistake any more.

Proposal: Before typing or copy/pasting a quote, I should already have the right attribution in place.

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > I find it especially tempting to apply the "change-averse" label to others who resist not abstract changes, but changes *I* proposed. But curi's reasoning above still applies.

> it comes up a ton with parenting. parent says something and then interpret child as "not listening". actually child thinks there's something bad about what parent is saying. child could be right, or have a misconception, or maybe child doesn't yet understand what parent is saying (could easily be parent's fault, though could also be child's fault. if it was just cuz communication is hard, they wouldn't be fighting over it, they'd just be making further efforts to communicate, so in the cases where it's a problem, usually it is someone's fault.)
>
> parent doesn't want to address this – to deal with the dissent rationally by understanding the reason (child's misconception, child's correct criticism, a misunderstanding, whatever) and addressing it. instead parent blames the child and the problem doesn't get solved and the parent's orders become oppressive and tyrannical.

Calling people "change-averse" or saying a kid is "not listening" are ways of de-legitimizing disagreement.

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.
>

> > @56:04 disliking criticism
> >
> > Goldratt writes:
> >
> >>> Most of us don't like to be criticized. Vicious criticism, we like even less. But there is one thing we simply cannot tolerate--constructive criticism. Constructive criticism means that there is something correct in the criticism. It's under the belt. It's unfair. We are certainly going to hold it against the one who criticized us for a long time.

I liked how Goldratt says here that constructive criticism is "under the belt" and "unfair". Logically, that's not true, but he's saying it that way shed light on people's confused negativity on the topic. Maybe the true problems are the ones we most want to hide, so we get mad when someone points out a real problem. Whereas if the criticism was not regarding an actual problem, we would have less trouble shrugging it off.

> > curi:
> >
> >> There are a lot of people for whom, at some point in their life, there was a criticism they liked receiving. I've had discussions with people. I've had someone say to me, "I don't like criticism.", and I say back to them, "But I said several criticisms of you like half an hour ago, earlier in this discussion." And I go copy/paste them and quote the criticisms to the person. "Here, I said this criticism, I said this criticism. And your reaction was positive. You didn't say `fuck you'. You didn't get mad. You totally liked those comments. And now you're telling me you don't like criticism." And their response was basically, "Oh, I didn't think those counted because I liked them." People like criticism reasonably often. They just don't associate the criticisms that they liked, that they found reasonable, with the criticisms they don't like, the ones they found mean or threatening or unreasonable.

This is an interesting counter-example to people who say that people dislike criticism.

> >> So, I think most people, they like some criticisms some times. There's different factors that go into it. It's not just how reasonable is the criticism. It's also how reasonable is the person who's receiving the criticism about this particular thing. Because people, they're unreasonable at some things, there's some things where you could give a really nice criticism that's really useful, it's explained really well, and they're not going to like it just because they're so unreasonable about this particular topic. There's some thought processes in their mind about this topic that are not rational and things go wrong and even though the criticism is really good, it doesn't work for them.

These paragraphs could have been deleted. I think I got carried away when typing the previous paragraph and didn't edit it out later.

> >> But the same person, if it's a totally different topic, there's something they're good at in life, and that they could take some criticism about. Often, it's whatever they're good at is what they can take criticism about, because that's how they got good. It's the area of life that they were willing to listen to some criticism; that's how they got better at it. So now what happens later on is you see the thing they're good at is the thing they take criticism about; it goes together. One causes the other.

Being able to take criticism on a subject leads to being good at it.

> >> So you get like a good sports player and, maybe they're not the most rational guy most of the time, but then you talk to them about sports strategy and they get really rational. Or you talk to them about practice routines and they get really rational or something. Because that's how they ended up being good at sports, is because they were actually pretty rational about it. It doesn't work every time but there's some themes there.

Nice concrete application of the previous paragraph to sports. Athletes who have lots of flaws in other areas can be reasonable about their practice routines or strategy during games.

