BearLamp

Filter on the way in, Filter on the way out…

Posted on 2016-08-12 by E

I’d like to quote tact filters by Jeff Bigler:

All people have a “tact filter”, which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it. Most “normal people” have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. Thus whatever normal people say gets the appropriate amount of tact applied to it before they say it. This is because when they were growing up, their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!”

“Nerds,” on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction. Thus, whatever anyone says to them gets the appropriate amount of tact added when they hear it. This is because when nerds were growing up, they continually got picked on, and their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, “They’re just saying those mean things because they’re jealous. They don’t really mean it.”

When normal people talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they say, and no one’s feelings get hurt. When nerds talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they hear, and no one’s feelings get hurt. However, when normal people talk to nerds, the nerds often get frustrated because the normal people seem to be dodging the real issues and not saying what they really mean. Worse yet, when nerds talk to normal people, the normal people’s feelings often get hurt because the nerds don’t apply tact, assuming the normal person will take their blunt statements and apply whatever tact is necessary.

So, nerds need to understand that normal people have to apply tact to everything they say; they become really uncomfortable if they can’t do this. Normal people need to understand that despite the fact that nerds are usually tactless, things they say are almost never meant personally and shouldn’t be taken that way. Both types of people need to be extra patient when dealing with someone whose tact filter is backwards relative to their own.

Later edit for clarification: I don’t like the Nerd|Normal dichotomy because those words have various histories and baggage associated with them, so I renamed them (Stater, listener, Launch filter, Landing filter). “Normal” is pretty unhelpful when trying to convey a clear decision about what’s good or bad.

Okay; so Tact filters. But what should we really do? What’s better? Jeff’s Nerd or Normal? And more importantly – In future ambiguous cases – what should we do?

Moving parts to this system

There are a few moving parts to tact, I am going to lay them out:

Stater – the person stating something
Statement – the thing being said
Listener – the person hearing it, or the person who it is intended to be directed to.
Tact filter – the filter that turns the Statement into a clean one.
Launch responsibility – the Stater’s responsibility to launch the statement in certain ways. (Jeff’s normal)
Landing responsibility – The listener’s responsibility to receive the statement in certain ways. (Jeff’s nerd)

In a chart it looks like this:

Who is responsible?

In Landing responsible culture, you are responsible for the incoming tact.

But this isn’t great because it labels anyone you are talking to as “potential jerks”.

In Launch responsible culture:

The responsibility to be tactful prepares the statement for a sensitive person. Which isn’t great either. Tact takes time, takes energy and effort, what if no one ever needed to be tactful? Everything would also be fast.

The wild

So this is real life now. You don’t really know if the other person is tactful or sensitive or a jerk or just normal… The best possible plan for unknowns:

It’s not rocket science. Said again:

actively be less offensive when you say things that might be taken offensively
actively be less offended when you hear things that sound offensive

Q: But it’s not my responsibility because I live in (Launch | Listener) responsibility land.

A: yes it is! No you don’t! You live on earth. In the real world, where you sometimes encounter people living in the other land. Which is a fact. You can choose to piss them off when you meet them but you should know that’s a choice and up to you. And now that you know this; the responsibility is on you to make the better choice.

Compounding factors

Even this model leaves out all the further compounding factors.

What if the Stater thinks a statement is tactful but that same statement is taken as non-tactful by the listener?
What if the stater is used to their statements being taken as tactful on every day except today?
What if the particular pair of stater-listener has an existing negative relationship?

I don’t know. Err on the side of caution.

Questions:

What other communication habits have a filter? Does it pay to err on the side of caution?
Aside from the fallacy of the middle, can this become a rule?

Another solution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

Meta: this post was inspired by Sam’s post on a similar topic.

Meta: this took 2 hours to think about, write and draw out what I meant.

Cross posted to Lesswrong: www.lesswrong.com/lw/nu2

Posted in models of thinking | Tagged caution, filter, models, Tact filter | Leave a comment

Mental models – Giving people personhood and taking it away

Posted on 2016-08-11 by E

This post is about the Kegan levels of self development. If you don’t know what that is, this post might still be interesting to you but you might be missing some key structure to understand where it fits among that schema. More information can be found here (https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence/)

I am not ready to definitely accept the Kegan levels as a useful model because often it makes retrospective predictions. Rather than predictions of the future. A model is only as useful as what it can predict, so if it can’t be used on the fly when you want to explain the universe you might as well throw it out. Having said that, this idea is interesting.

When I was little, people fell into different categories. There was my parents – the olderClass humans (going to refer to them as Senior-humans), my siblings – which, as I grew up turned into my age-group humans and through school – my peergroup humans.

People like doctors fell into SeniorClass, Dentists, Vets, Plumbers, PIC (People In Charge) – all fell into the SeniorClass of humans. A big one was teachers – they were all PIC. A common trope among children is that the teachers sleep at school. Or to use a gaming term – we feel as though they are the NPC’s of that part of our journey in life.

As far as I can tell (from trying to pinpoint this today); the people I meet on my own terms become peergroup humans. Effectively friends. People I meet not on my terms; as well as strangers – first join some kind of seniorclass of humans, if I get to know them enough they transition to my peergroup. Of course this is a bit strange because on the one hand I imagine I want to be friends with the PIC, or the senior-class humans because of the opportunity to get ahead in life. the good ol’ I know a guy who know’s a guy. Which is really not what a peergroup constitutes.

Peergroup humans are not “A guy with skills” much as we might hope for; they are (hopefully) all at our own, or near our own skill level. (on Kegan’s stage 3) people who’s opinions and ideas we care about because they are similar to us.

Recently I have noticed events that have taken some of my long term SeniorClass and shift them into my peergroup. Effectively “demoting” them from “Professional” to “human”. When I think “person has their shit together” or “person doesn’t have their shit together”. I guess there were always people who seemed to have their shit together. Now that I am an adult it’s clear that less and less people are competent and more and more people are winging it through their lives. It’s mildly uncomfortable to think of people as being less “together” than I thought they were.

The other place where it’s been an uncomfortable transition is in my memory. I will from time to time think back to a time when I deferred judgement, decision making capacity, or high-level trust in someone else having my own best interests at heart – where now looking back retrospectively they were just as lost and confused as I was in some of those situations, but they had a little kid to take care of/be in charge of/be in seniority to.

What I wonder about this process of demoting people is – what if instead of demoting my adults as they prove their humanity; I instead promote all the humans to Senior-Class. What would that do to my model of humans? And I guess I don’t really know where I stand. Am I an adult? Am I a peer? I have always been an observer…

I’m not really getting at anything with this post. Just interesting to observe this reclassification happening and fit kegan’s stages around it. Obviously some of the way that I sorted Senior-class humans is particularly relevant to a stage 3 experience of how I managed my relationships when I was smaller. I also wonder that given the typical mind – whether this is normal or unusual.

Question for today:

Do you divide people into “advanced” and “equal” and “simpler” – (or did you do it when you were younger?)
Do people ever change category on you? In which direction? What do you do about that?
Assuming I am on some kind of path of gradually increasing understanding and growing and changing models of the world around me – what is next?

Meta: this took 3 hours to write over a few days.

Cross posted to lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/nty

Posted in models of thinking | Tagged equals, kegan, models, peers, people, promotion, senior, stage 3, thinking | Leave a comment

Setting up my work environment – Doing the causation backwards

Posted on 2016-08-11 by E

About two years ago, when I first got my smart phone (yes, later than most of the other humans). I was new to apps, and I was new to environments. When I decided on what apps should be on my home screen, I picked the ones that I thought I would use most often.

My home screen started with:

google bar (the top of the page)
calendar
facebook
notepad app (half the page)
ingress (because I play)
maps
camera
torch

My home screen has barely changed. I don’t play ingress very often these days, but that’s by choice, however I was seeing the facebook notifications far too often. Ending up on facebook far too often for what I wanted.

Recently I decided to try out some tracking systems that include 1/0 metrics. It looks something like this:

I wanted this in a place where I could see it and fill it out every day, and at the same time I began to question why I have my facebook app on my front page. This link is now on my front page and I easily fill it out once a day (a win for a habit successfully implemented).

The concept that I want to impart today is that the causation goes the wrong way. Instead of wanting apps that I regularly use on my front page so that I can easily access them – I want apps that I want to use regularly on my front page. That way I will tend to develop habits of regularly using them instead of the other ones.

Fridge

This applies to the refrigerator too. Instead of the things you use and eat all the time being at the front (assuming they might be different), you want the foods that you want to eat most readily accessible and at the front. If this means healthy foods at the front – do that. If this means having a fruit bowl on the table – do that.

TV

This applies to TV too. If you find book-reading more interesting than TV watching but find yourself watching a lot of TV all the same; put the remotes in a harder to reach place and leave really good books lying around.

Computer shortcuts

Want to play less games? Get to Reddit less? Maybe put the games in slightly harder to access places. Buried in other folders. Delete the auto-fill in your browser that completes to Reddit. Want to do equations by hand more often than using a calculator (for practicing math purposes) – make the calculator slightly harder to get to, and make sure you have a pen/paper handy around the computer.

Junk food

Do you have a candy cupboard? Find yourself eating too much of it. A simple answer would be to empty it, and don’t fill it again. But an alternative that still lets you have candy in the house is to place slightly healthier and tasty food choices in front of the candy. for example dried fruit – still sweet and bite-sized, in a similar class of choices to Candy, but significantly healthier. Some days you will reach past the dried fruit for the chocolate, and many more days you will reach for the dried fruits.

The meta strategy

Without creating more examples. There are often behaviours you want to do better, actions that you want to take instead of other actions, or behaviours that have a “better form” than you might otherwise be doing.

The strategy is:

Take 5 minutes writing out what you usually do on a daily basis
For each one, consider if this is the optimum form of the action, (or one that leads to acceptable levels of results) – don’t be afraid to dream of the possible optimal actions.
Make the better option more available in your life.
Make it easier for yourself to do the better option.
Check progress in a month (put a reminder in your diary) and iterate on solutionspace
Winning!

We know about System 1 and System 2. We live some of our life in S1 and some in S2. S2 know’s it’s not always going to be “in charge” and making deliberate actions but it does have periods of lucid thought in which to set up S1 with better easiest-path behaviours and actions. This applies to planning, setting up a workspace, avoiding the pain of paying and many more.

Think: How can I set this up so that I do the better possible path in the future with the least effort?

Cross posted to Lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ntv/

Meta: this post took 2hrs to write.

Posted in life maintenance, models of thinking, self-improvement | Tagged causation, easy path, iterate, meta-strategy, questions, system 1, system 2 | Leave a comment

Low hanging productivity – improving your workspace

Posted on 2016-08-09 by E

Tl;dr – Simple changes to workspaces like a big screen can make a big difference.

This week I spent a few days away from my usual desk. I have been house sitting. I didn’t think too much of it; I tend to carry with me a portable lifestyle. My laptop, some power blocks for my phone, and various supplies that make for easy “office”-ing around the place. I usually don’t carry a charger with me because when I know I will be gone a while I will take it with me.

