The Casting of Leaders notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-04-…
We think of movements as being created by charismatic leaders, but the reverse is true: charismatic leaders are created by movements as an enabling technology to provide a sense of agency that large groups otherwise lack.
We think of movements as being created by charismatic leaders, but the reverse is true: charismatic leaders are created by movements as an enabling technology to provide a sense of agency that large groups otherwise lack.
Care Work and Fixing Things notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-04-…
Work naturally divides into doing the endless series of predictable individually little things, and fixing the occasional bigger things that crop up unexpectedly. Both are essential but we handle the split badly.
Work naturally divides into doing the endless series of predictable individually little things, and fixing the occasional bigger things that crop up unexpectedly. Both are essential but we handle the split badly.
Ritual and Freedom notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Once you have acquired a measure of self-control, it becomes very hard to freely express yourself because that possibility of control is always there. In order to counterbalance that, we create spaces for that self-expression.
Once you have acquired a measure of self-control, it becomes very hard to freely express yourself because that possibility of control is always there. In order to counterbalance that, we create spaces for that self-expression.
On not behaving like other people notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Experts in a niche subject are usually going to be weird in ways that make them much more interesting. Additionally, there are good reasons for them to lean into their weirdness. We might as well embrace that.
Experts in a niche subject are usually going to be weird in ways that make them much more interesting. Additionally, there are good reasons for them to lean into their weirdness. We might as well embrace that.
Strategy, reliability, and impersonality notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Exploration of three constructs (Impersonal/Personal, Reliable/Unreliable, Strategy/Goal), ending with a meditation on how we use other people for reliability when we could build it into the environment.
Exploration of three constructs (Impersonal/Personal, Reliable/Unreliable, Strategy/Goal), ending with a meditation on how we use other people for reliability when we could build it into the environment.
Adoptive Identities notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Some people are part of communities where they lack the distinguishing identity of that community. This often sucks for them, and it would, in some cases, be helpful to consider them to have "adoptive" versions of that identity.
Some people are part of communities where they lack the distinguishing identity of that community. This often sucks for them, and it would, in some cases, be helpful to consider them to have "adoptive" versions of that identity.
Numbers and Feelings notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
In which I attempt to do some maths and mostly just end up having a whole bunch of feelings. Very stream of consciousness. Probably doesn't make much sense. Written more for me than for you.
In which I attempt to do some maths and mostly just end up having a whole bunch of feelings. Very stream of consciousness. Probably doesn't make much sense. Written more for me than for you.
Model Monocropping notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
We tend to think in terms of there being "true" models of the world, and to want everyone to adopt our own models as a result, but a healthy ecosystem requires many potentially-incompatible models that we fluidly switch between at need.
We tend to think in terms of there being "true" models of the world, and to want everyone to adopt our own models as a result, but a healthy ecosystem requires many potentially-incompatible models that we fluidly switch between at need.
Making Success Trivial notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Recurring habits benefit from setting the bar for success set as low as you possibly can. This will possibly reveal reasons why you don't want to do the habit, and fixing those will lower the bar further yet.
Recurring habits benefit from setting the bar for success set as low as you possibly can. This will possibly reveal reasons why you don't want to do the habit, and fixing those will lower the bar further yet.
Cleaning up the fnords in your environment notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
A poorly cared for environment fills with fnords (things that provoke anxiety which you learn not to see). Reversing the neglect requires dealing with the fnords, so the very notion of care becomes aversive.
A poorly cared for environment fills with fnords (things that provoke anxiety which you learn not to see). Reversing the neglect requires dealing with the fnords, so the very notion of care becomes aversive.
Easy Changes and Uncomfortable Reflections notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
If a change to your life is easy and successful, this can prompt guilt and shame over the fact that you didn't change before. This is a mistake as often a change is easy only after doing the work to make it so.
If a change to your life is easy and successful, this can prompt guilt and shame over the fact that you didn't change before. This is a mistake as often a change is easy only after doing the work to make it so.
