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I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

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Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#161

Post by patcon »

DougN7 wrote: post #103
patcon wrote: post #60

Nice! In case anyone is interested in the science of this effect and it's surprising power, this is an almost exact reproduction of an experiment, in the field of "connection science" or "social physics". (NOTE: The true value here is in the CROSS-INCENTIVIZATION with an existing social relationship, not just the money) The general truism that falls out of it is: When possible, always apply incentives to the social f…

I’m having a hard time understanding what you mean. Can you give some examples?

Sorry, in short:

Assume partner (A) and (B) have existing social ties, ie. they're not strangers, and the closer, the better.

Options: (experimenter says)

1. "Hey A and B, for every day you meet your fitness goals, I'll give you 25¢"

2. "Hey A, for every day that B meets their fitness goals, I'll give you 25¢. Hey B, same goes for you."

With proper mechanism design, dollar for dollar, option (2) can be up to 30x more effective than (1).

At least in Pentland's studies, the dollar amount is token and intended to be so small as to be negligible. It being an excuse to strengthen the social relationship (around the new activity) is where the power to change behavior comes from.

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#162

Post by wpietri »

dreeves wrote: post #145
wpietri wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can certainly believe it has worked for you. But there's just no way I'm putting myself in that situation. Maybe they are the kind of people who are truly able to spend their lives minimizing revenue. But I'd still always have to be on my guard for that changing. And even it went well, I would then feel bad that I'm not properly supporting people from whom I've gotten a lot of value. I'm glad it works for other peo…

Hi! Beeminder cofounder here! I'm pretty excited to see all the positive comments but of course I've homed in on this negative one first. I think Beeminder is incentivized to make you fail at your goals the same way eBay sellers are incentivized to not actually send you your stuff after you pay them. Anyway, we have a whole elaborate essay on why there's very much the opposite of a conflict of interest: https://blog.…

Again, I am perfectly willing to believe that you are the rare kind of people who can ignore the perverse incentives. But people change. Companies change. Companies get sold, sometimes to people who are only in it for maximal short term revenue. Who then run the companies right into the ground either in the usual way or the private equity way.

As somebody who's spent decades supporting the Long Now, I believe that a lot of what's wrong in our society is people incorrectly understanding their long-term incentives and focusing on the short term. And I'm happy to believe here that Beeminder's long-term incentives really do work out to be mutually beneficial when handled by you.

But there's just no way I need the mental overhead of wondering all the time whether me paying you when I fail in a given instance really conforms to the ultra-long-term, 12-dimensional-chess understanding of conflict of interest. And then if/when it does, whether I'm failing enough to give you sufficient money so that there's a balanced exchange of value. That is way too much overhead, especially for a tool I'll be using in areas where I'll be hitting my cognitive limits on the regular.

I totally believe this works for some people, maybe most of them, but for me it's a non-starter.

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#163

Post by wpietri »

mellosouls wrote: post #96
wpietri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. I like most of the idea, but there's no way I'm going to incentivize a company such that they do better if I fail.

Your argument only works in the short term - if you fail consistently in the long term you will realise the service is not working for you and they will lose you as a customer. Failing intermittently in the short term - and losing money for it - will cause any rational actor motivated by the financial argument - as you clearly are - to try and work out why and fail less, hence proving their service is working for you…

I am not particularly motivated by money, so no, that's not me.

In the long run, there are no scams, no dubious businesses, no casinos, no ponzis. In the long run, we're all dead. But in the short term, people lose money all the time on stuff that doesn't work for them. Is this one of them? Apparently not for some people. On the other hand, MLMs have plenty of people who talk them up while losing money, so it's hard to say from the outside.

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#164

Post by dreeves »

wpietri wrote: post #162
dreeves wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! Beeminder cofounder here! I'm pretty excited to see all the positive comments but of course I've homed in on this negative one first. I think Beeminder is incentivized to make you fail at your goals the same way eBay sellers are incentivized to not actually send you your stuff after you pay them. Anyway, we have a whole elaborate essay on why there's very much the opposite of a conflict of interest: https://blog.…

Again, I am perfectly willing to believe that you are the rare kind of people who can ignore the perverse incentives. But people change. Companies change. Companies get sold, sometimes to people who are only in it for maximal short term revenue. Who then run the companies right into the ground either in the usual way or the private equity way. As somebody who's spent decades supporting the Long Now, I believe that a…

Ah, this continues to be good feedback. Thanks for continuing to hash it out with me! I see I made it sound like there were a lot of moving parts in my argument for why our incentives aren't so perverse. I don't think that's the case! In particular, I don't think my argument relies on what kind of people we are. I mean, it relies on us not turning totally evil and myopic, but that's true of any company. If we started effectively wrongly charging you, you'd cry foul and quit.