> >> And for the less rational sports players, that's part of what coaches are for, is the coach has to figure out a way to talk to this guy so that they can actually take criticism and make some changes so they can fit the team's strategy better. And they do have to be rational in some way, like there's some way to reach them. They don't just hate criticism no matter what. There's something the coach can say that will get through to them. Otherwise they wouldn't actually be able to be on the team. There has to be some way to talk to them and get them to make some changes, for them to actually be valuable to a sports team.

A big job of a sports coach is presenting criticism in a such a way that the player will use it productively.

> >> So, for some of the people it's easier. The coach doesn't have to try so far, and they're pretty rational, and that's why they're good at sports. And then there's some people where talking to them can be pretty hard, but the coach does have a way of doing it. And they don't just sit there going, "Oh, coach gave me constructive criticism, I'm going to hold a grudge for a long time, it's so unfair." There has to be some sort of better attitude than that, where things can go more smoothly than that.

This paragraph could have been omitted.

> >> So I think the world's not as grim as Goldratt is talking about.
> >
> > Yeah.
>
> i take it you particularly liked that part, since you transcribed a bunch. but you didn't say much about it. why did it stand out to you?

Added comments on this above.

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

Allowing your your power level to stagnate has a dire long-term consequences, even if those consequences might not show up as an immediate threat. Improving your power level would typically fall under the Important But Not Urgent quadrant of Covey's time management matrix (https://sidsavaras.com/coveys-time-management-matrix-illustrated/).

Allowing your power level to stagnate is similar to the threat the world (or a country, as in Atlas Shrugged) allowing itself to losing its engineers/scientists inventors/philosophers: in both cases, people can coast along for a while on the technology and wealth they already have, but eventually new threats will come along and they won't be able to deal with them. So even if it doesn't cause immediate urgent problems, losing those people imposes a huge constraint on the system's continued existence. And when trouble strikes, there's no way to quickly create a bunch of scientists/inventors/engineers/philosophers. People like that have to be allowed to develop over time, in advance.

[Anne B]

On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 4:27 AM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum
petrogradp...@gmail.com [fallible-ideas]

I find that whether or not I'm expecting a criticism affects how I receive it.

If I am expecting it, for example in a sports coaching situation, or
now when posting to the FI list, then I am happy to receive it.

If I am not expecting it, for example when I first started posting to
the FI list, or when I'm sharing something I'm proud of with a friend
and instead of cheering me on she criticizes it, my first reaction is
sometimes to get upset.

I would use "below the belt" not "under the belt". The "below the
belt" feeling is what I get when I get criticism and I've been
expecting something different socially.

[Kate Sams]

What if someone actually *is* change-averse? Or irrational, narrow-minded, biased, irrationally attached to their cherished beliefs? Or even dishonest or hostile?

Does the delegitimizing disagreement concept depend on the reason *why* you are judging them negatively and your method of thinking in arriving at that judgment? This is in contrast to the concept depending solely on whether or not you call someone change-averse or whatever.

Compare:

- Using the facts to objectively judge the situation and then claim that someone is change-averse.

- Claiming that someone is change-adverse as a debate tactic or an excuse to not take their ideas seriously.

[Kate Sams]

Or, in the case of kids, claiming that someone is too young and dumb to understand gets used as an excuse to use force against them.

I think a key part of the delegitimizing disagreement issue is the underlying motive for judging ppl negatively. Ppl delegitimize disagreements *because* they are looking for a rationalization that allows them to not have to take ideas and disagreements seriously.