Separating Impulse from Action notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
I impulse buy too many books. By creating a default list and scheduling a task to make a book purchase from that list every Sunday I can separate the impulse to buy from the action of buying, getting the habit under control.
I impulse buy too many books. By creating a default list and scheduling a task to make a book purchase from that list every Sunday I can separate the impulse to buy from the action of buying, getting the habit under control.
Initial Notes Towards a Manifesto notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
I was asked to write a manifesto, but I didn't really feel like doing the whole thing, so here are some thoughts on what I want for the world and I'm trying to do, especially with my writing on the notebook blog.
I was asked to write a manifesto, but I didn't really feel like doing the whole thing, so here are some thoughts on what I want for the world and I'm trying to do, especially with my writing on the notebook blog.
How to be a better person notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Studying ethics doesn't make you a better person. Why? Because ethics is actually theory of ethics. To be a better person you need a practice of ethics, which shows you how to overcome the things stopping you from being better.
Studying ethics doesn't make you a better person. Why? Because ethics is actually theory of ethics. To be a better person you need a practice of ethics, which shows you how to overcome the things stopping you from being better.
Building and Rebuilding Foundational Skills notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
When learning, we progress when we can rather than when we are ready to. This causes us to get stuck with being bad t at some things we find easy. Some thoughts on how to fix that in the context of #Couchto5K.
When learning, we progress when we can rather than when we are ready to. This causes us to get stuck with being bad t at some things we find easy. Some thoughts on how to fix that in the context of #Couchto5K.
Why are things hard? notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
I still think "How to do hard things" a good post about a good system, but it misses out on a lot. Things can be hard for all sorts of reasons (emotional, social, time, health, etc) and it can be difficult to cleanly separate them.
I still think "How to do hard things" a good post about a good system, but it misses out on a lot. Things can be hard for all sorts of reasons (emotional, social, time, health, etc) and it can be difficult to cleanly separate them.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
People have this confused notion that reading is the abstract flow of information fed directly into your brain, but reading is an active physical process done by a real human being, and changing physical details can have a huge impact on how easy it is.
People have this confused notion that reading is the abstract flow of information fed directly into your brain, but reading is an active physical process done by a real human being, and changing physical details can have a huge impact on how easy it is.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
If joy is connected to taking pleasure in surprise then deep emotional experiences, even sadness, can be joyful, but the eternal now of pandemic time robs the world of this joy. I'm not really sure what we can do about that, but I have some vague ideas.
If joy is connected to taking pleasure in surprise then deep emotional experiences, even sadness, can be joyful, but the eternal now of pandemic time robs the world of this joy. I'm not really sure what we can do about that, but I have some vague ideas.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
The question "What is love?" is hard to pin down, but the more concrete you make it the more is revealed. One thing that is revealed is that there are two types of uncertainty around the question: What counts as love is fuzzy, but it is also contested.
The question "What is love?" is hard to pin down, but the more concrete you make it the more is revealed. One thing that is revealed is that there are two types of uncertainty around the question: What counts as love is fuzzy, but it is also contested.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
People develop knowledge in communities. When those communities are under attack, often that knowledge will be kept from outsiders for safety reasons. Orders that are about promoting "sincerity" can be about painting this hidden knowledge as immoral.
People develop knowledge in communities. When those communities are under attack, often that knowledge will be kept from outsiders for safety reasons. Orders that are about promoting "sincerity" can be about painting this hidden knowledge as immoral.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Acedia is the sin that got deprecated in favour of sloth, and corresponds to a kind of... emotional disconnection from sources of meaning. This post is just a bunch of references to sources on it and vague thoughts on the subject.
Acedia is the sin that got deprecated in favour of sloth, and corresponds to a kind of... emotional disconnection from sources of meaning. This post is just a bunch of references to sources on it and vague thoughts on the subject.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
In which I over-theorise about learning to use a seam ripper to disassemble a pair of trousers.
