#satisficers and maximizers

[usunezukoinezu]

''...most of us are split into two categories of decision-makers: satisficers and maximizers. The maximizer is someone you might be familiar with. They want everything possible, and they’ll try and try until they get it. They’re picky to the point of being frustrating, and take all of their allotted time to make a decision, every time. Even then, they’ll still second-guess themselves and regret their decision. The satisficer, on the other hand, can more accurately determine what really matters and focuses on those things. They get in and get out, and happily move on with their day.''

-Peter Hollins, Mental Models

[yasirmukhtar]

Maximizer Menjadi Satisficer

Ada dua tipe orang dalam mengambil keputusan.

Pertama ada tipe maximizer. Maximizer ingin memastikan keputusan yang diambilnya adalah yang paling optimal diantara pilihan yang ada.

Di sudut lain, ada tipe orang satisficer. Satisficer mengambil keputusan yang good enough pada saat itu. Tidak perlu paling ini dan itu, yang penting cukup.

Saya sampai di titik kehidupan ini sebagai maximizer. Banyak hal baik yang saya dapatkan dan syukuri karenanya.

Tapi, jujur saja, menjadi maximizer itu melelahkan. Tidak jarang saya overthinking untuk mengambil keputusan yang mestinya simpel (seperti celana olahraga mana yang paling bagus dengan harga tertentu yang bisa saya dapatkan di marketplace?).

Saya menemukan satu teknik untuk meredam tendensi maximizer saya, yaitu dengan mengingat kembali gambaran besar dari yang ingin saya capai.

Contohnya, saya ingin membeli celana olahraga.

Alih-alih membaca sebanyak-banyaknya review orang, saya bisa mengingat apa yang ingin saya capai dengan membeli celana olahraga ini?

"Saya ingin jogging keliling komplek dengan nyaman dan percaya diri (ngga ngejeplak, dll)."

Ok, maka celana mana pun yang bisa memenuhi itu, dalam rentang harga yang sudah saya tentukan, cukup. Ambil keputusan dan eksekusi.

Sekian.

[pluralthey]

can i ask for more about shiloh? She has such an unique design and her and Jessie's relationship seems interesting :0

shiloh is hard to describe from any one angle i feel like. when i made her character, i needed her to be someone who would immediately catch jessie's eye just walking past her, someone who would willingly enter a relationship with god without fear, and someone who had some kind of power in the relationship between them. she ended up as someone older, more experienced, and more confident than jessie, someone eccentric and unafraid to look the part, and someone who isn't necessarily trying to drown but isn't trying to paddle to shore either.

as a naked mole rat, she can't really feel pain. whatever fear reflex people learn from pain, she did not, although other naked mole rats might still have more self-preservation due to a natural predispositions. i see her as someone closer to having an unnatural level of analgesia even for a mole rat; she isn't incapable of feeling pain, but it will only be in areas where a lot of nerves would be clustered anyway, because adult naked mole rats' pain tolerance comes from a reduction in nerve population to conserve biological resources (they are born with a normal amount, and i think shiloh was born with an already reduced amount of receptors that became even sparser). that's not to say that shiloh doesn't feel fear, but it isn't in the back of her mind in the same way it might be for others. she doesn't look at a flame and think "i shouldn't get too close to that" without actual conscious effort to recall it.

shiloh seeks rather extreme sensations, partially due to a perceived sense of physical ennui, with the other component being a literal sense of ennui. the thing i see in common between her and jessie is a pervasive sense of boredom or dissatisfaction. extremes are more unique. they're less predictable... less boring. i've said it before but i think her relationship with jessie could easily still work out without the god powers due to jessie's erratic emotional states and stupidity - they make her entertaining to shiloh and force her to think in new ways if only to explain a concept she feels is common sense. this is Because shiloh is a person constantly seeking relief from boredom.

she is a super spiritual, but not religious (at least, until god announces herself...) person, and she could probably be described with nietzschean philosophies. she had a hard time believing free will existed prior to The Jessie Event and certainly stopped believing in it after that; it doesn't make sense in a world created by an all-powerful god. shiloh, however, channels this nihilistic take into a strong belief in fate. she may relinquish control in ways other people find absurd because she wants to see her fate. she wants life to have meaning very badly - otherwise, it's all noise... boring, boring noise. actually, i already wrote about this a while ago in my notes. here:

shiloh can frequently be passive because she deliberately refrains from constructing narratives. She wants a meaning told to her by life instead of finding it herself. This lack of an intrinsic narrative makes her particularly receptive to a wide variety of ideas and subtleties, but it also makes her unable or unwilling to definitively shut the book on the relationship with Jessie no matter how many red flags.

