Malcolm Ocean

Rationality, metacognition, culture, relationships, &+. Currently playing with writing 100+ words every day. This is the default place for those; some go elsewhere. Follow blog.complice.co for posts on productivity. Check out malcolmocean.com for longer essays.

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

In Roman Hill’s “As Above,” we see expansive celestial landscapes. Except, in reality, we are watching fluids undergoing a chemical reaction on an 8 sq mm canvas. (Video and image credit: R. Hill)

[complicegoals]

Pareto Improvisation

A simple technique to boost sanity.

You know how sometimes you’re “working”, but you’re not doing important work, maybe just tweaking the formatting on something nobody will ever see?

Or alternatively, you’re watching some youtube videos, but you are theoretically in the middle of a pomodoro, so you’re trying not to notice that you’re watching youtube videos, which means you’re also not noticing that the youtube videos you’re watching are some random interviews with actors you don’t care about, as opposed to the new extended music video from your favorite artist that you’re super excited to watch full-screen and engagedly?

I speak from personal experience here, and I tend to feel kind of crazy when I’ve found myself in this sort of weird compromise, because no part of me is happy with what I’m doing.

Well, I have a really straightforward technique that helps achieve a bare minimum of sanity. It’s loosely based on the concept of a “pareto improvement”. A pareto improvement is an improvement that improves something along one dimesion while not making it worse along any other dimensions. So it’s an improvement that comes without any trade-offs or compromises.

An example could be if one person wants to go to an Italian restaurant and one person wants to go to a Japanese restaurant, and it turns out there’s an Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant that both people feel totally satisfied with! Another food example might be if I’ve got more berries than I can possibly eat before they’ll go bad (this is quite a lot) I would be able to share some with you without having any less for myself since I’m already at capacity.

The way you can apply this to your own choices of what to spend your time doing is to seriously take on this stance, which I call Pareto Improvisation:

If I’m doing some thing X, and *all of me* agrees there’s something I’d rather be doing than X, then do that instead.

This functions as an alternative to the kind of maxim some people try to give themselves of “do the most important thing”. I’ve tried that, and it has some interesting results but a bunch of unwanted side effects:

It leads to second-guessing myself about what the most important thing is.

It leads to self-deception because I can only do something if I convince myself it’s the most important thing.

It leads to rebellion because parts of me don’t want to do the most important thing—they want to watch youtube.

With Pareto Improvisation, you don’t need to second-guess yourself, because if even one part of you is like “I want to do this more than anything else” then fine! Do it. You also don’t need to deceive yourself.

And finally, it lets you honor all of your different desires, and not let them fight each other.

Pareto Improvisation doesn’t say “don’t do this distracting internet thing”, it says “if you’re going to do it, you might as well do the most interesting version of it”. It allows your internal sense-making to navigate towards better options, without a need to figure out which option is best.

And you might sometimes find that you’re on reddit, and none of you particularly wants to be on reddit. You’d actually rather take a nap, or go for a walk, or even do some work, now that you’ve thought about it.

Seeking internal agreement is a great way to build an internal sense of same-sidedness, which means less resistance whatever you’re doing. I like that it’s called “improvisation”, because it’s very much based on the idea that whatever your plans are, there are always going to be unexpected factors that will require you to improvise (i.e. make something up on the spot).

By the way! We’re soon going to run a few more sessions of the Goal-Crafting Intensive. So if you think your year could be improved by taking 5 hours to set some goals and design some systems, then come join us on February 23th or 24th, and we’ll introduce you to other techniques like this or help you design your own techniques to structure your life.

Click here to learn more and sign up

[complicegoals]

You don’t have time to not do a weekly review

When it comes to productivity routines, I suspect the weekly review is at the very top of the list of “things people intend to do but don’t actually do”.

Which is understandable! People naturally put off doing strategic things because they have a sense of there being so many tasks to do.