I have always liked a portable office. The ability to stop, and continue later at ease was always important to me. However recently I moved into a new place and set up a desk. I figured I would tryX where X is workspaces (a post for the future). I never set up a workspace for the reason of it not being portable. The interesting thing that has surprised me this week is that I miss my big screen (which was a gift – I might have never bought myself a big screen).

For whatever reason, the ability to view more space at once makes me more productive. Combined with Linux’s natural tendencies to have several desktop environments with simple switching. My laptop screen is about 19in. Which is plenty. The new screen is about 1.5x that. I never thought it would be useful, it took me years to do it. If it broke today, I would be willing to spend up to $900 to get it back (which is more than six times the price of a new screen). Right now I wonder how productive I might be with a 3rd screen… Or a 4th. (or a 3D virtual reality work environment with screenspace limited by my eyeballs not my screen resolution…)

I feel like (along with other habits) I am probably working at 120% of what I was working before. A fair chunk of which I owe to the extra screenspace.

Questions for today:

What part do you remember adding to your workspace to help you be more productive.
What’s the coolest most awesome or productive workspace that you have seen in action? How hard would that be to get for yourself?
How can you make your current workspace a tiny bit more productive in anticipation for things you have to do tomorrow?

Meta: This took 45mins to write.

Cross posted to lesswrong: lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/ntu

Posted in life maintenance, self-improvement | Tagged productivity, questions, screen, Work, workspaces | Leave a comment

People who lie about how much they eat are jerks

Posted on 2016-08-08 by E

Weight loss journey is a long and complicated problem solving adventure. This is one small factor that adds to the confusion. You probably have that one friend. Appears to eat a whole bunch, and yet doesn’t put on weight. If you ever had that conversation it goes something like,

“How are you so thin?”
“raah raah metabolism”
“raah raah I dont know why I don’t put on weight”
“Take advantage of the habit”

Well I have had enough. You’re wrong. You’re lying and you probably don’t even know it. It’s not possible. (Within a reasonable scope of human variation) Calories and energy are a black box system. Calories in, work out, leftovers become weight gain, deficit is weight loss. If a human could eat significantly more calories for the same amount of work and not put on weight we would be prodding them in a lab for breaking the laws of physics on conservation of mass and conservation of energy.

So this is you, you say you gain weight no matter what you eat and that’s scientifically impossible. Now what? You probably don’t mean to break the laws of physics (and you probably don’t actually break them). You genuinely absentmindedly don’t notice when you scoff down whole plates of food and when you skip dinner because you didn’t feel like it (and absentmindedly balance the calories automatically). It’s all the same to you because you naturally do that.

This very likely is about habits, and natural habits that people have. If for example John has the habit of getting home and going to the fridge, making dinner because it’s usually the evening. Wendy doesn’t have the habit. She eats when she is hungry. Not having a set mealtime sometimes means that she gets tired-hungry and has a state of being too exhausted to decide what to eat and too hungry to do anything else that would help solve the problem. But for Wendy she doesn’t get home and automatically cook dinner. (good things and bad things come from habits.)

Wendy and John go to a big lunch together. They both eat 150% of the calories they should be eating for that meal, and they don’t mind – enjoying food is part of enjoying life. It was a fancy restaurant with good food. Later that evening when Wendy gets home she doesn’t feel hungry and goes off to read a book or talk to friends on the internet. Eventually she has a light snack (of 10% of her “dinner” calories) and heads off to totalling 160% of the calories for the two meals. Effectively under-eating for the day. John on the other hand, has his habit of heading home and making dinner. Even after the big lunch, his automatic systems take over and he makes and ordinary dinner of 100% of his calories for that meal. John’s total for that day is 250% for two meals or effectively half a meal extra for that day.

If W and J do this every week (assuming the rest of their diets are perfectly balanced), John will have an upwards trajectory and Wendy will have a downwards one. John might ask Wendy how she stays so skinny, and Wendy wouldn’t know. After all they eat about the same amount when they are together.

No one understands this.

What can we do about it?

1. We can hire scientists to follow both J and W around for a week and write down every time they eat something. (this is impractical – maybe if we are in an isolated environment like a weekend retreat it would be easier to do this)
2. We can get them to self report via an app (but people are usually pretty bad at that)
3. We can try ask more specifically, “what do you eat in a day?”, or “what have you eaten since this time yesterday?” and gather data points to try to build a picture of what a person eats.
4. We can search for people with similar habits around food to us and ask them how they stay healthy.
5. We can look for people with successful habits around food, ask them for advice and then figure out why that advice works, and how to make that advice work for us.

On the noticing level. You should notice that every single thing that you eat adds to your caloric intake. Every single piece of work you do adds to your burn. It’s easier to eat another piece of chocolate (for 5 seconds) than run another 15minutes to burn that chocolate off. If something is not working towards your dieting success it’s probably working against it.

Meta: this took one hour to write.

Cross posted to lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ntt

Posted in exercise, life maintenance, models of thinking, self-improvement | Tagged habits, iterate, loss, noticing, problem, solving, test, weight | Leave a comment

The application of the secretary problem to real life dating

Posted on 2016-08-05 by E

The following problem is best when not described by me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

Although there are many variations, the basic problem can be stated as follows:

There is a single secretarial position to fill.
There are n applicants for the position, and the value of n is known.
The applicants, if seen altogether, can be ranked from best to worst unambiguously.
The applicants are interviewed sequentially in random order, with each order being equally likely.
Immediately after an interview, the interviewed applicant is either accepted or rejected, and the decision is irrevocable.
The decision to accept or reject an applicant can be based only on the relative ranks of the applicants interviewed so far.
The objective of the general solution is to have the highest probability of selecting the best applicant of the whole group. This is the same as maximizing the expected payoff, with payoff defined to be one for the best applicant and zero otherwise.

Application

After reading that you can probably see the application to real life. There are a series of bad and good assumptions following, some are fair, some are not going to be representative of you. I am going to try to name them all as I go so that you can adapt them with better ones for yourself. Assuming that you plan to have children and you will probably be doing so like billions of humans have done so far in a monogamous relationship while married (the entire set of assumptions does not break down for poly relationships or relationship-anarchy, but it gets more complicated). These assumptions help us populate the Secretary problem with numbers in relation to dating for the purpose of children.

If you assume that a biological female’s clock ends at 40. (in that its hard and not healthy for the baby if you try to have a kid past that age), that is effectively the end of the pure and simple biological purpose of relationships. (environment, IVF and adoption aside for a moment). (yes there are a few more years on that)

For the purpose of this exercise – as a guy – you can add a few years for the potential age gap you would tolerate. (i.e. my parents are 7 years apart, but that seems like a big understanding and maturity gap – they don’t even like the same music), I personally expect I could tolerate an age gap of 4-5 years.

If you make the assumption that you start your dating life around the ages of 16-18. that gives you about [40-18=22] 22-24 (+5 for me as a male), years of expected dating potential time.

If you estimate the number of kids you want to have, and count either:

3 years for each kid OR

2 years for each kid (+1 kid – AKA 2 years)

(Twins will throw this number off, but estimate that they take longer to recover from, or more time raising them to manageable age before you have time to have another kid)

My worked example is myself – as a child of 3, with two siblings of my own I am going to plan to have 3 children. Or 8-9 years of child-having time. If we subtract that from the number above we end up with 11-16 (16-21 for me being a male) years of dating time.

Also if you happen to know someone with a number of siblings (or children) and a family dynamic that you like; then you should consider that number of children for yourself. Remember that as a grown-up you are probably travelling through the world with your siblings beside you. Which can be beneficial (or detrimental) as well, I would be using the known working model of yourself or the people around you to try to predict whether you will benefit or be at a disadvantage by having siblings. As they say; You can’t pick your family – for better and worse. You can pick your friends, if you want them to be as close as a default family – that connection goes both ways – it is possible to cultivate friends that are closer than some families. However you choose to live your life is up to you.

Assume that once you find the right person – getting married (the process of organising a wedding from the day you have the engagement rings on fingers); and falling pregnant (successfully starting a viable pregnancy) takes at least a year. Maybe two depending on how long you want to be “we just got married and we aren’t having kids just yet”. It looks like 9-15 (15-20 for male adjusted) years of dating.

With my 9-15 years; I estimate a good relationship of working out whether I want to marry someone, is between 6 months and 2 years, (considering as a guy I will probably be proposing and putting an engagement ring on someone’s finger – I get higher say about how long this might take than my significant other does.), (This is about the time it takes to evaluate whether you should put the ring on someone’s finger). For a total of 4 serious relationships on the low and long end and 30 serious relationships on the upper end. (7-40 male adjusted relationships)

Of course that’s not how real life works. Some relationships will be longer and some will be shorter. I am fairly confident that all my relationships will fall around those numbers.

I have a lucky circumstance; I have already had a few serious relationships (substitute your own numbers in here). With my existing relationships I can estimate how long I usually spend in a relationship. (2year + 6 year + 2month + 2month /4 = 2.1 years). Which is to say that I probably have a maximum and total of around 7-15 relationships before I gotta stop expecting to have kids, or start compromising on having 3 kids.

A solution to the secretary equation

A known solution that gives you the best possible candidate the most of the time is to try out 1/e candidates (or roughly 36%), then choose the next candidate that is better than the existing candidates. For my numbers that means to go through 3-7 relationships and then choose the next relationship that is better than all the ones before.

I don’t quite like that. It depends on how big your set is; as to what the chance of you having the best candidate in the first 1/e trials and then sticking it out till the last candidate, and settling on them. (this strategy has a ((1/n)*(1/e)) chance of just giving you the last person in the set – which is another opportunity cost risk – what if they are rubbish? Compromise on the age gap, the number of kids or the partners quality…) If the set is 7, the chance that the best candidate is in the first 1/e is 5.26% (if the set is 15 – the chance is much lower at 2.45%).

Opportunity cost

Each further relationship you have might be costing you another 2 years to get further out of touch with the next generation (kids these days!) I tend to think about how old I will be when my kids are 15-20 am I growing rapidly out of touch with the next younger generation? Two years is a very big opportunity spend – another 2 years could see you successfully running a startup and achieving lifelong stability at the cost of the opportunity to have another kid. I don’t say this to crush you with fear of inaction; but it should factor in along with other details of your situation.

A solution to the risk of having the best candidate in your test phase; or to the risk of lost opportunity – is to lower the bar; instead of choosing the next candidate that is better than all the other candidates; choose the next candidate that is better than 90% of the candidates so far. Incidentally this probably happens in real life quite often. In a stroke of, “you’ll do”…

Where it breaks down

Real life is more complicated than that. I would like to think that subsequent relationships that I get into will already not suffer the stupid mistakes of the last ones; As well as the potential opportunity cost of exploration. The more time you spend looking for different partners – you might lose your early soul mate, or might waste time looking for a better one when you can follow a “good enough” policy. No one likes to know they are “good enough”, but we do race the clock in our lifetimes. Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.

As someone with experience will know – we probably test and rule out bad partners in a single conversation, where we don’t even get so far as a date. Or don’t last more than a week. (I. E the experience set is growing through various means).