aside from that stuff... shiloh is a logic-driven person who seeks and finds patterns easily. novelty often feels meaningful to her because she can quickly categorize interactions, and novel interactions can't be categorized without fabricating a new category. you'll see her in the story notice more about jessie manipulating reality than jessie would prefer even when her memories are altered because she notices discrepancies in patterns that jessie just. does not. as a foil for jessie... shiloh is also kind of a pleasure maximizer, whereas jessie is a pleasure satisficer. if you've never heard of the maximization paradox, it's an interesting topic and very relevant to shiloh in particular: maximizer types will sacrifice more resources into a decision for additional options in order to (potentially) maximize the return on the decision -- however, this type of behavior reduces satisfaction. the more thought and effort you put into a decision, the less satisfying the decision tends to be. (jessie as a satisficer picks primarily from immediately available options based on the most satisfactory result and finds even childish, stupid solutions gratifying as an exercise of power, conversely.)

i've described shiloh as a "this is how it is" person, which can sound like someone who's kind of rolled over on their back and submitted. she's like this whether she's the one dominating or being dominated, though. she's not morally bankrupt like jessie, but she's not the most moral person, either -- especially in terms of choosing to intervene with suffering instead of remaining apathetic. like what happens to her, what happens to others is fate. it's more interesting to see what happens to them than trying to impose a desired meaning onto reality. notably this acceptance of both dominating and being dominated means that, while she prefers to submit and have the powers that be decide, she is willing to exercise her own power, and she enjoys doing so when she does. when i mention things like shiloh seeing taking GOD's virginity as a badge of pride or knowing she's going to be living in jessie's head rent-free forever, the knowledge that shiloh is someone who enjoys having power over others can make it make more sense. it isn't a side of her that gets much attention in the story because she simply can't exercise that much power over someone all-powerful. any act of outsmarting jessie is temporary as she learns. i think i find her to be a uniquely interesting character because while i have to have other characters who ultimately accept jessie's godhood, shiloh is a character who DOES NOT shy away from how fucked up it is. some of the other characters may just hope it turns out well or cope by assuming they're only dreaming, but shiloh is like "this is horrible and it's actually kind of fucking awesome"

i think i talked a lot about her psychology that makes her feelings for jessie sound detached and manipulative, she is just... smitten. in her own way. she is a detached person, but she still has human feelings and investment in an emotional life.

[sabakos]

i think pop music and other forms of mass culture are typically satisficers rather than maximizers. Which isn't a problem, it's useful for music to exist that can be played in any context that will be taken as pleasant to the majority of people listening. But there's something specifically repulsive to others about having your favorite be something that's designed to be mid; your favorite band should be one that would be offputting or offensive to the median person who heard it, much like their favorite might sound that way to you. And in this way we can actually all be hipsters for our own tastes without a contradiction.

[max1461]

I mean I think a significant part of many debates I have on here is just "should you be a satisficer or a maximizer". Like my ethical intuitions are all very satisficing, or satisficing-ish (you know, I don't have a precise formalism, they're intuitions after all). And I think from that perspective, it's like. No matter what economic benefits you postulate language death to have, they're going to do orders of magnitude less to achieve satisfaction than a global UBI would. And without something like global UBI, we're never gonna achieve satisfaction anyway. So that's sort of the intuition. This language-barrier-inefficiency stuff (which I don't even have numbers on, and I'm not sure anyone has numbers on) all seems like small potatoes. Whether we satisfice will just be determined elsewhere.

If you're a maximizer the case is much stronger. In fact I think if you're an aggressive maximizer it's probably an open and shut case. But then so are all kinds of conclusions I find difficult to stomach, culminating in "tile the universe with pleasuronium". Which like, maybe that's the right thing to do! It doesn't seem impossible that that would be the right thing to do. Maybe if I introspected significantly on the nature of non-pleasure I would find that it is equivalent to pain. I mean it at least sort of is. By this is the whole AI alignment thing: I kind of think you can't salvage a human-compatible worldview out of really truly maximizing tendencies.