[PAS]

On Mar 2, 2018, at 12:56 AM, Elliot Temple cu...@curi.us [fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.
>
>
>> @14:37 Inertia
>>
>> Inertia is a huge issue. Even aside from its importance as something to be avoided in the fifth focusing step, Goldratt talks in Beyond the Goal about how inertia keeps people from realizing the benefits of technology. (Discussed at http://curi.us/2094-expanding-our-limits)
>>
>> In general, People just think that what they have is good enough and carry on. No one is interested enough to look for big improvements in the way things are done.
>
> sad. and so very wrong. either you're making rapid progress or you're fukt. problems are inevitable, and soluble. life is a race to increase your problem solving power before you get fukt. if you don't do this, you will lose, guaranteed. progress or disaster are the only possible ways forward. there is no good enough. there is no sustainable life. people fool themselves with rationalizations. they say their life is "pretty good" while accepting having a billion dollars less than they'd prefer and a billion years less lifespan than they'd prefer (and a sexual partner who is less hot than they'd prefer, and a job that is sometimes boring or frustrating, so on. people compromise a lot and then say things are good b/c they are not counting any of the problems they already decided to compromise about.).

I prefer a billion year life span to my existing life span.

I don’t know how to get a billion year lifespan.

I don’t think I have a good chance of learning to get a billion year lifespan in the existing lifespan I have, even if I violated tons of my other preferences to do it.

I don’t know how to meaningfully help others learn how to get a billion year lifespan without violating tons of other preferences I have.

I think the most likely scenario where I get a billion year life span is that some other people figure it out, with no meaningful involvement from me, and make it available on the market within my existing life span. I think the chance of that happening is damn low, and whether it happens or not is almost entirely outside of my control.

Given the above, it seems like I have a choice between thinking I have a pretty good life despite probably not getting my preferred billion year life span, or despair cuz I’m fukt.

I choose to think I have a pretty good life rather than despair.

What is something that I can and should change about this line of thinking?

PAS

[Elliot Temple]

On Mar 4, 2018, at 8:54 AM, PAS <p...@paipas.com> wrote:

> On Mar 2, 2018, at 12:56 AM, Elliot Temple cu...@curi.us [fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.
>>
>>
>>> @14:37 Inertia
>>>
>>> Inertia is a huge issue. Even aside from its importance as something to be avoided in the fifth focusing step, Goldratt talks in Beyond the Goal about how inertia keeps people from realizing the benefits of technology. (Discussed at http://curi.us/2094-expanding-our-limits)
>>>
>>> In general, People just think that what they have is good enough and carry on. No one is interested enough to look for big improvements in the way things are done.
>>
>> sad. and so very wrong. either you're making rapid progress or you're fukt. problems are inevitable, and soluble. life is a race to increase your problem solving power before you get fukt. if you don't do this, you will lose, guaranteed. progress or disaster are the only possible ways forward. there is no good enough. there is no sustainable life. people fool themselves with rationalizations. they say their life is "pretty good" while accepting having a billion dollars less than they'd prefer and a billion years less lifespan than they'd prefer (and a sexual partner who is less hot than they'd prefer, and a job that is sometimes boring or frustrating, so on. people compromise a lot and then say things are good b/c they are not counting any of the problems they already decided to compromise about.).
>
> I prefer a billion year life span to my existing life span.
>
> I don’t know how to get a billion year lifespan.
>
> I don’t think I have a good chance of learning to get a billion year lifespan in the existing lifespan I have, even if I violated tons of my other preferences to do it.
>
> I don’t know how to meaningfully help others learn how to get a billion year lifespan without violating tons of other preferences I have.
>
> I think the most likely scenario where I get a billion year life span is that some other people figure it out, with no meaningful involvement from me, and make it available on the market within my existing life span. I think the chance of that happening is damn low, and whether it happens or not is almost entirely outside of my control.

that's incorrect. more realistically: they make 1000 year life span available on the market during your existing life span, then another product comes out before you turn 1000, and so on. and note that in this scenario, you actually have far more opportunity to contribute to life extension stuff.

> Given the above, it seems like I have a choice between thinking I have a pretty good life despite probably not getting my preferred billion year life span, or despair cuz I’m fukt.
>
> I choose to think I have a pretty good life rather than despair.
>
> What is something that I can and should change about this line of thinking?

you're arguing with a specific example instead of the general point.

dying soon is not "pretty good". that's unreasonable terminology. (regarding 50 years from now as "not soon" would be the sort of compromise ingrained in one's thinking that i'm criticizing.)

you should not despair about problems or ignore problems. false dichotomy. you should realize you have important problems and prioritize some to do something about. *if* you didn't have other major problems to prioritize higher, then i would tell you to immediately change careers and work on life extension stuff. the only reason you shouldn't do that is b/c you do have lots of other serious problems!