But the reality is, if you have 100 hours of things on your plate for this week, you’re not going to get them all done anyway, which means that somehow things are gonna get cut. Deciding what to cut up front, in a weekly review, has a few advantages:

making better decisions, by deciding consciously and not under pressure

gaining more perspective, by seeing how the tasks you’re planning to work on connect with a larger strategy

being less stressed, because you aren’t starting your week attempting to do the impossible

If you don’t have time to do a weekly review, you don’t have time to not do a weekly review.

Now I understand this stuff, and have for years, and guess what? It’s still very easy for me to miss doing my reviews consistently. Which brings me to the announcements in this post.

I’ve upgraded the Complice app to address a few different of reasons why you might not do your weekly review.

You forget. Now there’s a red icon in the navbar, and a button next to your intention-setting box, to make it easy to remember that you’ve got a review to complete.

You get distracted. Now the reviews editor works perfectly offline, so you can do it from your phone on the subway or just go offline at a café. Like the today page, it’ll sync when you go back online, even if you close the page.

The questions feel irrelevant. The review questions have been customizeable for awhile, but you had to go to the goals page to do it. Now when you just change the questions in the boxes, they automatically offer to save for next time.

There are also a few other improvements, like better integration of the Top Priorities into the Reviews, and some more formatting hotkeys for inserting blockquotes or lists into the Reviews.

If you want to try this out, sign into Complice here.

Or keep reading for some screenshots, first of the reminder buttons:

Keep reading

[sixpenceee]

Galata Tower 3D light show in Istanbul, Turkey. More interesting posts here: sixpenceee.com/tagged/world

[chaythegay]

this some damn disney celebrate the magic bullshit

[notastrangestranger]

THIS IS WITCHCRAFT!!

[argumate]

tower online

[malcolmocean]

STE(A)M??

I am confused about STEM and STEAM as acronyms. The letters stand for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math—that part is straightforward.

But STEM seems like a really useful mental bucket to describe a particular cluster of interest or training...

...and STEAM seems sort of like saying "We're a combination pizza hut and taco bell and laundromat". It's not a natural cluster.

Looking into this briefly (I googled `stem vs steam`) it seems that the issue falls out of confusions related to descriptivism vs prescriptivism. A bunch of prescriptivists saw the STEM concept (and probably saw people saying good things about it) and said "What? What about Art?" They were making a genuinely good point—a well-rounded education can help people think better.

But they decided to make that point by muddying conceptspace. Why?

Ahh, further investigation yields that the STEM term came from the context of educational and curricular policy, and may have had the effect of arts getting dramatically deprioritized because it didn't seem competitive.

Another piece is that a bunch of people seem to be emphasizing Design, and doing almost a weird motte & bailey thing with Art/Design being the A.

Despite having more context now, I still smell unclear thinking around this.

(Also posted to facebook 15 minutes ago, where people are having interesting discussions about it already!)

[malcolmocean]

I’m a leaky abstraction

I sometimes experience myself as an abstraction:    a simple machine    practically a computer    a thinking being    that exists in the world of mathematics   computing inputs and outputs   and algorithms and functions

Then my bladder gets full and I hasten to relieve myself before I experience myself as a leaky abstraction

[malcolmocean]

thoughts on a month of posting daily

I published two posts to my main blog (malcolmocean.com) in this time, and both of them started as something smaller, and both have been well-received by people. That in itself is a decent achievement. But I want to highlight in particular the experience I had writing the "hwa" post: it was one of the most satisfying blogging experiences I've had in a long time, and I think that was because of how little pressure I was in: I was just writing up a cool idea that had popped up a few minutes prior. I've used beeminder to force myself to blog regularly, and this has successfully caused posts to get published, but I'm nowhere near the kind of relationship I want to have to writing, where I just periodically get inspired and do it. I do think that this experiment succeeded at busting the super-high standards I'd come to have about my blogging, which was another of the main aims. All in all, decently successful. And... I think I'm going to put it on hold for February . I may resume again in March or April, but in the meantime I want to create more space to work on more longform stuff. It seems reasonably likely I'll end up posting a few things here too...