Anyway presumably the answer is somewhere in the middle, and well I mean I said I was a satisficer but that's not really true either. So I'm already somewhere in the middle. Anyway this is basically a thinking out loud post, it's incredibly loose. Don't take it too seriously.

[pinkopalina]

I was looking up some stuff about anxiety, time anxiety to be specific, and I learned the difference between maximizers and satisficers.

a maximizer tries to make choices to give them the most benefit later on, and satisficers try to make the best decisions only on their current criteria.

maximizers usually stress more, get less done, and feel worse off than satisficers.

I tried to always be a maximizer as a way to punish myself for having a ND brain. I have to maximize because I'm bad at remembering so if I don't do it now it won't get done, but lately I've been trying to just be happy with what I can do in the moment.

for example, if I could just use one of my days off on the weekend to clean the whole house then I wouldn't have to worry about it! I'm gonna do the garbage and the dishes and the cat box and vacuum and straighten up and move the laundry and I'm already fucking exhausted just writing it down. I might do a couple tasks but the goal I set for myself is unrealistic, stressful, anxiety inducing, and makes me put off more tasks because I don't believe I can do what I try to.

whereas being more realistic I'd say okay right now I can do a couple dishes. and then if I'm hungry I can make lunch, and then I can straighten up. and then maybe tomorrow I take care of one task when I have the time. and then I trust myself to get tasks done in a realistic and kind manner towards myself.

the concept has helped remind me not to be a maximizer (because I'm not successful at it, whereas someone like batman might be) whenever my train of thought is stressing me out too much.

maybe I can't clean the whole house right now in two hours but I can move the dirty clothes to the laundry.

[w-ht-w]

Regrets in life: major sources + how to deal

Culture can affect how people experience regret, too, with people from more individualistic cultures usually having more regrets about their personal situation (like achievement or career) and those in collectivist cultures having more regrets about their relationships. And women and men differ some in how they experience regret, with women typically regretting romantic and sexual relationships more than men and men regretting inaction more than action.

Regret is associated with unpleasant emotions, like sadness, disappointment, guilt, and shame. But people also regard it as one of the most beneficial negative emotions, because it can be instructive.

Our regrets can teach us about ourselves, help us to avoid repeating mistakes, and encourage us to make better decisions in the future. On the other hand, if we use our regrets to beat ourselves up, or if we ignore them completely, they will not lead to growth. The key is finding the right balance,

“Regret doesn’t have to lead directly to self-recrimination,” ... But “never feeling regret is not a sign of wisdom or righteousness. It may be a sign you don’t learn from your mistakes.” (2)

Some people suffer from regret more than others

Some of us are more prone to regret than others, ... Here are some of those risk factors.

Not tolerating ambivalence. ... there are no guarantees about the future. ... if you can’t stand uncertainty, you are bound to avoid making hard choices, leaving you vulnerable to later regrets.

Falling prey to biases. We all have cognitive biases, but some influence regret more than others. If you suffer a lot from negativity bias (discounting or not even seeing the positives in your life), black-and-white thinking (thinking things are either all good or all bad), or catastrophizing (thinking that if something goes wrong, you won’t be able to handle it), it’s bound to affect how much you suffer regret.


Worrying about “buyer’s remorse” or how bad we’ll feel in the future. If you’re the kind of person who often anticipates feeling awful for making a choice, it may keep you from deciding on a course of action that could bring you happiness, increasing the potential for regret.

Having too many choices. “Regret is an opportunity emotion—the more opportunity we see, the more likely we are to regret something,” ... Having too many choices increases your potential for making the “wrong” one.

Being a perfectionist. If you expect to have an ideal, happy life all of the time and are not easily satisfied, you will be more prone to regret. “Maximizers” (people who seek out optimal outcomes) tend to feel more regret than “satisficers” (people who are content with good-enough outcomes), unless they can take steps to lessen their maximizing tendencies. (2)

Letting go of debilitating regret

“Regret is a possible element of any decision that we make,” writes Leahy. “But the likelihood that you will regret your decisions will depend on how you think about making your decisions and how you cope with living with the result.”


Remember that you don’t know things would have turned out better. If you imagine your life would have been better “if only…,” keep in mind that your assumption is not based on real evidence. Instead of focusing on where you might have been, turn toward the future and remember it can change based on the choices you make now.