People have a tendency to overrate the quality of a relationship while they are in it, versus the ones that already failed.

Did I do something wrong?

“I got married early – did I do something wrong (or irrational)?”

No. equations are not real life. It might have been nice to have the equation, but you obviously didn’t need it. Also this equation assumes a monogamous relationship. In real life people have overlapping relationships, you can date a few people and you can be poly. These are all factors that can change the simple assumptions of the equation.

Where does the equation stop working?

Real life is hard. It doesn’t fall neatly into line, it’s complicated, it’s ugly, it’s rough and smooth and clunky. But people still get by. Don’t be afraid to break the rule.

Disclaimer: If this equation is the only thing you are using to evaluate a relationship – it’s not going to go very well for you. I consider this and many other techniques as part of my toolbox for evaluating decisions.

Should I break up with my partner?

What? no! Following an equation is not a good reason to live your life.

Does your partner make you miserable? Then yes you should break up.

Do you feel like they are not ready to have kids yet and you want to settle down? Tough call. Even if they were agents also doing the equation; An equation is not real life. Go by your brain; go by your gut. Don’t go by just one equation.

Expect another post soon about reasonable considerations that should be made when evaluating relationships.

The given problem makes the assumption that you are able to evaluate partners in the sense that the secretary problem expects. Humans are not all strategic and can’t really do that. This is why the world is not going to perfectly follow this equation. Life is complicated; there are several metrics that make a good partner and they don’t always trade off between one another.

Meta: writing time – 3 hours over a week; 5+ conversations with people about the idea, bothering a handful of programmers and mathematicians for commentary on my thoughts, and generally a whole bunch of fun talking about it. This post was started on the slack channel when someone asked a related question.

Originally posted on lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mtj/

Let me know if this post was helpful or if it worked for you or why not.

Posted in life maintenance, models of thinking | Tagged cost, example, opportunity, Relationships, secretary_problem, worked | Leave a comment

The meta-strategy – Against the five love languages

Posted on 2016-08-03 by E

You are in a relationship, someone made some objection about communication, you don’t seem to understand what’s going on. Many years later you find yourself looking back at the relationship and reflecting with friends. That’s when someone brings up The Five Love Languages. Oh deep and great and meaningful secrets encoded into a book.

The 5 languages are:

Gifts
Quality time
Words of affirmation
Acts of service (devotion)
Physical touch (intimacy)

Oooooh if only you had spent more energy trying to get quality time, and less effort on gifts that relationship could have been saved. Or the other way – the relationship was doomed because you wanted quality time and they wanted gifts as a show of love.

You start seeing the world in 5 languages, your coworker offering to get you a coffee is a gift. Your boss praising your good work is words of affirmation. You start thinking like a Man with a hammer. Strictly speaking I enjoy man with a hammer syndrome. I like to use a model to death, and then pick a new model and do it all again.

What I want you to do now is imagine you didn’t do that. Imagine we cloned the universe. In one universe we gave you the love-languages book and locked you in a room to read it. In the second universe we offered to run you through a new relationship-training exercise. “It’s no guide book on how to communicate with your partner, but it’s a pretty good process”, we lock you in a room with a chair, a desk, some paper, pens (few distractions) and order you to derive some theory and idea about how to communicate with your partner.

Which one do you predict will yield the best result?

When I ask my system 2, it is fairly happy with the idea that using someone else’s model is a shortcut to finding the answers. After all they pre-derived the model. No need to spend hours working on it myself when it’s all in a book.

When I ask my system 1, it thinks that the self-derived system is about a billion times better than the one I found in a book. It’s going to be personally suited, it’s going to be sharp and accurate, and bend to my needs.

Meta-strategy

Which is going to yield the best result for the problem? Self-derived solutions to all future problems? Book-derived solutions for all problems?

I propose that the specific strategy used to answer the problem, depending on the problem (obviously sometimes 1+1 will only be solved with addition, and solving it with subtraction is going to be difficult), is mostly irrelevant compared to having the meta-strategy.

In the original example:

My relationship has bad communication, so we end the relationship.

The meta-strategy for this case:

My relationship has bad communication, how do we find more information about that and solve that problem.

In the general case:

I have a problem, I will fix the problem.

the meta strategy for the general case:

I have a problem, what is the best way to solve the problem?

Or the meta-meta strategy:

I have a problem, how will I go about finding what is the best way to solve the problem?

I propose that having the meta strategy, and the meta-meta strategy is almost as powerful as the true strategy. On the object level for the problem example, instead of searching for the book in the problem field that is the five love languages you could instead search for any book about the problem area. Any book is better than no book. In fact I would make a hierarchy:

The best strategy > a good strategy > any strategy > no strategy
The best book > a good book > any book on the topic > no book on the topic

You encounter a problem in the wild – what should you do?

Try just solve the problem
Try any strategy (with a small amount of thinking – a few seconds or minutes)
search for a better strategy

Depending on the problem, the time, the real factors – the best path forward may be to just “think of what to do then do that”, or it may be to “stop and write out a 10 page plan before executing 10 pages worth of instructions”.

Should you read the five love languages book? That depends. What is the problem? and have you tried solving the problem on your own first?

Meta: this took an hour to write.

Cross posted to lesswrong: lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nta

Posted in models of thinking | Tagged five love languages, have you tried solving the problem?, meta-strategy, problem, Relationships | Leave a comment

The problem – analyse a conversation (Part 2)

Posted on 2016-08-02 by E

From part 1: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-tm-analyse-a-conversation/

I had a chat with a person who admitted to having many problems themselves. I offered my services as a problem solving amateur, willing to try to get to the bottom of this. Presented is the conversation (With details changed for privacy).

I had my first shot at analysing the person’s problems and drilling down to the bottom. I am interested in what other people have to say is the problem. Here we study the meta-strategy of how to solve the problem, which I find much more interesting than the object level analysis of the problem and how to solve it.

I don’t think I got to the bottom of the problem, and I don’t think I conducted myself in a top-notch capacity but needless to say I wonder if you have any comments about what IS TheProblem(tm), how did you come to that conclusion and what can be done about it (for the benefit of this person and anyone with a similar problem).

What is actually the problem? I have a theory, but I also wanted to publish this without declaring my answer. I will share my ideas in a few weeks but I want to know what you think and how you came to that answer.

This is a new style of post so I expected some responses along the lines of:

I considered downvoting. I opted instead to ignore after reading the preamble. – buybuydandavis

That’s fine. It was literally a chat log. Not for everyone.

I also got some interesting and relevant responses. There are several and they overlap so I decided it’s best to answer with another post.

Many people narrowed down to a few particularly alarming examples:

The most alarming part of that conversation for me was “A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose;” – Strangeattractor
Is it really the most alarming part? I would think suicide ideation more so. – Romashka
Treatment for mental illness (and possibly organic brain trauma) seems priority #1 here… –CronoDAS
Zebra was extremely bad at imagining good outcomes in a way which led to him taking action– in other words, probably depression. – NancyLebovitz

And then this:

There are lots of problems. If I had to pick only one, it would be that you seem to think there is a single, simple problem that can be identified from this transcript. – Dagon

It sounds a bit as if you are implicitly proposing a principle like “there is always a single underlying problem, if you can only find it” – gjm

To gjm first:

I present “The Problem (TM)” because I suspect in this case there is an underlying problem. Not always. Often when problem solving we try to figure out what is the lowest hanging fruit, or what one thing can be changed first.

There was a scene in Doctor Who – The ends of time Part 2 where the doctor is trapped in space on a spaceship that doesn’t work. Instead of giving up he just (knowing what he is doing) starts fiddling with the heating. Other characters insist that everything is hopeless and lo and behold; as he fixes the heating; that fixes the engine and the computers and everything whirs back to life and we continue to the next epic fight scene!

Now, generalising from one fictional example. As rationalists we wish that there really was one thing that you could fix, which would cause the fixing of the next thing and a chain of events that fix everything. When we look at the accelerating factors, we wish this is how it happens:

We’d be dreaming to think that such a thing can actually happen. After 41 days we are at 1.5x where we started. After 70 days 2x, and 111, 3x. Which is just nuts. What if I told you that in a month of nudging 1% you’d be nearly 1.5x from where you are. Not likely, not going to happen.

1	1.01	51	1.6610781401
2	1.0201	52	1.6776889215
3	1.030301	53	1.6944658107
4	1.04060401	54	1.7114104688
5	1.0510100501	55	1.7285245735
6	1.0615201506	56	1.7458098192
7	1.0721353521	57	1.7632679174
8	1.0828567056	58	1.7809005966
9	1.0936852727	59	1.7987096025
10	1.1046221254	60	1.8166966986
11	1.1156683467	61	1.8348636655
12	1.1268250301	62	1.8532123022
13	1.1380932804	63	1.8717444252
14	1.1494742132	64	1.8904618695
15	1.1609689554	65	1.9093664882
16	1.1725786449	66	1.9284601531
17	1.1843044314	67	1.9477447546
18	1.1961474757	68	1.9672222021
19	1.2081089504	69	1.9868944242
20	1.2201900399	70	2.0067633684
21	1.2323919403	71	2.0268310021
22	1.2447158598	72	2.0470993121
23	1.2571630183	73	2.0675703052
24	1.2697346485	74	2.0882460083
25	1.282431995	75	2.1091284684
26	1.295256315	76	2.130219753
27	1.3082088781	77	2.1515219506
28	1.3212909669	78	2.1730371701
29	1.3345038766	79	2.1947675418
30	1.3478489153	80	2.2167152172
31	1.3613274045	81	2.2388823694
32	1.3749406785	82	2.2612711931
33	1.3886900853	83	2.283883905
34	1.4025769862	84	2.306722744
35	1.416602756	85	2.3297899715
36	1.4307687836	86	2.3530878712
37	1.4450764714	87	2.3766187499
38	1.4595272361	88	2.4003849374
39	1.4741225085	89	2.4243887868
40	1.4888637336	90	2.4486326746
41	1.5037523709	91	2.4731190014
42	1.5187898946	92	2.4978501914
43	1.5339777936	93	2.5228286933
44	1.5493175715	94	2.5480569803
45	1.5648107472	95	2.5735375501
46	1.5804588547	96	2.5992729256
47	1.5962634432	97	2.6252656548
48	1.6122260777	98	2.6515183114
49	1.6283483385	99	2.6780334945
50	1.6446318218	100	2.7048138294

Nonetheless we pursue. It might be important too, to look for the problem at the bottom, otherwise we might find ourselves bikeshedding about the trivial problems.

This week while making the emergency room project, I spent some time looking at other data. Specifically the (Australian) National Drug Strategy Household Survey data. Where the first question on the survey was; “When people talk about “a drug problem”, which is the first drug you think of?“. What kind of information is that likely to yield? Is it going to return the drug which is the biggest problem in the country? Or maybe it’s going to yield whatever the media feels makes a good story, (say ICE because it’s dangerous) (weed because it’s controvertial) (or alcohol because it’s the most common)? Or is it going to yield the one with the most personally damaging reputation (tobacco > alcohol)?

