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Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

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Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#31

Post by wutwutwat »

bityard wrote: post #22
lucianbr wrote: post #15

I wonder about the "never lie" bit. Any kind of negotiation comes to mind, where it might be best to not show your hand completely. You might be negotiating for your family, for your business, for your country even. Is it ok to accept a worse result in the name of honesty as a principle? Sure the world might be a better place if everyone told the truth always. But this is advice for this world, not a hypothetical one…

I wouldn't worry about taking every single one of these literally. A rule like this is meant as a compass bearing, not a precise set of directions to a perfect life. Besides, it's totally possible to negotiate in good faith without lying. Professional negotiators actively advise against lying because A) you might get caught B) it's harder to remember a lie than the truth later on. (This is how a lot of criminals get…

> Tell them it's not relevant

So, lie then, is what you should do instead of lying, in order to have a good faith negotiation.

Ps a lot of corporations commit crimes. They are professional liars, they don’t lose track and when they do get caught (hardly anyone is looking), they pay a fine and do it again.“Cost of doing business” if you will. Plus your common criminal usually isn’t able to get politicians elected by contributing hundred of millions to their campaigns, etc.

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#32

Post by wutwutwat »

null-a wrote: post #24
lucianbr wrote: post #15

I wonder about the "never lie" bit. Any kind of negotiation comes to mind, where it might be best to not show your hand completely. You might be negotiating for your family, for your business, for your country even. Is it ok to accept a worse result in the name of honesty as a principle? Sure the world might be a better place if everyone told the truth always. But this is advice for this world, not a hypothetical one…

I've seen a version that adds "lies of omission are sometimes exempt": https://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Jan-21.html

Don’t lie, unless you sometimes have to lie.

Totally tracks

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#33

Post by delichon »

I met JPB briefly once, after he spoke at a San Francisco tech conference in the mid '90s. He was a particularly charismatic man.

We were so hyped up about the internet in those days. He predicted that we were witnesses of the extinction of the authoritarian state at the hands of the people armed with this new tool. But were also locked in the closet with a dying dinosaur, and that's not a safe place to be.

Thirty years later the dinosaur still looks uncomfortably healthy to me, but the closet is still shrinking.

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#34

Post by richardw »

lucianbr wrote: post #15

I wonder about the "never lie" bit. Any kind of negotiation comes to mind, where it might be best to not show your hand completely. You might be negotiating for your family, for your business, for your country even. Is it ok to accept a worse result in the name of honesty as a principle? Sure the world might be a better place if everyone told the truth always. But this is advice for this world, not a hypothetical one…

My personal mantra for these things is that life is simple [1] when you have only one principle. It gets much harder when you have to balance two or more principles.

It’s still better to have the principles than not have them, just keep balance in mind.

[1] for you, that is. People who don’t share your principles might not like your choices and you might be making their life difficult with your lack of balance. See religion, politics, etc.

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#35

Post by Swizec »

wutwutwat wrote: post #28
Swizec wrote: post #9

> 15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that Well put. Happiness is a byproduct not a goal. Lack of happiness can be a signal to change things up.

Isn’t that pursuing happiness? Your saying if you’re not happy than change your goals to something with happiness as a by product. Or, pursue happiness.

There’s a nuance here that matters.

Pursuing happiness means you use happiness as a leading indicator (I think). You do things that you predict will make you happy. This is commonly preyed upon by advertising, sales, managers, bosses, etc.

I’m suggesting you use happiness as a trailing indicator instead.

Pursue other goals and happiness comes on its own. If you perceive yourself to be unhappy over a long period, that is a symptom and you should look for underlying causes then go fix those. You pursue fixing the causes, not the happiness.

See also: once a metric becomes the goal, it stops being useful.

To use a silly analogy: No amount of painkillers will fix a broken leg.

Or to share an example – I once got into gratitude journaling and mindfulness stuff. It kinda helped. You know what really helped? Quitting my job and getting a job I enjoyed. No mindfulness or gratitude journaling needed. Feeling like I need a gratitude journal was the symptom that something’s gotta change.

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#36

Post by analognoise »

wutwutwat wrote: post #27
analognoise wrote: post #21

> Never lie to anyone for any reason. This always makes me think of: “Are there Jews hiding nearby?” “Why yes, I’ve been hiding them for a long time, but nobody had thought to ask. I’m sorry to give them up but I cannot lie.”

you don’t have to answer them. You can just not say anything. A thing you should have done instead of shit posting.

Such an answer to someone like the Gestapo would give up your friends - they would not be so easily thrown off. The question is if an absolute like that outweighs, say, the life of others; your only chance to save them is to lie directly for them. Do you do it?

It wasn’t a shit post, it was an example from a philosophy class I took decades ago that stuck with me.

I believe we were discussing Kant at the time, who did hold that such a lie (even to save the lives of others) was not a positive good, but I found that extremely unsatisfying answer I could not agree with. Then again it’s been enough decades for the details to be fuzzy.

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#38

Post by jayd16 »

> 6. Expect no more of anyone than you yourself can deliver.

This one probably requires the most nuance. Certainly in your adult life you need to allow yourself to delegate to others and trust that others are better than you at certain things.

From an emotional standpoint its good advice. You shouldn't expect to get more than you give from a relationship, etc.

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#39

Post by sabellito »

EarlKing wrote: post #37

This seems to overlap quite strongly with a certain Code of Ethics[1] that people were up in arms about not too long ago... [1] https://www.sqlite.org/codeofethics.html

Assuming you're not being disingenuous, and that's a big if given your word choice ("a certain code of Ethics") and ellipsis, why do you think people were up in arms? What do you think is the core difference between Barlow's list and the one from sqlite?

Re: Barlow's Principles of Adult Behaviour

#40

Post by paulryanrogers »

ivape wrote: post #16

This will get down voted, but a lot of this is mostly cliff notes from things like Sermon on the Mount. We are mostly godless here on HN, so I suppose the message has to be carried via agnostic vehicles. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205-7&v... It's all kind of in there, here's a piece I like: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, an…

A sermon (supposedly) by a guy who said he's going to cast most of humanity into a lake of fire for all eternity, and cribbing many of his greatest hits from those who can before. Not a fan of sources that revel in the idea of the Torment Nexus.
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