Reminds me of this : http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/21/
Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have to fight other's choices every day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braesss_Paradox
The link above has a typo: here the correct one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess_paradox
That's a very interesting read, I never figured that something like Braess' Paradox would have such acute real life examples. I though it was mostly a thing confined to theory.
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#33Years ago there was a diet based on this idea, I think it was called the blackmail diet. You set your weight loss goals, and then escrow, say, $10,000 to be paid to the Klan or the Na$is or some other loathesome group if you don't reach your goals. People are still fat, at least in the U.S.
See also more recently a startup based on this idea from two Yale professors and a student:
(Earlier mentioned by pbh below.)
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#34pg has written about a similar idea about founders who get featured in magazines have a higher bar to live up and are less likely to just give up. I have been doing this a lot recently--telling every friend I meet that I am broke and I am going to fix this part of my life in a big way. But i'm not sure if this is a cause or the effect because I am not doing this systematically or as a plan. I actually would be kinda…
I think that for the PG sample that is because the 'bite' is too big. If you say you're going to be a millionaire before you're 30 you are going to find out soon enough that that is not so easy and maybe give up, whereas if you hadn't thought about it you might have accidentally succeeded.
For me the usage is very simple, bite-sized concrete things that I know I can easily do but keep postponing.
I would never use it for something that is either out of my immediate reach or not under my control. Then it would have the opposite effect.
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#35Richard Hamming talks about doing this in his "You and Your Research" talk: http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
(search for 'ashamed')
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#36Regarding the last bit, this exists in a couple forms. The one I can remember at the moment is stickK ( http://www.stickk.com/ ).
The founders are a practicing lawyer, a professor, and a recent graduate in American Studies. The remaining staff consists of a marketer, another lawyer, an economist, and a couple of MBA's. How well is this working out?
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#37I use this all the time - my favourite is to promise to give a talk about something I haven't actually written yet. Powerfully motivating.
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#38pg has written about a similar idea about founders who get featured in magazines have a higher bar to live up and are less likely to just give up. I have been doing this a lot recently--telling every friend I meet that I am broke and I am going to fix this part of my life in a big way. But i'm not sure if this is a cause or the effect because I am not doing this systematically or as a plan. I actually would be kinda…
I think that for the PG sample that is because the 'bite' is too big. If you say you're going to be a millionaire before you're 30 you are going to find out soon enough that that is not so easy and maybe give up, whereas if you hadn't thought about it you might have accidentally succeeded. For me the usage is very simple, bite-sized concrete things that I know I can easily do but keep postponing. I would never use it…
Interesting. I don't usually have a problem going forward with my intentions at a macro scale. The most frustrating part is I hit a rut every now and then at a mini-step and may end up avoiding it a few days(or weeks at worst!). It helps to have a friend or two to not only call your BS but actually lend you a hand. I have couple friends who'll go ahead and do the mini thing I've been avoiding. Like I said, in reality it's usually a pretty small thing(like making a call) but in my head it becomes a huge thing until someone shows it's not.
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that for the PG sample that is because the 'bite' is too big. If you say you're going to be a millionaire before you're 30 you are going to find out soon enough that that is not so easy and maybe give up, whereas if you hadn't thought about it you might have accidentally succeeded. For me the usage is very simple, bite-sized concrete things that I know I can easily do but keep postponing. I would never use it…
Interesting. I don't usually have a problem going forward with my intentions at a macro scale. The most frustrating part is I hit a rut every now and then at a mini-step and may end up avoiding it a few days(or weeks at worst!). It helps to have a friend or two to not only call your BS but actually lend you a hand. I have couple friends who'll go ahead and do the mini thing I've been avoiding. Like I said, in reality…
I suffer from that. What always amazes me is that even after all those years when I kick myself in gear and get it over with it usually is less than an hour, two at the most to get that molehill-that-became-a-mountain out of the way.
This is a very annoying character trait and I do everything I can to get it out of my life, including the tricks I outlined above. The golden rule seems to be don't make promises you can't keep. Treat those statements about what you are going to do exactly like you would treat a solemn promise.
Sometimes it's stronger, sometimes it is less, but on the whole this is really a bad element in my character and it takes a lot of effort to get (and keep) it under control.
I am not sure if I'll ever be free of this particular demon but I'm definitely going to continue to work on it.
Just one example to show you how bad this can get. I do some contracting and had to move a bunch of tickets over from one ticketing system to another. Not rocket science, simply take one database, do a format conversion and import into another.
All told it was less than 4 hours of work. But it took me 4 days, and I finally did exactly what I said above, I mailed all the users of the old system that their new system would be up later today.
That sort of clinched it for me, now there was no backing out. Several hours later, job done, users active on the new system. Why it took me that long is simple, it's a totally boring job, anybody could do it, there is 0 challenge in it for me.
Give me a puzzle and tell me that I can't solve it and I'll be on it like a shot though :)
Re: Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. I don't usually have a problem going forward with my intentions at a macro scale. The most frustrating part is I hit a rut every now and then at a mini-step and may end up avoiding it a few days(or weeks at worst!). It helps to have a friend or two to not only call your BS but actually lend you a hand. I have couple friends who'll go ahead and do the mini thing I've been avoiding. Like I said, in reality…
I suffer from that. What always amazes me is that even after all those years when I kick myself in gear and get it over with it usually is less than an hour, two at the most to get that molehill-that-became-a-mountain out of the way. This is a very annoying character trait and I do everything I can to get it out of my life, including the tricks I outlined above. The golden rule seems to be don't make promises you can…
Exactly! If you are like me, you probably spent more than four hours just thinking about that monkey on your back. This happens almost on a daily basis for me. I deal with it by at the least telling myself that it's ok to not do something, but it's not ok to be thinking about it all the time. At least this way whenever I do get to it, I wouldn't have wasted hours fretting about it which is the real time sink.