In reality, is the government going to take action on what people think is the biggest problem drug? Or should the government instead take action on the drug actually killing people? Are we bikeshedding on this issue?

What actually is the biggest problem, it’s a relevant question, certainly not every time. but sometimes it’s worth digging into.

To Strangeattractor, Romashka, CronoDAS, NancyLebovitz:

You are not wrong. The violence, mental health, potential head wound, depression, inability to leave the house, lack of friends, weight problems, exercise problems. Are all very very important problems to tackle. And I will come back to this.

Some analysis:

I started with simple background questions. History, etc. knowing that anything being brought up is probably being brought up because it has special relevance to the topic. It’s almost like a job interview, when they ask you for your top 10 characteristics, they don’t expect you to tell them about how you can fry a perfect egg (if that’s not relevant to the task at hand). There is a need to make certain assumptions about the truth and about the validity of the information.

I was previously very depressed, and then recovered for a few years.

Definitely relevant, sets the scene. I asked, “So you are currently feeling depressed”

Yes. Possibly as a symptom of bipolar disorder (I’ve recently started having manic episodes), or possibly not–I’ve never been diagnosed with that, and until recently had never had issues with mania.

A while back I tried reading the DSM. While it really doesn’t tell you much about reality it is one instance of a Map of the world, Just like legislation, instruction manuals, guide books, Guides to how a project was done (this is an example of a map of how my process works), and more. The interesting thing about what the DSM has to say about bipolar diagnosis is that there is a requirement for mania in both the upwards and downwards directions, often affecting sleep, and giving people feelings of godliness or invincibility.

So who cares. Well; on the one hand; using this knowledge here to ask about sleep is a signal that I at least know a little bit of what is being talked about. On the other hand I think I got lucky about whether sleep was relevant. (and on the third hand – sleep is a very common problem for people generally and worth asking about.)

I guess immediately I feel quite isolated, very stressed, and don’t know how to proceed forward.

The idea of “feeling stressed” is a complicated one. On some level, you have an understanding of what “I feel stressed” means. But on another level – if you spend enough time around different diversely stressed people. You get the feeling that there is some kind of miscommunication going on.

Kind of like this one here. It’s a map and territory problem. One person’s map of stress is not the same as another person’s map of stress.

ELiot: Is there a specific stress?

I guess; loneliness, numerous tensions with my girlfriend, some financial issues (to a large extent a symptom of the recent mania), extreme dissatisfaction with myself and especially my own appearance, frustrations with daily life, and a general dissatisfaction with the world.

So there’s a list. But the problem I find with vague lists is it’s easy to see there’s a problem here but harder to address any part and make a difference. I personally have list making habits. Something I will one day make a post about. Which is where this comes from:

I am going to write the list out

1. Loneliness
2. Girlfriend tension
3. Financial issues
4. Self + appearance
5. Daily life
6. Dissatisfied with the world

Which grew a bit by the end of the conversation.

ChristianKl Rightly criticised me for saying this:

ELiot
Would you like to pick a specific one from the list to talk about?

I can pick one if you like

(Why do you offer to pick the specific issue? Agency is important for getting out of depression.) Unfortunately I stripped out time-stamps which would explain why I offered to pick one. There are three parts to this problem.

Not picking one would likely lead to more complaining about the issues without solving anything. If Z was unmotivated enough to be unable to pick one (a worse failure mode) then picking any would be better than nothing.
Leading with any of them would be fine, because I planned to cover a few of them and the conversation would naturally tend to flow onto the bigger problems anyway (as it did)
If one cannot decide between them, they are probably all equally relevant-challenging-problematic and equal gains would be made on any of them from a bit of effort.

As it was – it was relatively easy for Z to pick one. I generally wouldn’t pick one – even if I suggested that I would. and well done ChristianKl for spotting this.

Is that bad?

I often find myself not eating until nighttime, or sometimes not eating at all, due to wanting to avoid those stressors.

An important question – is that a bad thing? I repeat this whenever I see an unjustified badness. In the sense that it should be up to the individual to decide what is or is not bad. In theory; not eating is a bad thing. Possibly to lead to mood swings from hunger or sugar levels, and who-knows what else. But, that’s what I think; not what Z had to say about why it’s bad.

Is this correct: you feel stressed about not wanting to leave to go buy food. Then you feel stressed about not buying food as well.

And I guess I’m kind of lonely.

later

When I go out sometimes it’s ok, and sometimes I realise the people around me are crap and I am too and I get even sadder.

later still

And really I don’t want to be staying at home, as that’s also very stressful.

later still.

There’s nothing much I can identify that I really want to do.

and then:

Also I’m frequently very exhausted, and it’s often hard to work up the energy to do those things.

and on:

Well, I really dislike being alone, but I don’t much like most people.

(I think that’s enough for now)

So Z is lonely, but doesn’t want to go out because sometimes it’s crap, but doesn’t want to be staying home, but doesn’t have anything they really want to do, but is also very exhausted and doesn’t have the energy to do things, but really dislikes being alone….

If we looked at the loneliness it wouldn’t really improve the state of The problem because the loneliness isn’t the big deal. If we looked at the going out problem, that wouldn’t be it, because Z wants to go out, but also doesn’t like staying home, but also if we solved the going out problem that wouldn’t do it because they don’t really have anything they want to do, but if we found something they want to do that wouldn’t fix it because they don’t have the energy to do that thing. So what if we solve the energy problem?

In the hope that once we solve the desire to go out they will have the energy, and they won’t need to be stuck at home and they won’t feel alone and they can go on to live a happy and prosperous life. No. That’s not it. Once we dig to the bottom of the energy problem we get to an absence problem:

I kind of zone out, frequently. People find that scary.

And down the rabbit hole we go.

I want to be clear that each of these problems are valid problems, each are the most important problem and each need to be solved to dig Z out of the hole. I want to not disparage the ongoing discussion and identification of problems until we can really get to that root of all things; fix the heating and whirr the spaceship into action!

That’s not how problems work. Or at least – not how this one works. At the bottom of every problem is another problem (reminds me of a poem – There’s a hole in my bucket – this is not a coincidence). We also have a term for getting side tracked from the real work at hand – Yak shaving.

But wait! What is the real problem we should be working on? If all this talk is just yak shaving our way down the river – how do we know what to actually work on?

The problem

In this case – certainly not repeatable. I can’t say how often it happens but I wanted to identify this very clear problem as it sneakily tries to evade capture. This problem is exactly the process of solving the problem has become part of the problem. We can’t solve the loneliness without first solving the home problem, but first – having nothing to do, but first energy, but first absence feelings. It’s a problem spiral.

What next?

Let’s say you or a friend has a problem spiral. You start talking about it and you spiral downwards, every problem being worse than the one before until you feel absolutely terrible, develop an ugh field and resolve to do nothing at all. (probably a familiar pattern)

You get in this pattern and nothing gets solved. To break out of this pattern; I propose a known solution (the scientific method). Pick one of the problems, set a 5 minute timer (or a 20minute pomodoro, or a whole day to work on it). Your task is to improve the state of this problem, conduct tests, observe what happens. It’s the loneliness problem, and it sucks because you don’t want to leave the house. But that’s okay. Keep trying. Don’t try to solve the house-leaving problem right now, just work on the loneliness. Try talking to people about it, try therapists, try leave the house, try online forums, try anything and everything you can think of. Take notes.

Notes are evidence, evidence is how we make progress.

Your task, should you choose to accept it – is to focus on making some kind of progress on any one of the many problems. Then when you are sick of this one, or tired, or done, or successful, pick the next one. repeat, fail, repeat, succeed, repeat. Iterate.

I propose the 3 part solution to this one meta-problem is:

pick something to work on
work on it
iterate

It’s unlikely that you solve any one problem the first time around. If you did – take your winnings! Walk away! On to the next one. But if the situation is (as can be expected) a complicated problem – one that you already couldn’t just solve – which led to the stacking up of layer upon layer of problems. It’s going to take some time.

Keep at it. Good luck.

Credit goes to Dagon – There are lots of problems. If I had to pick only one, it would be that you seem to think there is a single, simple problem that can be identified from this transcript.

Well done.

Meta: this took two days to write, and the better part of 3+ hours.

If you are interested in a conversation, send me a message. No guarantees we can solve your problems, but maybe we can try.

This has been a new style of post, not for all – thanks for reading.

Cross posted: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nt8/the_problem_tm_part_2/

Posted in models of thinking | Tagged analyse, iterate, meta-problem, problem, problem spiral, science, scientific method, the problem (tm) | Leave a comment

Nearest emergency room

Posted on 2016-07-31 by E

So you’re a dev, and you just googled. “where is my nearest emergency room” and guess what, there is no easy answer. What if there was a real emergency? How would you get to the emergency room? Let’s pretend that we don’t want to just call an ambulance. You are new to the area, don’t have your insurance paid up to date, it’s not that bad and you think you can walk there, but don’t know what the fastest route is. Whatever. The problem is right there.

Let’s not wait till an emergency to need that tool. Let’s make it here. Today.

Google maps API

https://developers.google.com/maps/

Basic plan:

Get user location
sort out where the emergency rooms are
calculate the closest emergency room
Suggest a route to there by walking or driving.
Bonus: if it’s going to take more than 10 minutes to walk there; suggest driving (from a friend) or an Uber, if that will take more than 10 minutes, suggest an Ambulance (first responders can usually provide aid before you get to hospital)
Advanced: select the closest 5 emergency rooms and calculate all transport routes and suggest the fastest of the options.

There’s no need to derive this from scratch. You know what they say, in order to make a hamburger you must first invent the universe. But also we stand on the shoulders of giants! Don’t rewrite the universe, good artists copy, great artists steal.

user location

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorials/geolocation

From that page:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Geolocation</title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no">
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <style>
      html, body {
        height: 100%;
        margin: 0;
        padding: 0;
      }
      #map {
        height: 100%;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="map"></div>
    <script>
      // Note: This example requires that you consent to location sharing when
      // prompted by your browser. If you see the error "The Geolocation service
      // failed.", it means you probably did not give permission for the browser to
      // locate you.

      function initMap() {
        var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map'), {
          center: {lat: -34.397, lng: 150.644},
          zoom: 6
        });
        var infoWindow = new google.maps.InfoWindow({map: map});

        // Try HTML5 geolocation.
        if (navigator.geolocation) {
          navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) {
            var pos = {
              lat: position.coords.latitude,
              lng: position.coords.longitude
            };

            infoWindow.setPosition(pos);
            infoWindow.setContent('Location found.');
            map.setCenter(pos);
          }, function() {
            handleLocationError(true, infoWindow, map.getCenter());
          });
        } else {
          // Browser doesn't support Geolocation
          handleLocationError(false, infoWindow, map.getCenter());
        }
      }

      function handleLocationError(browserHasGeolocation, infoWindow, pos) {
        infoWindow.setPosition(pos);
        infoWindow.setContent(browserHasGeolocation ?
                              'Error: The Geolocation service failed.' :
                              'Error: Your browser doesn\'t support geolocation.');
      }
    </script>
    <script async defer
    src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?key=YOUR_API_KEY&callback=initMap">
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Oh hey! Yea that works. Just like that. Get the user location.