Elliot Temple
www.fallibleideas.com

[PAS]

On Mar 4, 2018, at 2:42 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> On Mar 4, 2018, at 8:54 AM, PAS <p...@paipas.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 2, 2018, at 12:56 AM, Elliot Temple cu...@curi.us [fallible-ideas] <fallibl...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> These are my notes on curi's analysis and commentary on Chapters 1-2 of Goldratt's book "Theory of Constraints". The video will be available in the future.
>>>
>>>
>>>> @14:37 Inertia
>>>>
>>>> Inertia is a huge issue. Even aside from its importance as something to be avoided in the fifth focusing step, Goldratt talks in Beyond the Goal about how inertia keeps people from realizing the benefits of technology. (Discussed at http://curi.us/2094-expanding-our-limits)
>>>>
>>>> In general, People just think that what they have is good enough and carry on. No one is interested enough to look for big improvements in the way things are done.
>>>
>>> sad. and so very wrong. either you're making rapid progress or you're fukt. problems are inevitable, and soluble. life is a race to increase your problem solving power before you get fukt. if you don't do this, you will lose, guaranteed. progress or disaster are the only possible ways forward. there is no good enough. there is no sustainable life. people fool themselves with rationalizations. they say their life is "pretty good" while accepting having a billion dollars less than they'd prefer and a billion years less lifespan than they'd prefer (and a sexual partner who is less hot than they'd prefer, and a job that is sometimes boring or frustrating, so on. people compromise a lot and then say things are good b/c they are not counting any of the problems they already decided to compromise about.).
>>
>> I prefer a billion year life span to my existing life span.
>>
>> I don’t know how to get a billion year lifespan.
>>
>> I don’t think I have a good chance of learning to get a billion year lifespan in the existing lifespan I have, even if I violated tons of my other preferences to do it.
>>
>> I don’t know how to meaningfully help others learn how to get a billion year lifespan without violating tons of other preferences I have.
>>
>> I think the most likely scenario where I get a billion year life span is that some other people figure it out, with no meaningful involvement from me, and make it available on the market within my existing life span. I think the chance of that happening is damn low, and whether it happens or not is almost entirely outside of my control.
>
> that's incorrect. more realistically: they make 1000 year life span available on the market during your existing life span, then another product comes out before you turn 1000, and so on. and note that in this scenario, you actually have far more opportunity to contribute to life extension stuff.

Ya. I had in mind incremental improvements rather than getting a billion year life expectancy all at once. But not the specific idea that I might help with later improvements even though I didn’t help with the initial ones.

>> Given the above, it seems like I have a choice between thinking I have a pretty good life despite probably not getting my preferred billion year life span, or despair cuz I’m fukt.
>>
>> I choose to think I have a pretty good life rather than despair.
>>
>> What is something that I can and should change about this line of thinking?
>
> you're arguing with a specific example instead of the general point.

I didn’t intend to argue. I intended to describe my current thinking and ask what I can and should change about it.

I chose this specific example because apart from the fact you specifically referenced it, it’s one I have few ideas about what I can and should change. Whereas with other examples I already have ideas about what I can and should change.

> dying soon is not "pretty good". that's unreasonable terminology. (regarding 50 years from now as "not soon" would be the sort of compromise ingrained in one's thinking that i'm criticizing.)

I already regard dying 50 years from now as dying soon. But I don’t think any length within the bounds of current technology is what matters. I don’t think 50 years is the kind of compromise I’m making.

Suppose I found out tomorrow I have a terminal disease with a median life expectancy from diagnosis of 3 months. I think virtually everyone would agree that would be dying soon.