I'm worried I'm not really grokking your underlying argument though. Maybe it just feels gross to have this kind of setup with a third party as opposed to doing it with friends. That's the kind of thing I can't argue with so if it's something like that we can leave it at that. Thanks again for helping me think through how to convey our pitch for the general non-perverseness of it in any case.

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#165

Post by degosuke »

khazhoux wrote: post #139
degosuke wrote: post #14

I did a version of this to achieve the holy 6pack grail. My wife held me accountable - I just had to stick to daily limit of calories (adjusted over time) and that's it. Around 7 months work. Then when I "finished" I couldn't stabilize the habit and am still stumbling at around 19 % body fat... I guess it's time to dust off this method.

> I did a version of this to achieve the holy 6pack grail... Around 7 months work What was your starting point, though? Were you already lean, or maybe skinnyfat but with good muscles underneath?

As I recall it was around 18-19%. And I did some years of strength training before that. The quality ranged from couple of weeks of good ones to months of almost nothing. So to answer I'd say somewhere in between.

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#166

Post by wpietri »

dreeves wrote: post #164
wpietri wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I am perfectly willing to believe that you are the rare kind of people who can ignore the perverse incentives. But people change. Companies change. Companies get sold, sometimes to people who are only in it for maximal short term revenue. Who then run the companies right into the ground either in the usual way or the private equity way. As somebody who's spent decades supporting the Long Now, I believe that a…

Ah, this continues to be good feedback. Thanks for continuing to hash it out with me! I see I made it sound like there were a lot of moving parts in my argument for why our incentives aren't so perverse. I don't think that's the case! In particular, I don't think my argument relies on what kind of people we are. I mean, it relies on us not turning totally evil and myopic, but that's true of any company. If we started…

Glad to help.

It's true that any company can turn greedy, and many do. But a problem here for me is that the structure is more dangerous when it does. If HBO turns evil, my downside risk is the $15/month I pay them. But with a habit incentive system like this, the downside risk is larger and unknown. And given that the whole point is to build habits that people stick with, "you'd cry foul and quit" is in question. Look at the way the various online games milk vast sums milk from their "whale" players for example. When behaviors are correctly engineered, plenty of people don't quit.

For me yes, doing it with friends is different, because the metagame (or in Carse's term, the infinite game) is about the friendship. That too acts as a downside risk limit. But if your company were taken over tomorrow by invading aliens or private equity MBAs, all they'd want is the money.

And again, very important to me is value-for-value exchange. E.g., I'm a Newsblur subscriber. I was on their $36/year subscription. They just added a new $99 tier. I signed up immediately not because I need the features, but because I value it higher than $36/year and want to help make sure they're well funded.

So if you had a similar service where I paid you a subscription fee and then money went to, say, my brother, that would be a different deal. My downside risk is limited, the metagame keeps things safer, my cognitive load about systemic effects is manageable, and it adds a social component that means more to me than cash incentives anyhow.

I hope that helps!

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#167

Post by ChildOfChaos »

layer8 wrote: post #115
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #41

I just got a VR headset so that it makes working out fun. Now I work out 7 days a week for an hour. I use weights and resistance bands to make it a bit more demanding and I can do it at home and enjoy it. No need for hacks.

What software/program do you use?

Oculus Quest: FitXR Punch fit Thrill of the fight

Mostly, with a little bit of powerbeats VR, beat saber, boombox for fun / warm ups.

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#168

Post by ChildOfChaos »

out_of_protocol wrote: post #155
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #41

I just got a VR headset so that it makes working out fun. Now I work out 7 days a week for an hour. I use weights and resistance bands to make it a bit more demanding and I can do it at home and enjoy it. No need for hacks.

what kind of VR stuff you use during workout?

Mostly FitXR and Thrill of the fight.

Re: I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week

#169

Post by xypage »

bb123 wrote: post #116
SoftTalker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't wear that weighted vest too much. If you wear it all day, it will have the same adverse effect on your joints as being 20 lbs overweight. It's fine to use it to add work to body-weight exercises such as pullups, squats, etc. but don't wear it for hours just walking around.

Surely that’s only true if the poster is already at the high end of normal? If he weighs 160lbs adding 20lbs isn’t going to do any harm.

The issue with things like weighted vests or weighted leg braces is that it's 20 lbs in one place, and it's not attached to you the same way your flesh is. If you gained 20 pounds it'd be distributed around your body, on various joints. No single place would experience significantly more stress. If you put on a vest, all that weight is being placed on your shoulders, which isn't somewhere you normally have much weight.
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