Focus on the positive aspects of your current life, to balance out the negative feelings that come with regret. Your negativity bias can keep you preoccupied with what’s wrong rather than what’s right. So, it’s a good idea to practice gratitude for the good in your life—even for the small, simple things.

Don’t forget that sometimes things don’t turn out the way you wanted them to, even with your most thoughtful planning. Life can hand you lemons, but that’s not necessarily your fault. You cannot be omniscient; so, you need to accept that sometimes you will regret your choices. But that doesn’t mean you should criticize yourself endlessly. Better to learn from your mistakes than to punish yourself.

Accept tradeoffs and compromises. Not everything has to turn out just the way you wanted it to. You will stymie your progress if you insist otherwise and make yourself miserable in the process. So, aim to be a satisficer rather than a maximizer.

Overall, ... once you’ve learned whatever lessons regret can teach you, you can let go of unrealistic expectations about what might have been, enjoy your life as it is, and start planning for a better future.

“Look around you at what is in the present moment and hold on to it with a warm embrace,” ... “Because your regrets will only keep you from what you have and who you are and trap you in a fictional world that never was—and never could have been.” (2)

We regret inaction more than wrong action

one reason why regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action is that cognitive dissonance reduction is more active for the latter than the former. Regrets of inaction (“Should have asked her out,” “Should have become a dentist”) are more psychologically “open,” more imaginatively boundless, meaning that there is always more one could have done and further riches one might have enjoyed (“She’d have been a wonderful partner,” “It would have been rewarding work”). This openness to possibility (the essence of opportunity) mitigates dissonance reduction. By contrast, regrets of action are psychologically fixed by their factual status and have only one alternative (not doing it).

regrets of inaction last longer than regrets of action in part because they reflect greater perceived opportunity. (1)

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2394712/

2. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_regrets_can_help_you_make_better_decisions

[finallyalivecounseling]

Unlocking the Power of Habits: Simplifying Daily Decisions for a More Fulfilling Life

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by simple everyday decisions? You are not alone! Even small choices can cause stress and anxiety. But why does this happen, and what can we do about it? Let's explore some research and insights that can help us make better decisions without the stress. One reason we struggle with decisions is that we have too many options. The more choices we have, the harder it is to compare and decide. In fact, studies show that having too many options can actually cause anxiety. In the book of Proverbs, we read, "Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad" (Proverbs 12:25). When we feel overwhelmed, it's important to find a way to simplify our choices. Another reason we feel stressed is that we may not feel confident in our ability to make the right decision. This can be especially true when it comes to financial decisions or goal setting. But as Christians, we can trust in God's guidance. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." When we seek God's wisdom, we can make choices with confidence. It's also important to remember that some decisions may have emotional stakes, even if they seem trivial. Choosing what to wear on a date, for example, can be a source of stress because we want to make a good impression. But God sees our hearts, not just our outward appearance. 1 Samuel 16:7 reminds us, "For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." When we focus on what truly matters, we can find peace in our decisions. Our personality can also play a role in how we make decisions. Some of us may tend to maximize, always seeking the best option. Others may be more satisficers, settling for a good enough choice. But the Bible encourages us to seek contentment, not perfection. Philippians 4:11-12 says, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound." When we focus on finding contentment, we can make decisions that bring us joy. To make decision-making easier, it can be helpful to build habits. By establishing routines for everyday choices, we can reduce the mental energy we need to expend. This is similar to the idea of system one thinking, which relies on our unconscious habits rather than our conscious decision-making. In Ecclesiastes 3:1, we read, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." By creating habits that align with our values, we can make choices that reflect our priorities. Everyday decisions can be stressful, but by seeking God's guidance, focusing on what truly matters, and building good habits, we can make choices with confidence and ease. As we learn to simplify our options, seek contentment, and trust in God's wisdom, we can find peace in even the smallest decisions. Let's take action today by setting a goal to establish one new positive habit that can help us make decisions with less stress and more joy. If you're feeling overwhelmed by everyday decisions, seeking Christian counseling can provide the guidance and support you need. By incorporating Biblical principles and focusing on finding contentment, a Christian counselor can help you make choices that align with your values and bring you peace. Don't let the stress of decision-making weigh you down - take the first step towards a brighter future today. Read the full article