2. location of emergency rooms:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/australian-hospital-statistics-2012-13

Well; that’s my data. Needs some cleaning up because not all hospitals have an emergency department.

anddddd, the data is formatted as addresses not latitude/longitudes.

Example: NSW data

Hospital name	Address Line 1	Address Line 2
Armidale	226 Rusden ST	Armidale 2350
Auburn	18-20 Hargrave RD	Auburn 2144
Ballina	78-92 Cherry ST	Ballina 2478
Bankstown/ Lidcombe	68 Eldridge RD	Bankstown 2200
Barraba (MPS)	1 Edward ST	Barraba 2347
Batemans Bay	7 Pacific ST	Batemans Bay 2536
Bathurst	361 Howick ST	Bathurst 2795
Bega	1 McKee DR	Bega 2550
Belmont	16 Croudace Bay RD	Belmont 2280
Bingara (MPS)	1 Keera ST	Bingara 2404
Blacktown	44 Blacktown RD	Blacktown 2148
Blue Mountains	Lot 3 Woodlands RD	Katoomba 2780
Boggabri (MPS)	3 Wee Waa ST	Boggabri 2382
Bowral	Lot 3 Mona RD	Bowral 2576
Broken Hill	176 Thomas ST	Broken Hill 2880
Bulahdelah – Myall Lakes	1 Richmond ST	Bulahdelah 2423
Bulli	33A Hospital RD	Bulli 2516
Byron Bay	10 Shirley ST	Byron Bay 2481
Calvary Mater Newcastle	4 Edith ST	Waratah 2298
Camden	65 Menangle RD	Camden 2570
Campbelltown	1 Therry RD	Campbelltown 2560
Canterbury	575 Canterbury RD	Campsie 2194
Casino	1 Hotham ST	Casino 2470
Cessnock	Lot 1 View ST	Cessnock 2325
Children’s Hospital Westmead	178 Hawkesbury RD	Westmead 2145
Coffs Harbour	345 Pacific HWY	Coffs Harbour 2450
Concord	1a Hospital RD	Concord West 2138
Denman (MPS)	51-53 Ogilvie ST	Denman 2328
Dubbo	1 Myall ST	Dubbo 2830
Dungog	58 Hospital RD	Dungog 2420
Fairfield	360 Prairie Vale RD	Prairiewood 2176
Glen Innes	94 Taylor ST	Glen Innes 2370
Gloucester	166 Church ST	Gloucester 2422
Gosford	76 Holden ST	Gosford 2250
Goulburn	130 Goldsmith ST	Goulburn 2580
Grafton	174 Arthur ST	Grafton 2460
Griffith	1 Noorebar AV	Griffith 2680
Gunnedah	2 Marquis ST	Gunnedah 2380
Guyra (MPS)	44-48 Sole ST	Guyra 2365
Hawkesbury	Cnr Macquarie and Day St	Windsor 2756
Hornsby and Ku-Ring-Gai	36-76 Palmerston RD	Hornsby 2077
Inverell	41-61 Swanbrook RD	Inverell 2360
John Hunter	156 Kookaburra CCT	New Lambton Heights 2305
Kurri Kurri	432 Lang ST	Kurri Kurri 2327
Lismore	60 Uralba ST	Lismore 2480
Lithgow	2 Col Drewe DR	Lithgow 2790
Liverpool	Lot 2 Elizabeth ST	Liverpool 2170
Maclean	21 Union ST	Maclean 2463
Macleay Valley – Kempsey	119 River ST	Kempsey 2440
Maitland	550 High ST	Maitland 2320
Manilla (MPS)	143 Court ST	Manilla 2346
Manly	150 Darley RD	Manly 2095
Manning	26 York ST	Taree 2430
Merriwa (MPS)	1 Mackenzie ST	Merriwa 2329
Milton and Ulladulla	104 Princes HWY	Milton 2538
Mona Vale	18 Coronation ST	Mona Vale 2103
Moree	35 Alice ST	Moree 2400
Moruya	2-10 River ST	Moruya 2537
Mount Druitt	75 Railway ST	Mount Druitt 2770
Mullumbimby	1-3 Azalea ST	Mullumbimby 2482
Murrurundi	59 O’Connell ST	Murrurundi 2338
Murwillumbah	8 Ewing ST	Murwillumbah 2484
Muswellbrook	36 Brentwood ST	Muswellbrook 2333
Narrabri	11 Cameron ST	Narrabri 2390
Nepean	256 Derby ST	Kingswood 2747
Orange Health Service	1502 Forest RD	Orange 2800
Port Macquarie	1-31 Wrights RD	Port Macquarie 2444
Prince Albert Tenterfield	1-5 Naas ST	Tenterfield 2372
Prince of Wales	147 Barker ST	Randwick 2031
Quirindi	42 Nowland ST	Quirindi 2343
Royal North Shore	1 Reserve RD	St Leonards 2065
Royal Prince Alfred	50 Missenden RD	Camperdown 2050
Ryde	1 Denistone RD	Eastwood 2122
Scott Memorial Scone	24 Stafford ST	Scone 2337
Shellharbour	15-17 Madigan BVD	Mount Warrigal 2528
Shoalhaven Memorial	2 Shoalhaven ST	Nowra 2541
Singleton	Lot 20 Dangar RD	Singleton 2330
St George	28 Gray ST	Kogarah 2017
St Vincent’s Darlinghurst	390 Victoria ST	Darlinghurst 2010
Sutherland	430 Kingsway	Caringbah 2229
Sydney Children’s	1 High ST	Randwick 2031
Sydney/ Sydney Eye	8 Macquarie ST	Sydney 2000
Tamworth	31 Dean ST	North Tamworth 2340
The Tweed Hospital	14 Powell ST	Tweed Heads 2485
Tingha (MPS)	1 Inverell RD	Tingha 2369
Tomaree Community	2 Trevally ST	Nelson Bay 2315
Vegetable Creek (MPS)	13-33 Glen Innes RD	Emmaville 2371
Wagga Wagga	260 Edward ST	Wagga Wagga 2650
Walcha (MPS)	7 South ST	Walcha 2354
Warialda (MPS)	146 Long ST	Warialda 2402
Wee Waa	60 Alma ST	Wee Waa 2388
Werris Creek	22-34 North ST	Werris Creek 2341
Westmead	166 Darcy RD	Westmead 2145
Wollongong	348 Crown ST	Wollongong 2500
Wyong	Pacific HWY	Kanwal 2259

LMGTFY: http://www.unbolt.net/geocode_convertor.php, http://www.findlatitudeandlongitude.com/batch-geocode/, http://www.mapdevelopers.com/batch_geocode_tool.php

Spoilt for choice! You could even do it twice and double check (Hint: I did)