[malcolmocean]

dad: “You should put some money in an RRSP.” [Canadian retirement fund; like a 401k]

me: “You keep saying that, but... it seems really unlikely that I will retire in 40 years.”

dad: “I know what you mean, I grew up in the Cold War, with the nuclear threat.”

me: “Well it’s not just that it’s possible that things will go awry. It’s more like... I basically see a few possible ways things can go in the next 40 years. The first question is does society collapse? This could be a kind of random economic catastrophe, it could be due to a climate thing or a pandemic or whatever. But whatever it is, if the answer is yes, my RRSP, being a bank thing, is probably gone, since even if there are somehow still banks, the money probably will have been lost during the collapse.

If society does not collapse, then it seems pretty obvious that things will continue not just at the rate they’re at, but at ever-increasing rates of change. (Although even if it were just the same amount of change as the last 40 years, that would still put us in a really bizarre future.) This makes it seem quite likely to me that within 40 years there’s some sort of much-smarter-than-human artificial intelligence, and it’s going to be calling the shots. That leaves roughly two scenarios: either the AI understands what humans care about, and creates an awesome utopia, in which case my RRSP is moot, or it doesn’t understand human value, and it does some random other thing with the entirety of planet Earth, in which case my RRSP is moot.

So it seems not just that things could happen that would make me not be retiring in 40 years, but rather I’m actually having trouble imagining a probable scenario in which I do retire (as such).

Anyway, I think that the best investment I can make for my future is investing money towards causing there to be one at all.”

dad: “...”

me: “Although hm. I guess that since it means not getting taxed on money now, and I could pull that money out in 5-10 years if Complice stops producing income and I want some buffer while I figure out what to do next, it does make sense to put a bit of money in there now. So I’m going to go ahead with that, and you can go on pretending I’m going to actually retire.”

dad: “Okay. Also, have I told you about the miracle of compound interest?”

[theunitofcaring]

A little while ago I was talking with someone about humility and arrogance. “I love arrogance,” I said. “I think it’s the most neglected virtue. Most people get bombarded with messages about humility when what they need is to value themselves more and to feel small less.”

“That’s funny,” the person said, “because I think you rationalists are way too arrogant and could really use some deliberate practice in humility.”

I’m thinking we’re both right.

There’s a bad kind of humility. It goes like “you should feel small in the face of the universe; you should be ashamed to think that your thoughts are anything other than petty compared to the ideas of great thinkers/religious authorities/science and reason/Ayn Rand/etc. You can be a good person only by accepting your own unworthiness.”

And to counter it there is a good kind of arrogance. It goes “I am extraordinary; I am capable; I am valuable. I deserve to make judgments, and to live by and act on my own judgments. I am a full person, enriched by the ideas and arguments and encouragement of others but an appendage to no one. My self and my values and my worth are not a democracy; I am sovereign here, and you may advise me but never rule me. I rule myself and I’m doing a damn good job, or at least I plan to do a good job someday and I won’t learn if I let other people rule me in the meantime.”

I think most people get too many messages that induce the bad kind of humility and could benefit from messages that instill the emotions and confidence behind the good sort of arrogance. 

But there’s a failure mode of the good sort of arrogance, and it looks like this: “I am capable; I am valuable; I don’t need to bow my head to others. In fact, others don’t really have much of value to offer me. I am sovereign and have figured out the correct set of values; now everyone should just listen to me and do that, since ethics is a solved problem.”

And to that the counter is humility, the good sort of humility, the sort that says “people are beyond your imagination. Everyone you pass has experiences and values and ideas that wouldn’t have occurred to you, that you’ll grasp only by listening to them and by building a world where they feel comfortable speaking. And as you are the ruler of your self, they are the ruler of their self; seven billion people rule themselves without you! You can’t begin learning from them until you really and truly believe in their value.”