In which I over-theorise about learning to use a seam ripper to disassemble a pair of trousers.
drmaciver.substack.com/p/life-as-nonp…
My first official newsletter entry! I'd like to avoid becoming a productivity guru, so I begin the official newsletter with a post about Total Work and how to avoid it.
My first official newsletter entry! I'd like to avoid becoming a productivity guru, so I begin the official newsletter with a post about Total Work and how to avoid it.
It's my birthday, so I'll write slightly self-indulgently angsty notebook posts if I want to. notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
It's tempting to complain that the audience is reacting unfairly to you, and maybe they are, but if you want to actually achieve something you need to work with the audience's reactions as they are rather than demand that they react differently.
It's tempting to complain that the audience is reacting unfairly to you, and maybe they are, but if you want to actually achieve something you need to work with the audience's reactions as they are rather than demand that they react differently.
Bonus post for today, as I try to articulate one of the things about the pandemic that's been causing me the most difficulty recently.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Misc thoughts on the interplay between moral development and emotional health, largely overspill from drafting the next newsletter post.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Here's a bonus notebook post about how I (mostly, with caveats included in post) fixed my anxiety.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
"How to read a book" thinks it's important that you should know what type of book you're reading. I think this is mostly a waste of time and you should engage with books on an individual basis.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
We think of the emotional structure of morality as mostly about negative reactions to our moral failings, but there are also positive reactions to our moral successes, and focusing on those will help drive us to be better people.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
There are foundational skills that we don't notice we're bad at because by the time we start feeling the effects they're thoroughly entrenched, so we think of them as intrinsic features and/or the effects of ageing. Using your feet right is one such skill. notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Second newsletter out this morning! Continuing the Total Work series by describing one of the underlying emotional features of burnout and how it might arise as a result of a protracted period of caring too much without being able to act on it.
drmaciver.substack.com/p/burnout-as-a…
drmaciver.substack.com/p/burnout-as-a…
Social power within a community provides control over the means of legitimisation of knowledge within that community. When power is rooted in identity, this allows dominant groups to refuse to legitimise knowledge from the marginalised.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Also PSA posts this week will be extra "Here's some stuff!" because I'm focusing extra hard on PhD work so will be relying very heavily on random prompting and offhand commentary based on it.
Marketing fills our world with prototypes that we can compare with to interpret our visual experience, deliberately shaping our skill of interpretation into one that makes us easier to sell things to.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
In which I continue to be extremely mad about The Inner Game of Tennis and explain why it's wrong about almost everything and is advocating for an extremely dysfunctional relationship with yourself.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Games are good for honing particular ways of being in the world, but this is precisely because the lessons you learn in a game are not universally applicable, and games can never teach you the fundamental skill of figuring out what game you're playing.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
I was in a weird mood today and then got slightly drunk and decided to write a weird self-indulgent notebook post which then took a slightly weirder and more angsty turn as it went on.
I probably shouldn't post this TBH, but eh, what're you going to do?
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
I probably shouldn't post this TBH, but eh, what're you going to do?
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Your team should get better rather than worse in response to the endless stream of defects that are a normal part of software development. Both "Defects are the fault of programmers" and "Defects are not the fault of programmers" fail to achieve this.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
Your relationship with what you see doesn't just change what you think about it. Vision is an active process of looking, so which details you are drawn to depends on your prior knowledge. What you think literally changes what you see.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
I've talked before about the social norms that prevent being good at things, but in this post I explore some norms that can *promote* being good at things.