Hospname	original address	latitude	longitude
Armidale	226 Rusden ST Armidale 2350	-30.512477	151.656561
Auburn	18-20 Hargrave RD Auburn 2144	-33.86093	151.032587
Ballina	78-92 Cherry ST Ballina 2478	-28.863182	153.564435
Bankstown/ Lidcombe	68 Eldridge RD Bankstown 2200	-33.933125	151.020843
Barraba (MPS)	1 Edward ST Barraba 2347	-30.382636	150.610385
Batemans Bay	7 Pacific ST Batemans Bay 2536	-35.713737	150.182253
Bathurst	361 Howick ST Bathurst 2795	-33.410636	149.574939
Bega	1 McKee DR Bega 2550	-36.681218	149.837464
Belmont	16 Croudace Bay RD Belmont 2280	-33.024433	151.648913
Bingara (MPS)	1 Keera ST Bingara 2404	-29.86439	150.571804
Blacktown	44 Blacktown RD Blacktown 2148	-33.775361	150.91895
Blue Mountains	Lot 3 Woodlands RD Katoomba 2780	-33.7034	150.321213
Boggabri (MPS)	3 Wee Waa ST Boggabri 2382	-30.712277	150.04153
Bowral	Lot 3 Mona RD Bowral 2576	-34.484825	150.424681
Broken Hill	176 Thomas ST Broken Hill 2880	-31.947774	141.45395
Bulahdelah – Myall Lakes	1 Richmond ST Bulahdelah 2423	-32.403967	152.211854
Bulli	33A Hospital RD Bulli 2516	-34.336178	150.906459
Byron Bay	10 Shirley ST Byron Bay 2481	-28.64196	153.609391
Calvary Mater Newcastle	4 Edith ST Waratah 2298	-32.898737	151.721457
Camden	65 Menangle RD Camden 2570	-34.062312	150.694473
Campbelltown	1 Therry RD Campbelltown 2560	-34.080098	150.803486
Canterbury	575 Canterbury RD Campsie 2194	-33.921402	151.096798
Casino	1 Hotham ST Casino 2470	-28.86971	153.03493
Cessnock	Lot 1 View ST Cessnock 2325	-32.827465	151.351592
Children’s Hospital Westmead	178 Hawkesbury RD Westmead 2145	-33.800966	150.99277
Coffs Harbour	345 Pacific HWY Coffs Harbour 2450	-30.316138	153.092842
Concord	1a Hospital RD Concord West 2138	-33.837305	151.090948
Denman (MPS)	51-53 Ogilvie ST Denman 2328	-32.389667	150.684524
Dubbo	1 Myall ST Dubbo 2830	-32.240492	148.616006
Dungog	58 Hospital RD Dungog 2420	-32.401379	151.745778
Fairfield	360 Prairie Vale RD Prairiewood 2176	-33.859138	150.9034
Glen Innes	94 Taylor ST Glen Innes 2370	-29.732653	151.732144
Gloucester	166 Church ST Gloucester 2422	-32.014856	151.958353
Gosford	76 Holden ST Gosford 2250	-33.42104	151.340653
Goulburn	130 Goldsmith ST Goulburn 2580	-34.747866	149.713185
Grafton	174 Arthur ST Grafton 2460	-29.675738	152.941764
Griffith	1 Noorebar AV Griffith 2680	-34.281205	146.048545
Gunnedah	2 Marquis ST Gunnedah 2380	-30.984714	150.249085
Guyra (MPS)	44-48 Sole ST Guyra 2365	-30.212657	151.679175
Hawkesbury	Cnr Macquarie and Day St Windsor 2756	-33.609917	150.817869
Hornsby and Ku-Ring-Gai	36-76 Palmerston RD Hornsby 2077	-33.702574	151.112587
Inverell	41-61 Swanbrook RD Inverell 2360	-29.770603	151.129266
John Hunter	156 Kookaburra CCT New Lambton Heights 2305	-32.925949	151.671229
Kurri Kurri	432 Lang ST Kurri Kurri 2327	-32.823997	151.462961
Lismore	60 Uralba ST Lismore 2480	-28.80889	153.291498
Lithgow	2 Col Drewe DR Lithgow 2790	-33.499637	150.126252
Liverpool	Lot 2 Elizabeth ST Liverpool 2170	-33.920691	150.927895
Maclean	21 Union ST Maclean 2463	-29.453827	153.201618
Macleay Valley – Kempsey	119 River ST Kempsey 2440	-31.068203	152.819666
Maitland	550 High ST Maitland 2320	-32.726924	151.545491
Manilla (MPS)	143 Court ST Manilla 2346	-30.746254	150.731707
Manly	150 Darley RD Manly 2095	-33.805457	151.294866
Manning	26 York ST Taree 2430	-31.910288	152.455006
Merriwa (MPS)	1 Mackenzie ST Merriwa 2329	-32.142491	150.359803
Milton and Ulladulla	104 Princes HWY Milton 2538	-35.317254	150.438953
Mona Vale	18 Coronation ST Mona Vale 2103	-33.685954	151.308016
Moree	35 Alice ST Moree 2400	-29.471284	149.845008
Moruya	2-10 River ST Moruya 2537	-35.904658	150.070182
Mount Druitt	75 Railway ST Mount Druitt 2770	-33.765665	150.83024
Mullumbimby	1-3 Azalea ST Mullumbimby 2482	-28.558816	153.490569
Murrurundi	59 O’Connell ST Murrurundi 2338	-31.769738	150.836195
Murwillumbah	8 Ewing ST Murwillumbah 2484	-28.32364	153.400389
Muswellbrook	36 Brentwood ST Muswellbrook 2333	-32.265462	150.901484
Narrabri	11 Cameron ST Narrabri 2390	-30.326302	149.777348
Nepean	256 Derby ST Kingswood 2747	-33.761319	150.713938
Orange Health Service	1502 Forest RD Orange 2800	-33.314353	149.09494
Port Macquarie	1-31 Wrights RD Port Macquarie 2444	-31.452074	152.878833
Prince Albert Tenterfield	1-5 Naas ST Tenterfield 2372	-29.045184	152.013893
Prince of Wales	147 Barker ST Randwick 2031	-33.920844	151.236595
Quirindi	42 Nowland ST Quirindi 2343	-31.49993	150.677052
Royal North Shore	1 Reserve RD St Leonards 2065	-33.819232	151.189266
Royal Prince Alfred	50 Missenden RD Camperdown 2050	-33.887912	151.180769
Ryde	1 Denistone RD Eastwood 2122	-33.794467	151.089906
Scott Memorial Scone	24 Stafford ST Scone 2337	-32.052428	150.876581
Shellharbour	15-17 Madigan BVD Mount Warrigal 2528	-34.557919	150.842344
Shoalhaven Memorial	2 Shoalhaven ST Nowra 2541	-34.86768	150.597071
Singleton	Lot 20 Dangar RD Singleton 2330	-32.565712	151.183596
St George	28 Gray ST Kogarah 2017	-33.9678	151.133217
St Vincent’s Darlinghurst	390 Victoria ST Darlinghurst 2010	-33.8791	151.221783
Sutherland	430 Kingsway Caringbah 2229	-34.037477	151.114783
Sydney Children’s	1 High ST Randwick 2031	-33.915175	151.228012
Sydney/ Sydney Eye	8 Macquarie ST Sydney 2000	-33.860316	151.213237
Tamworth	31 Dean ST North Tamworth 2340	-31.075436	150.922931
The Tweed Hospital	14 Powell ST Tweed Heads 2485	-28.177102	153.545626
Tingha (MPS)	1 Inverell RD Tingha 2369	-29.781998	151.118333
Tomaree Community	2 Trevally ST Nelson Bay 2315	-32.720203	152.159007
Vegetable Creek (MPS)	13-33 Glen Innes RD Emmaville 2371	-29.450119	151.598799
Wagga Wagga	260 Edward ST Wagga Wagga 2650	-35.117999	147.35696
Walcha (MPS)	7 South ST Walcha 2354	-30.983941	151.590481
Warialda (MPS)	146 Long ST Warialda 2402	-29.53833	150.579153
Wee Waa	60 Alma ST Wee Waa 2388	-30.227051	149.443074
Werris Creek	22-34 North ST Werris Creek 2341	-31.346486	150.652519
Westmead	166 Darcy RD Westmead 2145	-33.80075	150.963773
Wollongong	348 Crown ST Wollongong 2500	-34.424749	150.883505
Wyong	Pacific HWY Kanwal 2259	-33.256507	151.486545

Map of emergency room hospitals

3. Calculate the closest emergency room to the user: (my favourite tool of the day LMGTFY)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4057665/google-maps-api-v3-find-nearest-markers

It’s done. Someone has already coded how to find the nearest of a set of pre-set markers.

Math!

function rad(x) {return x*Math.PI/180;}
function find_closest_marker( event ) {
    var lat = event.latLng.lat();
    var lng = event.latLng.lng();
    var R = 6371; // radius of earth in km
    var distances = [];
    var closest = -1;
    for( i=0;i<map.markers.length; i++ ) {
        var mlat = map.markers[i].position.lat();
        var mlng = map.markers[i].position.lng();
        var dLat  = rad(mlat - lat);
        var dLong = rad(mlng - lng);
        var a = Math.sin(dLat/2) * Math.sin(dLat/2) +
            Math.cos(rad(lat)) * Math.cos(rad(lat)) * Math.sin(dLong/2) * Math.sin(dLong/2);
        var c = 2 * Math.atan2(Math.sqrt(a), Math.sqrt(1-a));
        var d = R * c;
        distances[i] = d;
        if ( closest == -1 || d < distances[closest] ) {
            closest = i;
        }
    }

    alert(map.markers[closest].title);
}

Super do-able. Just needs integration.

4. Navigate to the nearest hospital.

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/intro

According to the developer guide it’s going to look something like this:

http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/outputFormat?origin=
Mylatitude,Mylongditude&destination=NearestHospitalLatitude,NearestHospitalLongitude&mode=walking

and out the back will spit out some directions.

But there’s a better way. After we know the nearest hospital we can open a google maps link to that location:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=saddr=UserLat,Userlong&daddr=HospitalLat,HospitalLong&directionsmode=walking

Then the user can open a browser on their device with directions OR their local maps app, which can guide them using that URL.

5. Bonus problem. Travel time:

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/intro#traffic-model

Method for retrieving travel times can be found here. And because stackX is the answer to all problems:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1042885/using-google-maps-api-to-get-travel-time-data

According to this information; it’s against the google TOS to display for the user that travel time; if you are not using a google map to display the information. This needs more thought. More thought than I have time for right now.

But that’s basically it.

6. Advanced goal: Using the learning from 5; it wouldn’t be hard to look up all of the transport methods for the nearest 5 hospitals and then only offer the user the fastest time duration (1-3 options)

Notes for future me: all the geolocations are a little off because even the hospital addresses were not the address of the front door of the emergency room. This is the problem with any data. There are 205 hospitals on the register, this needs to be hard-coded otherwise it’s still going to be hard to find the emergency room for the user. The pin should be directly on top of the door to emergency to make it as easy as possible to get to the door.

Video to go along with it: https://youtu.be/EFCMONjCL_0

Posted in electronics | Leave a comment

The Problem (TM) – Analyse a conversation

Posted on 2016-07-26 by E

I had a chat with a person who admitted to having many problems themselves. I offered my services as a problem solving amateur, willing to try to get to the bottom of this. Presented is the conversation (With details changed for privacy).

I had my first shot at analysing the person’s problems and drilling down to the bottom. I am interested in what other people have to say is the problem. Here we study the meta-strategy of how to solve the problem, which I find much more interesting than the object level analysis of the problem and how to solve it.

I don’t think I got to the bottom of the problem, and I don’t think I conducted myself in a top-notch capacity but needless to say I wonder if you have any comments about what IS TheProblem(tm), how did you come to that conclusion and what can be done about it (for the benefit of this person and anyone with a similar problem).

Zebra
Hey

ELiot
Where would you like to start?
Do you want to share about your history?

Zebra
I was previously very depressed, and then recovered for a few years. While I’m glad I was able to have those couple years, I don’t think they were worth suffering through the depression, and I didn’t at the time, when I didn’t think it would return.

Zebra
(Though it hasn’t returned as bad as it was.)

ELiot
So you are currently feeling depressed

Zebra
Yes. Possibly as a symptom of bipolar disorder (I’ve recently started having manic episodes), or possibly not–I’ve never been diagnosed with that, and until recently had never had issues with mania.

ELiot
How much are you sleeping? One Indication of bipolar swings is total sleep

Zebra
The last couple days I’ve slept okay, but when I had more manic symptoms sleep was very intermittent. A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose; at that point, I’d not slept in two days.

ELiot
Sounds like a bad event.

Zebra
I guess immediately I feel quite isolated, very stressed, and don’t know how to proceed forward.

ELiot
Is there a specific stress?

Zebra
I guess; loneliness, numerous tensions with my girlfriend, some financial issues (to a large extent a symptom of the recent mania), extreme dissatisfaction with myself and especially my own appearance, frustrations with daily life, and a general dissatisfaction with the world.

ELiot
Manic up should correlate with little sleep, manic down with extra sleep. Manic up should also come with a variation on _feeling invincible_

Which of the things in that list do you think can’t change?

Zebra
I suppose they’re all changeable if you apply enough effort, but that seems like a lot of work, and frankly I’ve never seen much in the world that seems worth it.

As I said, I’ve gotten better, to some extent, previously.

Even after I had already gotten better and I no longer wanted to suicide, I wished I had previously, because even though life then was fine, it just wasn’t worth what had gone before.

I don’t feel invincible really.

ELiot
When in manic up states?

Zebra
When in manic states I still don’t feel invincible.

ELiot
If you could remove the problems listed do you think you would want to live?

Zebra
All of them? Yes, if I could do some magically, or at a reasonable cost.

ELiot
I would say that is a good thing. But it depends on your goals.

I can offer ideas about working with those problems to make them better, but not if you don’t want that.

Zebra
Well those would be good.

ELiot
Would you like to pick a specific one from the list to talk about?

I can pick one if you like

Zebra
Uhm, you can pick. I’m not sure which one would be most imminently solvable.

ELiot
I am going to write the list out

1. Loneliness
2. Girlfriend tension
3. Financial issues
4. Self + appearance
5. Daily life
6. Dissatisfied with the world

Zebra
Yep, that’s most of it.

ELiot
What burdens do you currently have on your life? I. E. Supporting a child, have to show up at work each day. Etc.

Thinking about number 5 – Regular commitments

Zebra
Not a whole lot really. I’ve no job or school (family money, though not a large amount). My girlfriend is financially dependent on me at this point, though she’s supposed to be starting a job this month.

To be honest even going downstairs to buy food, or really even to talk to a delivery person on the phone, feels like a huge burden.

ELiot
So in terms of pressure on your daily life?

Zebra
I often find myself not eating until nighttime, or sometimes not eating at all, due to wanting to avoid those stressors.

ELiot
Is that bad?

Zebra
Well, yeah. It feels very negative and causes me stress and I really don’t feel life has much to offer in return for even minor inconveniences.