Both the good arrogance and the good humility emphasize the individual capacity to evaluate and lead and be respected in our own lives. Both the bad humility and the bad arrogance are ‘some people are not important or capable enough to be the agents of their own lives’. So when my friend says that people are too arrogant and I say that people are too humble, we both have the same complaint. We are both looking for the message that each and every person is the rightful ruler of their self, and that the role of others is to provide advice and encouragement and information and support as asked for, and you can call that message humility or you can call it arrogance but I really do think that none of us hear it often enough. 

[the-axiom-of-hope-deactivated20]

YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!

[malcolmocean]

random idea 💡 a system for sending reminders based on actions I’m taking

A long time ago, I wanted a thing that would let me store various conditional notes-to-self that were really specific. Like "if I'm booking a flight to the phillippines, remind me about this cool retreat center" or "if I'm buying a bike, remind me about these cool bike lights". One could somewhat just have a specific notes-to-self thing and check it every week for any decisions one is making that week, but it would soon become a hassle.

It seems that it would be roughly possible for Google to create something like this, but almost no other organization would have enough access to what you’re actually buying/doing etc.

Huh. I guess, actually, my app Complice knows what you’re doing on a given day, provided that you set an intention to do it. And that’ll be even better if/when I add a calendar integration. So then the challenge is detecting relevant things. Machine learning might be able to do this, and if not now than in a few years.

I think the simplest 80/20 implementation of this is actually just this habit: before I do anything for the first time, google “things I wish I’d known about ___thing___ before I started”. Which, honestly, is a good habit anyway.

[malcolmocean]

so familiar are the tensions of my own invention

The title is a riff on some lyrics from Survival by Way out West. Part of the chorus goes “I have been burned, but I am not discouraged.”

It’s on my mind. I’ve grown so much in the past year, and there are still so many things that are stuck! And it’s a bizarre experience to realize the extent to which most of the obstacles I face on a day-to-day basis are literally inside my own cranium. Err, well, there’s a debate about the extent to which oneself exists inside one’s own body as opposed to being inherently embedded in environment/context. But that aside, I contain the majority of my own blocks.

It is tempting to hear “so familiar are the tensions of my own invention” with a kind of tiredness, or exasperation, and at times there has been that. At the moment, though, there’s a kind of leaning-in familiarity: I know you. I know how to work with you. And we’re making progress.

[malcolmocean]

Nothing Is Wrong

Nothing went wrong. Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing continues to go wrong. Nothing is perpetually going wrong. Nothing insists on continuing to go wrong. No matter what you do, nothing will always go wrong. At the end of the universe, nothing will have gone wrong the entire time.

[malcolmocean]

$ is $ is $ is $?

(Rambles on fungibility, budgeting, etc. I have more detailed thoughts on this stuff but this is a kind of sketch of some questions.)

One thing that's weird about being an adult is you have all of these different things you spend money on—groceries, healthcare,fun events, learning events, —and they're all coming out of the same pool of money, and the amounts are really different and the budgets don't make sense next to each other.

Like this week I spent $170 at the dentist. $170 could buy me a really cool gadget that I might enjoy super much. Does it make sense to skip my next dentist trip and buy a cool gadget instead? Given that I hadn't been to the dentist for over a year and my teeth are still fine, it seems like the "every 3 month" default is probably not worth it.

But is a really cool gadget the thing to spend that $170 on? Or is it just a way to gauge how much $170 is worth?

Also recently, I was seriously considering paying $300 for an online workshop on meditation etc. Then it occurred to me that I could buy a Muse for that much money that would be a device that would improve the feedback I was getting about certain aspects of meditation--which is definitely a major aspect of why I've had trouble meditating at times.