And yet even with such a diagnosis I’d still think that I’ve had a pretty good life. Dying soon is not, itself, pretty good. It’s horrible. But dying soon is just one component of an overall life. A life I regard as pretty good because I’m still happy to have lived it.

> you should not despair about problems or ignore problems. false dichotomy.

I wasn’t thinking of the choice as despair or ignore. I don’t ignore the fact I’m going to die soon. Despite not preferring it, I still make plans for how I’ll live with the frailties of old age and what will happen to my stuff when I die.

I was thinking of the choice as more like despair or accept. By accept, I mean accept that I don’t have the means to change the fact that I’m going to die soon, but I don’t choose to let that fact define my life as not pretty good.

> you should realize you have important problems and prioritize some to do something about. *if* you didn't have other major problems to prioritize higher, then i would tell you to immediately change careers and work on life extension stuff. the only reason you shouldn't do that is b/c you do have lots of other serious problems!

I agree with doing something about my important problems.

PAS

[Elliot Temple]

Why don't you analyze the two links you gave? They are good, relevant things. A good next step would be learning more about them.

> - Not reading what people say precisely, the way like I would read math or computer code.

why don't you? if you can already do it with math and computer code, then there's some other answer that isn't "i don't know how", yeah?

one reason people don't read/listen precisely is b/c most ppl don't want to be read or listened to precisely. they don't like it. it's anti-social.

> I'd say that my most urgent problem is the first one: not discussing persistently.

what discourages you from continuing?


Elliot Temple
www.fallibleideas.com

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 01:18:39PM -0700, Elliot Temple wrote:

> On Mar 2, 2018, at 1:01 AM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> On Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 11:56:34PM -0800, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

>>> On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:03 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>> There are lots of areas in my life, for instance regarding discussions, in which I try to do complex stuff without understanding the simple stuff well first. For example, I still don't understand basic grammar thoroughly. I've never read through a grammar book and tried to understand it well the way I have with math books.
>>>
>>> your [Alissa's] intuitive understanding of grammar is a source of errors, but maybe a reasonably small and manageable one compared to some of your other discussion problems.
>>
>> Agreed. Some other problems I have with serious intellectual public discussion include:
>>
>> - Not discussing a topic persistently enough. Giving up too early.
>>
>> I haven't seen myself get stuck for long on a problem on which I continue to discuss consistently.
>>
>

>>

>> - De-legitimizing disagreement. Talking in a way that leaves no room that the other person might be right and I have something to learn from them.
>>
>> - Lying, as explained in http://rationalessays.com/lying , especially when talking about myself, my feelings, my ideas, or my life. I don't like to admit to feeling scared or embarassed for instance. Then I deny it when called on it. I think posting under a shared anonymous account could help with this.
>
> Why don't you analyze the two links you gave? They are good, relevant things. A good next step would be learning more about them.

I don't think it should be a high priority for me to analyze the first link at the moment. Since Elliot wrote the above, posting frequency is less of an issue for me. I now aim to post at least 50 posts per month as Alisa. I did it last month. I'm on track for this month. That's well above the 3 per week I set as my lower bound in the "Expose an API" thread back in 2015. I could certainly post more, but I am currently above the bare minimum thresholds discussed in that thread.

Lying is still an issue for me. I added the Lying essay to the Reading List in my PF policy ( https://goo.gl/XW7bdf ).

>> - Not reading what people say precisely, the way like I would read math or computer code.
>
> why don't you? if you can already do it with math and computer code, then there's some other answer that isn't "i don't know how", yeah?
>
> one reason people don't read/listen precisely is b/c most ppl don't want to be read or listened to precisely. they don't like it. it's anti-social.

My attitude towards or my capacity for reading precisely has changed since Elliot wrote the above. I can read more precisely now.

>> I'd say that my most urgent problem is the first one: not discussing persistently.
>
> what discourages you from continuing?

Two big factors that discouraged me from discussing persistently were: not understanding paths forward and not understanding the importance of managing my error rate.