ELiot
is there a reason that not eating is a bad thing to do for you?

Zebra
I don’t see life as particularly positive, really, and just want it to be over with so I don’t have to bother with this crap every day. On the other hand, actually going about killing yourself is fucking scary.

So I guess I’m trying to find some way out of that conclusion so I won’t have to face the immediately distasteful action of actually offing myself, even though it’s probably preferable to suffering through a lifetime of even minor annoyances.

ELiot
Is this correct: you feel stressed about not wanting to leave to go buy food. Then you feel stressed about not buying food as well.

Zebra
Yes.

And I guess I’m kind of lonely, and even minor inconveniences, when they have no positive aspects in between, eventually get you really, really down.

I feel like what I do most days is just wait, be sad and lonely, be slightly annoyed, and wait and cry and be lonely more.

When I go out sometimes it’s ok, and sometimes I realise the people around me are crap and I am too and I get even sadder.

ELiot
Here is how I see this very limited problem. Without looking at other things just yet.

When making the first choice, either stay home and not buy food or leave and buy food you choose the less stress option. To stay home. I see that as a win. You successfully made the right choice to avoid the immediate stress. Then later you decide that going out is more important/useful/(Less stress) than staying home and not having food. Seems like you also win by carrying out the choice to leave and get food have less stress.

You appear to be stressing yourself out over two reasonable choices. I would suggest that you have done well to make both the choice of staying home and later the choice to leave for food.

Zebra
The stress of not going is physiological rather than psychological, so I don’t think looking at that differently can really fix it.

And really I don’t want to be staying at home, as that’s also very stressful.

I’m just not sure what else to do…

ELiot
In terms of where to go? Or in terms of how to spend your time?

Zebra
Both

There’s nothing much I can identify that I really want to do.

ELiot
I can suggest options down those paths

Zebra
ok.

ELiot
I don’t know where you are gegraphically, but if we consider specifically where to go and what to do near where you are;

I would look at; google, “things to do in *city*” as well as looking at meetups in city. As well as looking for parks, museums, monuments, walks, local history, pretty geography, public spaces I. E. Libraries, evening classes, sports to play

Zebra
I’m in Hong Kong.

I go to meetups sometimes.

ELiot
Generally the idea of exploration of the place

Also temples, religious places, hikes

Zebra
As for meetups, sometimes you meet interesting people, but often it’s stressful dealing with idiots. And most people are idiots.

ELiot
You are mostly allowed to do what you like with your time. In terms of going places and later going home to sleep etc.

A large fraction of people are idiots

Zebra
And the more interesting people are often difficult to connect with more than superficially.

ELiot
“Allowed to” is a funny idea. No one needs to give you permission to do what you like.

Going to add 7. Social strategy

Zebra
True. I just don’t feel like I _like_ much.

Also I’m frequently very exhausted, and it’s often hard to work up the energy to do those things.

ELiot
Do you think you have tried to find many things you like or do you think the bottle neck lies before that? In trying to find them?

If you do nothing (because you are tired) is that a problem?

Zebra
Yeah, doing nothing all the time sucks. If I stay home I feel like I’m in jail…

but if I go out I feel like I’ve been sent as a labourer to Australia.

ELiot
At some point the desire to stay home because you are tired should weigh up against the desire to go out and feel like you are not in jail. That is a fine time to leave, feeling bad about both staying at home and leaving the house sounds like a recipe for displeasure either way… Does that make sense?

Zebra
Well it is, obviously, which is why I feel like I’m in a no-win situation, and want to die.

(or at least part of it)

I mean, occasionally there are meetups and stuff which I go to, and those are ok, but really I have so much free time and since my mental health issues started I’ve alienated almost everyone I knew.

And that just increases the stress and makes it difficult to make new friends.

ELiot
I would be going down the path of tracing that feeling of bad to its source because it’s not really about staying or going it’s about that bad pressure that appears self imposed.

Do you feel like you _should be doing_ things?

I.e. Going out

Zebra
Well, I really dislike being alone, but I don’t much like most people.

I think that’s what it boils down to.

And yes, I get that that might not be a healthy state to be in, but again, that I’m not in a healthy state has already been established.

ELiot
Do you know what part or kind of social interaction you like? When you say “dislike alone” what is “not alone”

Zebra
Well, I like talking with friends and drinking and doing stuff, but often it’s difficult to make new friends.

ELiot
Conversation with new people is “not alone”

And you sometimes feel alone when you hang around old friends

Zebra
Yes, that’s true.

ELiot
Can you financially afford to go drinking and doing stuff?

Zebra
I guess new people I meet are often very disappointing, and more than that, even when they aren’t, I myself have a lot of recently developed mental issues it takes a lot of effort to control.

I kind of zone out, frequently. People find that scary.

ELiot
What kind of new people would you like to meet?

Zebra
Uhm, I dunno. It’s hard to specify really.

ELiot
Is your zoning out actually absence or is it more like daydreaming?

Zebra
Absence

Or sometimes I just sort of feel sad.

But usually no internal thoughts associated.

I can sort of afford to go drinking and stuff.

ELiot
Do you recall things that happen while you are absent?

Zebra
Mostly not. I can sort of remember it happening but super vague.

ELiot
Do you feel like you are an automa – following a path you were on, and then you zone back in?

Zebra
It’s not like in the middle of a sentence, but people notice that I look dead and then sometimes I don’t respond until they call me a couple times, though sometimes I can respond immediately.

More like my energy’s just gone, I guess.

Sometimes I’ll lose track of the conversation, even when I myself am speaking.

That’s not as common recently, though.

ELiot
I was going to say I suspect an absent seizure. It came up in the lw open thread this week. Let me get you a link

Zebra
My mother claims I told her I was hospitalised for a head injury around the time my mental health problems started worsening.

I can’t remember the incident, though, and she has not much in the way of specific details.

ELiot
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/niv/open_thread_apr_18_apr_24_2016/d8ow

If you have something like that I am sure it makes everything worse

Zebra
I had depression before that, but as I said, it had mostly gotten better. On the other hand, there were a lot of issues in my life around the same time which may have led to the recurrence of symptoms as well.

ELiot
Okay, what kind of person would you like to meet?

Zebra
Hmm, previously I wanted to see a neurologist because my symptoms were much worse, but they’ve lessened now.

ELiot
There is medication to reduce seizures to nearly nothing

Which might help

Zebra
Well, an intelligent person, but those are rare; or someone who’s fun, but finding one who’s willing to put up with my lethargy and depression is hard; or someone who’s nice and not a complete idiot.

ELiot
It also might help to keep a diary of what you do each day to try to keep track of how often they happen

Zebra
Maybe. I’m not at all certain I’m having seizures, though.

I have pretty bad memory, too.

ELiot
Where might you find intelligent people?

A brain scan would tell you if you are or are not having seizures

Zebra
I have no idea. I guess some of the intellectually-focused meetup groups have some, but not all that many.

Yeah, I’ve been meaning to go to a neurologist, but I frequently fail to get around to stuff.

ELiot
I would suggest university campus as a viable place

To find smart ones

Zebra
Maybe, but I’m not in university and probably don’t have the effort to enter.

Also, somewhat smart, but not very smart, people really annoy me.

Universities have a lot of those.

ELiot
Campuses here are just places you can walk into, not sure what it’s like there

If you want to get out of the house and see something, universities are a nice place to visit

Zebra
Hmm, I guess I could try.

Many offer classes to the public very cheaply.

ELiot
You can probably also work out how to sneak into a lecture anyway – they usually don’t check the roll

Any topic of study fancy your interest? To sneak into a lecture about

Zebra
Hmm, not sure. Linguistics or history might be fun.

CS would probably just be a recap of basic material.

ELiot
You can usually find course details online and work out where the lectures are and just kinda walk in and sit down – For a bit of fun

Zebra
How does that translate to meeting people though?

(If it’s not obvious, I’ve never been to uni.)

ELiot
Chat to people if you want to. Lectures have breaks, uni tries to encourage social groups too usually, barbecues and stuff

If you make yourself look approachable and friendly people will talk to you. It’s how I avoid approaching others. I wear funny hats and strangers talk to me

Zebra
Really? Haha, what sort of hats?

ELiot
Pirate hat, top hats, Stetson,

I have about 50 hats

Different ones all the time

That’s on the topic of appearance tho

Zebra
I don’t look very approachable now 🙁 Since I became ill again my personal health and hygeine have done very poorly.

ELiot
Do you like being hygienic? Indifferent?

Zebra
Well, I like being hygenic, but getting to that state is difficult.

Also, I’ve probably gained 40kg since then, so even if I was it’s probably all for naught.

ELiot
What contributes to that state? For me it’s having a shower and brushing my teeth.

Maybe deodorant too. And clean clothes

Zebra
Well, those things.

Now I’ve got so fat it’s hard to buy clothes :-/

ELiot
I would say you can work on that

Both the fat and the clothes

If you want to

Exercise would help you, leaving the house to go for a walk would help you, you don’t need anywhere to go other than around a block or something

Do you track your weight?

Zebra
Yes, but it’s very difficult.

ELiot
Is it still climbing or staying where it is?

Zebra
I’ve tried some stuff. Fasting, methamphetamine, etc., but I was never able to really reduce it.

ELiot
Difficult to track? To walk? To exercise? To buy clothes?

Weight loss is difficult, Yes

Zebra
I just don’t have the energy to excercise. Even when I was taking methamphetamine I didn’t have the energy for it.

ELiot
Would you consider paying for a service that helped you lose weight?

Zebra
Right now I think it’s not climbing, but I didn’t buy a new scale when my last one broke.

Yes, if I thought it had reasonable chance of being effective.

ELiot
An option would be to look at what is available

Near to where you live

Zebra
I don’t think there are any drugs that work as well for weighy loss as meth, though, and that was not effective enough.

I don’t know what else such a service could provide really.

I mean, I _know_ you need to excercise and eat healthy, but I just haven’t been able to do it.

ELiot
Commitment, a gym, a trainer setting a program

There are greater experts in the field of weight loss than I

Zebra
Honestly, I’ve tried so much, I do not realistically think I would continue to follow through with that.

ELiot
Okay

Zebra
Other than the very deepest depths of depression (which I still haven’t fallen to this time around), I’ve never experienced anything as unpleasant as excercise.

ELiot
I can offer ideas about weight loss and exercise but maybe another time.

What types of exercise?

Zebra
I suppose there are some illnesses which might do better than meth, but trying to induce those makes me feel very squeamish.

Pretty much anything.

It’a just so hot and icky and tiring.

ELiot
Oh! Yes, a problem with your geography

Other geographies are not as hot and sticky. Even that has solutions. My exercise is walking, running, swimming, unicycle, circus skills, rock climbing, ice skating, laser tag, and trampoline, I also did pole dance for a while. Also I would kayak and hike more if I had more opportunities…

Zebra
True. I had some fun doing outdoor type stuff in the Southwestern US.

Moving has its own host of problems, though.

ELiot
Other sports I have done include table tennis, actual tennis, archery…

Zebra
The primary one being that I don’t know anyone anywhere else.

