Live data from Hacker News

Self-control signals and affords power

today.ucsd.edu

121–130 of 137 posts

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#121
post #69
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not every thought needs to be acted on, especially if the thoughts come from external sources. I've heard it said (I believe by Hormozi on Williamson's podcast) that at a certain level, success becomes mostly about saying no to increasingly great opportunities. I can confirm this is relevant near the bottom too, at least if you have a high level of openness (personality dimension) and are presented with inspiration…

Here's an analogy that I think about from time to time. Imagine your life as a garden. You have a finite amount of days, with a finite amount of resources per day to plant new things or caretake existing things. Your soul represents the breadth and depth of your reach on any given day, but it is a fixed size and you must choose how much breadth and depth it has through your choices. Consider each day as an opportunit…

That's beautiful, thank you.

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#122
post #10

This is something I've noticed in myself and I'm glad there's research to back this, although this is an open secret to those who do master self-control. I've spent the last three to four years working on self-control and discipline after I hit rock bottom in my life and realized I had no self-agency. For me, having greater self-control led me to ensure I can focus on providing value where it matters in my life, and…

I have lots of strong and compelling evidence that my self-control is unusually low. Doctors have said that since I was very young, so if anybody was making an excuse, it was the adults around me more than myself and I simply internalised those excuses later.

It's extremely humiliating, and I've gone a lot further than listening to the daily stoic, there's an entire body of scientific literature on how to improve self-control in general and for people like me who seem to have literal neurological abnormalities. I've spent the last few weeks miserable from medication side-effects for instance.

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#123

A controversial take from this is that, aside from the health benefits, you will also accrue personal and professional benefits from not being fat. I remember interviewing when I was chubbier post-COVID thinking that the only evidence the interviewer has of my self-control and drive is that I have none. Best case scenario, you are interviewing a temporarily embarrassed skinny person. Noble prize winner James Watson,…

> …you will also accrue personal and professional benefits from not being fat. As an overweight person, I don't think it's controversial. You'll also accrue personal and professional benefits from being a tall man and/or good-looking. However, "fat people have no self-control" is still fatphobia and ignores the interplay of genetic, metabolic, physiological, cultural, socio-economic, and environmental factors that co…

I have never met a fat person with "exquisite discipline". They had other positive qualities, but discipline was not over of them.

Also, I prefer to associate with people who are not fat. Is that a bad thing?

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#124

This article mentions a study that found almost no correlation between people who self-report having high self-control, and people who actually do well on tests measuring self-control: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/15/16863374/wi... The most likely explanation is that people who report high self-control are really experiencing less temptation.

Is this a distinction without a difference? In the original qualitative write-ups for the Marshmallow Test, they described the children using all sorts of distraction strategies to basically make themselves forget that there's a tasty marshmallow sitting right in front of them. Maybe this is all that self-control is - having enough self-awareness (and valuing your future self highly enough) to direct your attention e…

You should know that the 'Marshmallow Test' is a poor study. The general conclusions after follow up were that children had an intrinsic self-control mechanism that influenced success rates in later life. However, the original experiment failed to control for several factors, least of which was socio-economic status. Subsequent controlled replications show that these factors have a significant influence on the outcome, suggesting that resisting temptation is less about self-control/will power and more about food security. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6050075/

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#125
post #90
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try against all failures and are persistent and you finally get lucky. Versus giving up after first or second failure. Is it still luck that is most important?

Luck is a huge factor in your starting point. It's significantly harder to become a millionaire if your starting point is a group home in a poor country. An unlimited amount of persistence can't overcome those odds.

That is attacking a straw man. Discussion is about self control not things outside of ones control.

I am also not talking about becoming a millionaire.

I am talking about simple things like getting a decent job. If I sent 2 CVs out and gave up can I compare with someone who sent 100 CVs out and got the job? Can I say "he just got lucky"?

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree? It's ad copy promoting a self-help book.

Good call. The author of this book is a marketer and "media strategist," with an obvious focus on social media. He was great at plastering subtle ads all over relevant threads and subs over on reddit. Nice to know that he too has figure out reddit has gone to shit and is also looking for greener pastures..

Internet 'stoics' are ruining stoicism as they are ruining most other forms of philosophy by bastardising it and regurgitating it in the form of easily-consumable self-help pablum

A huge amount of which appears to be consumed and re-re-gurgitated by adolescent gamers

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk has lost a massive amount of credibility because of failing to deliver on most of the self-proclaimed potential of his businesses—basically, all of them outside of the potential of SpaceX, and even there he should be grateful the perceived value of the company isn't tied to going to mars.

/me eyes Tesla

Tesla's gonna take over the car market, like, any day man, I swear.

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think luck and lying is essentially the method to real wealth. Find me someone who got there without those two elements. Wealth is an expression of your ability to manipulate other people into devoting their labor to your enrichment. You don't get there without some deception.

i.e like your worldview. good to know

?

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#129
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single person, by definition, can't construct a social illusion. "Social" requires a society, which means at the very least two people. "A social illusion constructed by the person it is acting upon" is nonsense. We could call a language a social illusion. There's nothing red about the word red. And the distinction we draw between "earth" and "sky" is not one that the universe appears to use in its operation. Langu…

Dang we sure are getting hung up on semantics rather than substance today, huh?

I'm not sure whether or not I agree with what you're saying, but I will offer that Punish The Contrarian is the most popular free-to-play MMORPG game online, because all players who choose the Punisher role start with a free +1 point bonus against those who don't, so it feels like one is winning simply by showing up to play.

Re: Self-control signals and affords power

#130
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang we sure are getting hung up on semantics rather than substance today, huh?

I'm not sure whether or not I agree with what you're saying, but I will offer that Punish The Contrarian is the most popular free-to-play MMORPG game online, because all players who choose the Punisher role start with a free +1 point bonus against those who don't, so it feels like one is winning simply by showing up to play.

I'm not really sure who is supposed to be the contrarian in this particular instance of that game in your view, but here I feel that this person neither is trying to punish me for contrary views or express any of their own, but is merely repeatedly nitpicking my phrasing without engaging with the substance of the comments they're replying to, a widespread mode of argumentation that I find as annoying as it is vapid
Post reply on HN