[jadenaaa]

Concept Reflection 8

When it comes to marriages and weddings, people will use this event as a way to display wealth and the “ celebration of love” between the couple. Since those two principles go hand in hand, some people may think the more extravagant and expensive a wedding is, the more the couple loves each other but this is not usually the case. Usually a couple who had an expensive wedding will feel obliged to stay together because they have invested so much in their “love.” This idea is difficult for those who do not have enough to have a big wedding. Typically, non-white, non-straight couples face more challenges to marriage than those who who have status; they will have to go through more steps and work more to achieve this big wedding of their dreams. Additionally, marriage is seen as a stage that defines an individual’s adulthood; if a woman is unmarried she is considered to be a “spinster” where unmarried men are bachelors. Nonetheless, both genders are expected to marry. Marriage plays a huge part in today’s society because of the notion of amatonormativity. Amatonormativity makes services like adoption, hospital visitations, immigration, healthcare, and insurance benefits harder or not available to those who are not married. This relates to the topic of coupling and uncoupling because when two people are married, they essentially merge their social networks through the notion of amatonormativity.

Technology and social media have played a big part in marriages and family relationships which can be viewed in different periods of time. Before social media and technology, people mainly married to have a family. People who married in this period mainly married through propinquity since tech communication was not widely available. In this age, technology has allowed us to communicate with people from all around the world which has affected us in many ways. It allows us to have a bigger pool of choices to choose from, especially those in thin markets. Because of this, people in today’s society are considered to be maximizers since they want to find the “perfect”  person for them while people born in the period where technology wasn't so apparent are often, satisficers where they are happy with the person they have because they fulfill their needs. Maximizers are maximizers because they have this inflated concept of their soulmate and this is mainly due to social media. People use social media to connect with others by posting pictures and messages but it has created a toxic expectation of beauty, marriage, and relationships. Weddings weren’t always so extravagant and expensive, not until Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981. Weddings are heavily posted on media so if your friend has a big wedding, you would want a big wedding as well; same thing goes for relationships. 

In the episode of Big Gypsy Wedding that I watched, a girl named Lully was getting married to a man at the age of 16. She has big dreams of having a grand wedding but in the episode, Lully struggles to afford her wedding dress because she lives in rural Ireland rather than in the city because of her traditional Irish Values. Because of this, she has to go through extra steps and work harder to achieve that wedding of her dreams. In the end she had to opt out for a cheaper dress for herself and bridesmaids. Her living in rural Ireland also limits her choices of men she is exposed to meaning she has less choices, but it didn’t seem to be a bad thing for her. During the whole show, Lully did all the work for the wedding where her finance, Martin was not mentioned besides the times where Lully showed her admiration for him. This relationship shows how women tend to take on more responsibility for weddings as well as their expectations to marry in order to be an accomplished woman in society.

In the episode of Bridezilla that I watched, couple Myra and Jason are getting married in 10 days, however they are having many issues that deal with miscommunication. Myra is Filipino while Jason is Jewish, so their cultural background is different which becomes an issue for the ceremony as Jason’s family is persistent with their ideas. This is hard for Myra because she has no family in the US. On top of that, their budget is tight so they tried to cut costs by hiring a friend as a wedding planner which went horribly wrong. They paid $900 to the friend and she disappeared and with a couple days before the wedding, the panic she feels intensifies. The budget constraint is similar to the rational choice aspect where Myra and Jason tried to maximize the money they had by looking for cheaper options which ended up hurting them. They also tried to cut costs by having Myra’s family make her wedding dress. When the dress came back, it didn’t fit properly and so by not hiring a professional, they ended up with more problems. Lastly, since Jason’s family was pushing their ideas on how the wedding should be like, Myra barely had a voice on what she wanted. Jason’s family included many Jewish traditions in the event schedule where Myra wanted to do a money dance where people put money on the bride to dance with her on the dance floor, but Jason’s family wanted for people to put money on a hat and not pinned on her. Myra felt she couldn’t get what she wanted and was afraid to voice her opinion because Jason’s family was helping pay for the wedding and noy Myra’s.