ELiot
I don’t imagine moving will solve all your problems

Zebra
Except my mother in Florida, USA.

ELiot
Yes I was going to say, it would certainly make loneliness harder

Especially when you don’t currently know how to make new friends very well

You can exercise at night, find an indoor pool to swim in maybe.

Zebra
Yes. I did the moving thing once, and it was probably good at the time, but I had fairly exceptional circumstances then which I don’t have now.

There’s a pretty nice pool in my condo, but I get tired. Swimming is exhausting.

And very self-conscious doing excercise around others.

ELiot
Yes.

Zebra
That’s probably equally as serious an issue as the exhaustion.

ELiot
Night time for self conscious

Take a friend or girlfriend?

Moral support?

Zebra
Makes me more self conscious 🙁

ELiot
You need support network not criticism

Do you trust these people?

Do you think you could track how far you swim and try to increase laps or so?

The idea being to measure progress and feel like you are going somewhere

Zebra
I don’t think I’ve ever actually trusted anyone, even as a child.

ELiot
That is a different problem

Zebra
Yeah. I have a lot of problems. 🙁

ELiot
That is okay for a place to be

Better to know than not know.

To be more specific you have a lot of problems *at the same time*

Which is making it hard to work out what the biggest one is, and where to start

Zebra
Yes. That kind of sucks.

ELiot
It appears that at the bottom of each problem there is a slightly different problem, also with a solution but one that too needs implementation

I am confident that this can all be fixed, I am also confident that you can enjoy the journey of doing so.

Perhaps you might benefit from writing down the problems until you have a clearer picture for yourself

Zebra
Yes, that’s how it feels to me too. There’s a large web of problems which are fixable with enough effort, but inter-related so hard to fix one at a time, and I don’t really feel like I have the effort to do it all at once, nor that it would be worth it.

ELiot
As you talk to me you are clarifying the problems, I imagine that can help to identify them to help solve them.

If I were in your position I would pick the first one that I encountered and try to make a little progress on it before the next one hit me, and trying to make progress on the next one too.

I firmly believe in the concept of _making it easier for future you_.

Zebra
Sometimes I feel that all of them could be fixed in one go with a more radical change, but that’s a rather scary thing to do.

ELiot
It is. Especially without experience in radical changes.

Zebra
Well, I moved alone to a country I’d never been when I was 18. So I guess it’s not entirely unfamiliar.

ELiot
A change of scenery would probably change the problems. Not necessarily fix them

Zebra
Yeah.

ELiot
It could be the motivation you need to help make it easier for you to make progress

But it could also leave you exhausted and worse off

Zebra
I’ve looked some into moving to the Republic of Georgia.

But I do have friends here, even if there are only a few remaining and I feel increasingly alienated from them.

ELiot
You might benefit from a time management system

Zebra
Why? I don’t have enough to even fill one activity per day…

ELiot
A list of problems, followed by a list of ways to solve the problems followed by a plan of how to spend your next 168 hours towards solving those problems while also not making new ones…

Each week

Energy limited? That’s also a problem. With a solution. You do need sleep and rest

Zebra
I usually sleep a lot, but it doesn’t feel restful.

I try to go on holidays, but again, usually come back more stressed than before.

ELiot
That too has a solution. Are you getting enough light when you wake up?

Zebra
I typically keep the blinds closed.

I don’t like light 🙁

ELiot
Bright light when you wake up will help you feel awake more. Only when you wake up.

Zebra
But then what do I do?

ELiot
Pick something you want to change and go for it.

The strategy of: “Try X”

It might help to have a notebook paper trail of ideas you have tried

Or thoughts you have had about each problem and how to solve it

Zebra
Most of the things I want to change are hard to change, computer related (and this not really helpful to not feeling terrible and alone), or things I don’t have a good plan for how to change.

ELiot
You have as much to do as you want to. You can make a plan.

Zebra
I guess if I did something computer related it could make money, maybe, but I’d still feel awful. In the longer term it may be helpful, but I’ve tried this before and it is difficult to not get depressed and quit to go cry all day after 30 minutes.

ELiot
Even the meta strategy of “trying to plan” can help

You should write down that idea

It also seems like you apply pressure and expectations above what you have evidence of yourself being capable of.

Zebra
The idea of trying to plan, or?

ELiot
Yes and the “computer thing” idea

You should update on the estimation of your capabilities to be more of a reflection on what you have recently observed you are able to do

Zebra
I have a lot of computer thing ideas. I know pretty specifically how to do them, but sitting it down and typing it out is harder.

Well, I can walk to 7/11 if I put a lot of effort into it.

That’s about it…

ELiot
Which is a way of saying to start small. Reset from the beginning (which is not easy)

Zebra
That doesn’t seem helpful.

ELiot
That’s what your baseline is

Anything upwards is now impressive.

Including this conversation

You have come a long way already

Zebra
Doesn’t feel like it. Starting from walking to 7/11 sounds kind of exhausting and not very enjoyable.

ELiot
But that’s where you are right now

I would say try habit RPG, but I never found it useful to me

Zebra
Yeah, but I mean, back on to the original point, all this seems much harder than trying to work through my hangups about suicide.

ELiot
Possibly, Yes.

All these problems are solveable, But perhaps

What about the possibility of solving the most immediate discomfort at any time?

What is the most immediate discomfort right now?

Zebra
I feel stressed about life being shit generally, I guess.

Which is generally how I feel when I have nothing specific to be stressed about.

ELiot
What can you do about that right now? How can you make life less generally shit for the you that lives 10 minutes in the future?

Or maybe make yourself feel less stressed about it

Zebra
I guess I could try to do some meditation. That used to work, but hasn’t been so much recently.

For the stress part, at least.

I have no idea how to make life immediately less crap in the next ten minutes.

ELiot
I would suggest your environment or hygiene

As they are usually quick low hanging ideas.

Zebra
What sorts of things are you thinking of specifically with regard to those that could be accomplished within 10 minutes?

ELiot
A shower, a little cleaning up your space, changing clothes

Taking out the trash

Zebra
I guess that’s doable.

Zebra
Welp, done that. I suppose I do feel mildly better…

ELiot
That particular strategy is called success spirals. Successfully doing a thing to help the you of the future slightly. One bit at a time.

I should add – if you want to talk about death we should have that talk too

Death, dying, pain

Zebra
Well, death seems somewhat scary in the immediate sense.

Especially death by falling, which is the most low-effort solution for someone living in a high rise building.

ELiot
You need at least 10 floors to be confident of a sudden death

Zebra
More high-effort strategies, like pentobarbital or such, seem more palatable, but not quite as immediately actionable.

I’m on the tenth floor, and I think there’s 20 something.

ELiot
And it depends whether you want to impact others I. E. Seeing you fall and or the body

Zebra
I don’t really care, though obviously I wouldn’t want anyone seeing me “on the ledge” if I couldn’t go through with it.

OTOH, nighttime is a thing.

ELiot
Yes

Zebra
But it’s … scary.

Have you ever been with someone during suicide?

ELiot
No, I recently discouraged someone from taking action in person. They were making rash decisions at the time

Zebra
Ah

ELiot
At least 3 people in my life have come close. They are not all better yet, still in limbo of up and down

I would still encourage you to do the things that you want. Have you read the guilt series by nate soares?

Zebra
No. What is it about?

ELiot
Why we have guilt and defeating it where it’s not appropriate

Zebra
I don’t think I experience a significant amount of guilt.

ELiot
Guilt in the sense of, “should be going out” but “should stay in”. The conflicting desire of parts of you to do different things. And sorting it out
Zebra
Ah, hmm

I will read the Guilt series then…

ELiot
I also went through a period of time when I felt purposeless, I described it as, “everything is meaningless” and it’s bothering me. As distinctly different to, “everything is meaningless and it doesn’t matter”

Zebra
Everything being meaningless doesn’t bother me. I don’t think meaningfulness is a possible thing in any universe. Everything being shitty and empty bothers me, but that’s rather different.

http://mindingourway.com/dont-steer-with-guilt/ <- this?

ELiot
Yes, but that’s the middle of the series, better to start in the beginning

http://mindingourway.com/guilt/

That’s the table of contents

Zebra
Hmm, it’s a pretty good read.

———————————— Later in time……………
Zebra
Finished it. It was long!

I liked it more than Eliezer’s writing. It may even have been potentially useful irl, maybe.

ELiot
do you think you can apply things to your life?

Zebra
Maybe. I’ve been trying to do the breaking things up part.

I made a small amount of money with stupid computer things… I guess that’s a modicum of progress, maybe.

I liked the last part about changing goals. That might be useful.

Visualising bad things seems like a potentially helpful strategy as well.

Zebra
A lot of the techniques do seem effective. Hopefully it will make a positive difference.

———————A long time later————–
ELiot
hey

I promised to get back to you.

how are things?

Zebra
Hi

ELiot
it’s been a while..

Zebra
I’m doing somewhat better. Got on meds for bipolar disorder, which has helped a lot.

Yeah. Been trying to actually do things now, so I feel less stagnant.

ELiot
Oh! great!

Zebra
Hopefully life will end up in a better place than before.

The Problem TM

What is actually the problem? I have a theory, but I also wanted to publish this without declaring my answer. I will share my ideas in a few weeks but I want to know what you think and how you came to that answer.

Meta: this conversation happened over 6 months ago, this took 2 hours to collate, tidy and publish.

Also published on lesswrong here: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nsn/

Part 2: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-analyse-a-conversation-part-2/
Part 2 on lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nt8/the_problem_tm_part_2/

Posted in models of thinking | Tagged analysis, appearance, depression, how, loneliness, problem, suicide, the problem (tm), theory | Leave a comment

BearLamp

Filter on the way in, Filter on the way out…

Moving parts to this system

Who is responsible?

The wild

Compounding factors

Mental models – Giving people personhood and taking it away

Setting up my work environment – Doing the causation backwards

Fridge

TV

Computer shortcuts

Junk food

The meta strategy

Low hanging productivity – improving your workspace

People who lie about how much they eat are jerks

What can we do about it?

The application of the secretary problem to real life dating

Application

A solution to the secretary equation

Opportunity cost

Where it breaks down

Did I do something wrong?

Where does the equation stop working?

Should I break up with my partner?

The meta-strategy – Against the five love languages

Meta-strategy

The problem – analyse a conversation (Part 2)

Some analysis:

Is that bad?

The problem

What next?

Nearest emergency room

Basic plan:

The Problem (TM) – Analyse a conversation

The Problem TM

Search my posts

BearLamp

Recent Posts

Categories

Pages

Moving parts to this system

Who is responsible?

The wild

Compounding factors

Fridge

TV

Computer shortcuts

Junk food

The meta strategy

What can we do about it?

Application

A solution to the secretary equation

Opportunity cost

Where it breaks down

Did I do something wrong?

Where does the equation stop working?

Should I break up with my partner?

Meta-strategy

Some analysis:

Is that bad?

The problem

What next?

Basic plan:

The Problem TM

Search my posts

Tags

Recent Posts

Categories

Pages