(Much less spicy than I promised, sorry)
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
(Much less spicy than I promised, sorry)
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-…
For some reason I thought writing a detailed worked example of me applying the various tools in my emotional toolkit to the question of why I'm not working on my PhD would be a nice easy post to phone in after paper writing. I'm an idiot.
drmaciver.substack.com/p/why-am-i-not…
drmaciver.substack.com/p/why-am-i-not…
Being friends with your coworkers makes everything better, but the systems we have for creating these friendships also end up reinforcing systems of marginalisation, and I have no idea what to do about that and am kinda hoping someone else does.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Emotions are weird and confusing, right? Here are some principles I use to make them less weird and confusing, and to improve my emotional life by e.g. reducing anxiety.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Quick entry today. Some miscellaneous musings on books, TV shows, and shared cultural objects that "everyone" is aware of. notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
In today's episode of "Everything is Connected" I talk about the connection between virtue ethics and growing potatoes.
(It's "Potatoes are complicated and so are ethics and we try to make both seem much simpler than they are")
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
(It's "Potatoes are complicated and so are ethics and we try to make both seem much simpler than they are")
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Some thoughts on the nature of knowledge and decision making and what positive and negative test results for COVID-19 do and don't tell us.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Thinking of computers and software as basically an information management bureaucracy in a box will go a long way towards helping you understand how they work and why everything is so much harder than it seems like it should be.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
This week's letter is about how complaining is good, and being able to complain about problems to your colleagues is vital, and sketches out what a healthy culture of complaint in the workplace might look like.
drmaciver.substack.com/p/you-should-c…
drmaciver.substack.com/p/you-should-c…
Daily writing is very good, and a lot of other people are getting on board with this. Here's a short guide on how to do it, elaborating on why to do it, how to tell if it's working for you, and how to overcome some of the practical difficulties.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
A book (or other document) is best thought of not as information conveyed, but a tool for thinking with, and the thoughts you have with it depend on both the book and on how you use it.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
We have a tendency to treat the world as more dependent on social reality than it is. Sometimes this works out well, but sometimes it ends up with us trying to argue with a volcano (or a pandemic), and that isn't the best of plans.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Writing style is very important but if you think it can make any story interesting you're probably distorting the story to fit the style. Don't do that. It's bad.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Predictions easily turn into norms: If a behaviour causes us to predict that someone is a bad person, people who want to be seen as good will avoid that behaviour, which accelerates the process. Often these behaviours are important, so this sucks.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Perhaps the reason we punish some people who are being helpful is that we can tell full well that they're more interested in how their help looks than whether it helps, and the threat of punishment is incentive to consult the local experts before helping.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Sadposting about the difficulty in moving offline-first friendships into online-first ones that's been forced on us by the pandemic.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
People have a wide variety of different backgrounds, and advice tends to be optimised for a generic model human that ignores this diversity. It can be worth taking a step back and asking if this is causing you to ignore easier or better approaches.
drmaciver.substack.com/p/unusual-foun…
drmaciver.substack.com/p/unusual-foun…
A very short note on survivor's guilt, because I have absolutely no spoons for a longer post today.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Retraction thread.
I have absolutely no desire to write a notebook post today and have been through about a dozen book prompts and gone "ugh" to each of them. I offer this Twitter thread as my writing contribution for the day.
We have competing voices of conscience, which will inevitably disagree with each other. Most of us experience this process as very unpleasant, so avoid it. If we want to be morally better, we need to get better at moderating these internal conflicts.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Green talks about how a "culture of suspicion" in which everyone is assumed to be hopelessly partial prohibits the possibility of being part of a public together. I think he's basically right and wrote a bunch of words being sad about it.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
(I'm skipping writing a post today due to low grade health issues that are making me pretty nonfunctional)
Studying history *heavily* over-represents information that leaves records, which is often propaganda. You probably shouldn't give significantly more credence to historical information sources than you do to modern journalists (i.e. some, but carefully).
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
Technical experts' attitude to non-experts is necessarily somewhat ambivalent, because experts are part of a community where status is defined by expertise, but ultimately their expertise matters because of its usefulness to non-experts.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
An extremely minimal post about how speech and writing are different (duh).
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
A book is a tool for thinking with, and is almost endlessly reusable as such. You never really get to a point where you *can't* get more out of it, but it's very easy to get to a point where you're no longer interested in doing so.
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-06-…