In the episode of Say Yes to The Dress I watched, Bride Kim is looking for a dress for her wedding with Esther, her wife. They met on tinder which was the first time Kim had ever matched with a woman. Tinder has been a big aspect of modern romance where it allows others to meet a new range of people, though for some it can be debilitating. Though in the UK, communities are more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community than other locations, the gay community is considered to be a thin market. With tinder, it makes it easier for LGBTQ+ members to find each other. At first Kim didn’t come out to her family because she was afraid of the judgment and rejection. She believed this because her family is from South Africa where Christianity is the main religion they practice; she thought she could not have a white wedding as a gay person. When she came out to her family, they were accepting and supported her so Kim made this imaginary situation in her head. Though, Kim is lucky compared to other gay couples who face rejection and hate for being their authentic self. Kim also faces insecurity when it comes to her body because she titles herself as a “fat” woman. Because of this she wants a dress that has sleeves to conceal her arms, when she finds a dress that she adores she says never thought a big girl could be dainty. Of course to Esther, Kim is more beautiful than any other woman on earth but Kim does not believe that because of societal beauty standards where women show be tall and skinny on their wedding. She even mentions how she wanted more coverage on her dress and this goes along with the idea that thinner women tend to want less coverage while bigger women want to cover up as if they had something to hide.

[michaelbranch]

A Brief Summary of Ideas: Rationality

*These summaries are kept intentionally very brief, just hitting what I consider some of the important/interesting takeaways, most word-for-word or paraphrased. My goal is also to stick to ideas/principals that might guide others (or my future self) in deciding the value of a read (or re-reading). T = takeaway, Q = Question

Rationality

Author(s): Steven Pinker

Rationality: a kit of cognitive tools that can attain particular goals in particular worlds.

Reason is the means to an end, and cannot tell you what the end should be, or even that you must pursue it.

Reason: the ability to use knowledge to attain goals.

Knowledge: justified true belief. Belief must be in service of a goal.

Pursuing our goals and desires is ultimately the reason we have reason.

We confuse probability with propensity. Propensity is the disposition of an object to act in certain ways. Any scrap of evidence that alters our confidence in an outcome will change its probability and the rational way to act upon it.

Conjunction rule: the probability of a conjunction of events (A and B) must be less than or equal to the probability of either of the events (A or B).

Media coverage drives peoples sense of frequency and risk.

Family of probably blunders: confusing prior with post hoc judgements (a priori and a posteriori).

Classic errors in reasoning are often called cognitive illusions.

Cognitive illusions may arise from our setting aside the literal statement of a question as it comes into our brains and thinking through to what a speaker in the social world would reasonably ask.

Confirmation bias: habit seeking evidence that ratifies a belief and being incurious about evidence that might falsify it.

T= as excellent as our cognitive systems are, we must know when to turn our reasoning over to logic, probability, and critical thinking.

Satisfice: settle for the first alternative that exceeds some standard that’s good enough.

Two ways in which living for the present can be irrational.

We can discount a future reward too steeply.

Myopic discounting: we see an attractive temptation that is near to us in time, while far away choices are emotionally blurred.

Odyssean self-control: preempting lack of self control by putting into place mechanisms for how we can act.

When you combine self-interest and sociality with impartiality (the interchangeability of perspectives) you get the core of morality (ex. Golden rule).

Impartiality is the core of rationality: a reconciliation of our biased and incomplete notions into an understanding of reality that transcends any one of us.

Rationality, then, is not just a cognitive virtue but a moral one.

Logic is called “formal” because it deals not with the contents of statements but with their forms. Systems of logic are formalized as rules that allow one to deduce new statements from old statements by replacing some strings of symbols with others.

A valid argument correctly applies rules of inference to the premises. It only tells us that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true.

A sound argument applies the rules correctly to true premises and thus yields a true conclusion.

Statistical independence is tied to the concept of causation. If one event affects another, they are not statistically independent.

Q= Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. – Carl Sagan

A prior probability is not the same thing as a base rate.

We have no choice but to use human judgement in trading off specificity against reliability when choosing an appropriate prior.

A base rate may be treated as a prior only when the examples at hand are randomly sampled from that population.

Utility is not the same as self-interest; it’s whatever scale of value a rational decider consistently maximizes.

Signal detection Theory: Estimates the probability that something is true of the world, and deciding what to do about it by weighing its expected costs and benefits.

The signal detection challenge is whether to treat some indicator as a genuine signal from the world or as noise in our imperfect perception of it.