But does it make sense to spend $300 on improving my meditation right now? How good would the improvement have to be? (it would be a no-brainer to spend $300 on anything that I expected to very quickly cause a breakthrough in my level of awareness, whether that was a dozen hours talking to one of the best meditation instructors, or on several days’ access to an advanced biofeedback machine. This would pay itself back in increased productivity almost immediately.)

This remark about an investment paying itself back is itself telling: I’m self-employed, so increasing my capacity will tend to pay for itself in dollars. This makes it much easier to ask “is it worth it?” instead of “can I afford it?”

(Zvi recommends asking this in general.)

...but to some extent, this is only easy for me in business or business-adjacent domains. Outside of that, it’s still really hard to figure out.

[malcolmocean]

Go for decisions that might turn out obviously good

Earlier today I had the experience of being pretty neutral about a decision. I made a choice, and a few hours later it was extremely obvious that the choice was a good one based on how things had played out. What was curious is that I felt that while the exact details weren't knowable in advance, part of me felt very confused that the decision had felt like one of those ones that could have easily gone either way. I found myself considering a new decision algorithm for situations like this. It's shaped kind of like Murphyjitsu, if you've heard of that. Basically, you consider each of your options, and you imagine "if I were to take this option, and later realize that it was OBVIOUSLY the best choice, how surprising would that be?" And if it turns out that one of the options has a substantially better chance of being an obvious winner, then it seems that it's the better choice (given that they were initially equal). Note that this isn't just about the odds of things turning out well. It's about tapping into intuitions that you may already have about the decision, that you haven't yet accessed yet, by really FEELING the future.

[malcolmocean]

on contradictory design feedback

I have designed an app: Complice. The design of the app is pretty unique, relative to other things in the productivity app space. Both from a visual design perspective and from a UX perspective.

Some people think that it’s the best-designed app they’ve ever seen. They’re like “this is brilliant, I have never seen anything like it.”

Other people think that the design is horrendous. They say things like “I like the idea of the app, but omg hire a designer asap.”

(Fwiw, lots of people are pretty neutral on the subject too.)

What I find interesting is that both groups seem to think that their perspective is just objectively true... which can’t be the case, since both groups exist.

What’s going on? One possibility is that design is more a matter of personal taste than people think, and Complice’s design happens to be divisive along particular lines of taste. Another possibility is that there are a few distinct (and possibly contradictory) design philosophies and Complice follows one of these, leading to disagreement based on the dominant philosophies. And that again, people experience their own design philosophy as just being true, so they perceive Complice’s design as being objectively amazing/terrible.

My own perspective, in this particular situation, is that Complice’s design actually just is both brilliant and terrible. There are lots of very subtle pieces that I spent a lot of time crafting to be delightful to interact with, on a visual level and a ux level. I’m really proud of these. There are also aspects of Complice’s appearance that weren’t even really properly designed at all, but just came to be as the app evolved, without me considering the overall shape of things. I am... not proud of these, but I’m making progress overhauling them.

If you use Complice (or you’re a design nut and you want to check it out just to have an opinion on the subject)... what do you think?

[malcolmocean]

excerpt from a thing I freestyle sang in the shower

You won’t find me there: I'm going somewhere else

Away from the angst and the grievance and woes Away from blame and the places it goes I'm not gonna go into a downward spiral I'm reshaping myself to a shape that is chiral and incompatible with these dysfunctional assumptions so if you try to judge me I will have the gumption to point out that my meaning can't be understood while you've got those assumptions under the hood but if you want to learn how to break free of grievance I'm game to try transmitting if you're open to receivance

I got into a really good flow state in the shower today, after reading a bit of The Big Leap and Inadequate Equilibria, where I was singing, going between just jazzy scatting, and freestyling lyrics about stuff. This was one chunk of that, from memory. I really really enjoy freestyling, and I’m trying to figure out how I can have more of it in my life. In the meantime, singing in the shower seems like a good way.

[morganalefays]

no offense but im going to get better and im taking all of you up with me