Enhancing sensitivity should always be our aspiration in signal detection challenges.

The tradeoff between hits and false alarms is inherent to any decision that is based on imperfect evidence.

Game theory: the analysis of how to make rational choices when the payoffs depend on someone else’s rational choices.

Nash equilibrium: each is playing the best strategy given the opponents best strategy; any unilateral change would make them worse off.

Causation can be thought of as the difference between outcomes when an event (the cause) takes place and when it does not.

Recognize that no event has a single cause. Events are embedded in a network of causes that trigger, enable, inhibit, prevent, and supercharge one another in linked and branching pathways.

When A is correlated with B, it could mean that A causes B, B causes A, or some third factor, C, causes both A and B.

People avoid getting onto a train of reasoning because they don’t like where it takes them.

Rhetorical resources to drive an argument toward a favored conclusion is called motivated reasoning.

Biased assimilation (selective exposure) people seek out arguments that ratify their beliefs and shield themselves from those that might disconfirm them.

Biased evaluation: deploy our ingenuity to upvote arguments that support our position and pick nits in the ones that refute it.

Expressive rationality: reasoning that is driven by the goal of being valued by one’s peer group rather than attaining the most accurate understanding of the world.

What’s rational for each one of us seeking acceptance in a clique is not so rational for all of us in a democracy seeking the best understanding of the world.

People divide their worlds into 2 zones.

Reality mindset: consist of other people, norms, rules, etc. that regulate our lives. There’s a real world and beliefs about it are true or false.

Mythology mindset: Beyond immediate experience. Beliefs in these zones are narratives, which may be inspiring, entertaining, or morally edifying. Whether they’re literally true or false is the wrong question. The function of these beliefs is to constructed a social reality that binds the tribe and gives it moral purpose.

Predispositions in human nature can combine with mythological truthiness to make weird beliefs easy to swallow.

Submitting all of ones beliefs to the trials of reason and evidence is an unnatural skill, like literacy and numeracy, and must be instilled and cultivated.

We should care about peoples virtue when considering them as friends, but not when considering the ideas they voice. Ideas are true or false, consistent or contradictory, conducive to human welfare or not, regardless of who thinks them.

[platinum-iridium]

now do i pull the trigger here and take something i’ll be happy with or wait for something i’ll be happier with and risk getting nothing? alexa play chasing pavements by adele

[yacheika213]

Second-order decisions

A way of easing the burden that freedom of choice imposes is to make decisions about when to make decisions.

One kind of second-order decision is the decision to follow a rule. Following rules eliminates troublesome choices in your daily life.

Presumptions are less stringent than rules. When, once in a while, I’m doing something special, I can deviate from the default. But 99.9 percent of the time, my decision is made for me.

Standards are even less rigorous than rules or presumptions. When we establish a standard, we are essentially dividing the world of options into two categories: options that meet the standard and options that don’t. Then, when we have to make a choice, we need only investigate the options within category number one. It’s a lot easier to decide whether something is good enough (to satisfice) than it is to decide whether something is the best (to maximize).

From: “The Paradox of Choice. Why More is Less” by B. Schwartz (2004)

[disregardcanon]

I think that one of the biggest struggles I face is figuring out how to balance my satisficer and maximizer tendencies. Because I want to be HAPPY and I am frequently a person who goes with the easiest option just because it is easy and will make me... not happy, exactly, but not unhappy. It’s a guarantee of not being let down completely.

But there’s the maximizer desires too! I want to be out there, living life to the fullest. Seeing everything I can, making a name for myself, learning, talking to people, showing off, but every little bit of ambition comes with a little resentment of where you are.

How do you come to a happy medium of “I am striving towards more, but I am also happy where I am”?

[beyondagency-blog1]

You Can Make Your Day Better

Feel Stress and Alone at home during pandemic? Feel stress about your job? 

Don’t worry and just take a break.

You can learn how to do a cup of good coffee or tea although ‘0′ knowledge

Teaching videos provided below can be a guideline for you

1. How to Make A Good Coffee

Sources: Pixabay

Coffee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIuuTOl_ay8

Before you start to learn about coffee making, you should:

1. Get your idea, thinking about what coffee you want to make in the beginning.

2. Set up the budget. Deciding type of tools or equipment needed and their prices to make sure it is affordable. Manual devices such as ‘Aeropress’ is cheap and more acceptable by the public.

3.  Learn to brew. First trying may not satisfice but you can search for more recipe as practices make the work better.

4. Upgrading your levels. You can keep on upgrading the equipment or searching for other new coffee recipes. 

Sources: Pixabay

Tea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1GfO6nMir4

There are some types of tea that can be try even though you dislike to drink tea because every tea has a unique taste:

Black Assam, Wild Cherry, China Keemun, Jasmine Superior, Oolong Orange Blossom, Ceylon and Green Tea.

Sources: Pixabay

There are a few tips for you to make a good coffee and tea:

1. Use fresh and whole bean coffee. This is because peak flavor of coffee will decrease after a few days roasted.

2. Use fresh, cool and oxygenated water to make a tea instead of pre-heat or hot tap water.

3. Store the coffee beans and tea properly. The coffee beans kept in a vacuum jar will maximize its flavor and freshness.

4. Adjust the measurements based on your own preferences and enjoy it.

Hope a good coffee or tea can make you energized when solving the problem in the job or looking for a new job.

[lord-arlen]

Although I complain a lot on here, there are many ways in which my life is very good, and lacks many of the problems that trouble others. This becomes very apparent when I read things written by people in the rationalist community, especially those on the Twitter sphere where people seem to be particulary emotionally open. A lot of the things that trouble these people greatly are just not very relatable to me.

For example, many rationalists seem to go through a lot of personal struggle to find “meaning”. But I’ve never really been very concerned about that; I find it quite difficult to predict what people will regard as “meaningful” vs. “unmeaningful”. As far as I’m concerned the goal of my life is to have fun, and the problems in my life are all cases of being forced to do things that are not fun to maintain my health, wealth, social status, etc. (which is ultimately a trade-off I make in order to maximize opportunities for fun). At the moment I am able to have fun for a large part of the day, most days, and I just want to increase the size of that part; it seems like it would be a lot worse to be going through a crisis of meaning, where I would be feeling constantly that “no, this is not good enough”, rather than only at specific times while engaged in specific activities.

Similarly, a lot of rationalists (though perhaps more the old-style rationalists than the modern Twitter crowd) are really concerned about being special and not just ordinary, doing the best things they can do and not just things that are good enough; optimizing rather than satisficing, to use some of their neologisms. But I’ve never really had any desire to do anything other than satisfice, personally, in any of my pursuits. So I don’t get so worked up about how things might be better as I might do otherwise. It’s OK for things to be good enough.

I guess that goes back in large part to my identity as a disabled person, and my more ancient 2008--2012 affiliation with the disability rights community. The central message of disability rights activism, as I see it, is that it doesn’t take as much as you might think to have a decent life and there are many different ways to have a decent life, not just the one “normal” way. That’s still something I very strongly believe in; but it doesn’t appear to be something the people in the rationalist community are very familiar with, or would be inclined to agree with.

[tayloswfts]

Paradox of Polish Dating

In that lies the Catch 22 of decision: when assortment seems, by all accounts, to be something worth being thankful for however makes life all the more testing. Presently, substitute the pants for a sentimental accomplice and you have what Schwartz calls "the most considerable area where this Catch 22 would play out."

In each part of our lives, we are gone up against with heap decisions, yet how we settle on these decisions is regularly more significant than what we pick. The shopping outing shows a case of what Schwartz portrays as "amplifying" conduct. "Maximizers treat connections like attire: I hope to give a ton a shot before finding the ideal fit. For a maximizer, in the distance is the ideal sweetheart, the ideal companions. Despite the fact that there is nothing amiss with the present relationship, who comprehends what's conceivable on the off chance that you keep your eyes open."

As opposed to maximizers are satisficers, who are eager to agree to adequate and not stress over there being something better out there (let's be honest, there most likely is). In any case, satisficing doesn't mean you should hop for delight when given trash choices. You can and ought to anticipate exclusive expectations, says Schwartz, "yet the thing that matters is between searching for generally excellent versus the absolute best."

As you can envision, the maximizer's mission for flawlessness includes some significant pitfalls. When all is said in done, maximizers are not so much fulfilled but rather more inclined to discouragement than satisficers, which bodes well—on the off chance that you deny everything except for the most perfectly awesome, you likely won't wind up with without a doubt.