Ran Prieur

January 15.

2019-01-15T15:10:44Z

January 15. I've been meaning to post this for a month: Why willpower is overrated. It's a great article about the surprising evidence that self-control and willpower are different things.

More precisely, there are people who report having high self-control, and there are people who do well on cognitive tests measuring the power of the mind to overrule habit and instinct -- but there's little or no correlation between those groups. People who actually exercise a lot of willpower to get through the day, are not more successful, only more depleted.

The most likely explanation: people who report high self-control are experiencing less temptation. Somehow, they just have more overlap between what they're supposed to be doing and what they feel like doing.

Here I would add a distinction between positive and negative willpower: forcing yourself to do stuff, vs stopping yourself from doing stuff. Those seem to me like different skills, because I'm not much tempted by vices, but my life sometimes feels like climbing a mountain of chores.

Of course these problems are caused by human society. Wild animals have no conflict between what they feel like doing and what's good for them to do -- unless they're facing a trap. We have accidentally turned our world into a trap for human nature, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

So our best move is to change our inner worlds, so that our feelings and habits lead us more often in the right direction. I'm not sure how to do that, but I think it's possible.

By the way, those "very hard" cognitive tests in the article are easy for me. I'm not sure what to make of that.

January 11.

2019-01-11T23:30:06Z

January 11. Stray links. Iron Is the New Cholesterol, with elevated iron being linked to a bunch of diseases. It seems to only be a problem for people whose bodies can't regulate iron absorption, but there's not much room for error, because the only way we lose iron is by bleeding. That's why I donate blood. I mean, it's nice to help people, but even if they dumped it down the drain, I would still do it. Psychologically, it feels like an oil change, and physically, for a few days after, I get stronger highs from weed, and food tastes better.

International System of Units overhauled in historic vote. The kilogram, the ampere, the kelvin, and the mole used to be defined by measuring actual objects, and from now on they'll be defined according to scientific constants. I can't put my finger on it, but this seems metaphysically important, as if science is now untethered from matter, and drifting in a realm of mind -- or fixed in a realm of mind, while the world of matter changes and no one notices.

The year social networks were no longer social. The idea is, internet communities used to be based on people having common interests. Then Facebook ruined everything, redefining social networks as everyone you know, and everyone who knows them, and so on, whether or not you have anything in common. That trend has gone too far, and the author wants us to go back to private communities based on common interests -- but he doesn't say it's actually happening. When a social critic says "it's time" to do something, you can be pretty sure that the best time to do it was in the past, and the time it will actually be done is in the future.

And a scary reddit thread, What's the most "Black Mirror" thing that's actually happening?

January 9.

2019-01-09T21:10:31Z

January 9. Taking another angle on Monday's subject, the thing that's really bothering me lately, about most TV and movies, is how the reactions of the characters are so rote, so mindlessly fixed. Once someone is established as a certain kind of person, you always know what they're going to do, even down to their tone of voice.

Then it occurred to me, most of us are doing the same thing, internally. Just like hack writers, we think we're making creative choices, when really we're following rules that we're not even consciously aware of. It reminds me of something Gurdjieff said, that most human psychology is just mechanics. Of course the cure is mindfulness, to watch inside yourself, notice those rules and habits, and practice doing things differently.

Back to fiction, here's a definition of the difference between comedy and tragedy: Tragedy is where the characters do exactly what they're expected to do, and it destroys them; comedy is where the characters do surprising things, and it makes them happy.

January 7.

2019-01-07T19:50:00Z

January 7. After last week's post I got some great feedback, including the idea that ritual is related to mindfulness -- which sounds right, but it also sounds right that rituals are mindless. So I'm not sure, but probably different things are getting bundled into the same word.

Anyway, Kevin mentions the tightness of American social rituals, all the things you have to do exactly right to not be considered weird. And that reminds me of this classic Adam Curtis post from 2011, Learning To Hug. It's about how television tells us how to be emotionally authentic, in a way that's full of hidden rules and ultimately artificial.

And that goes back to what I thought was an off-topic post about Mortal Engines. In the books, Hester Shaw is surly, moody, fierce, and mostly selfish. She's a great character and she stays that way. In the movie she starts out a little bit like that, and soon becomes a normal Hollywood Hero. In the book, Thaddeus Valentine is morally complex, and the movie makes him a normal Hollywood Villain.

Now, Curtis is talking about real people behaving in a fake way when they know they're on television, and I'm talking about screenwriters and directors making fictional characters bland and predictable. But they all have the same motivation: in front of an audience, they're afraid of being weird.

I think this is an unexpected danger of technology. Our primate ancestors needed some urge for conformity, to keep their tribes stable. Now, high-tech media has made all humans into one tribe, with only one way to be human. And what's it like?

We already know that crowdsourcing ruins creativity. This TED Talk covers some evidence. So my thesis is that when a culture, through technology, increases the number of people who are all watching each other, normal human behavior becomes less alive, and the culture declines.

But my next thought is, there's plenty of entertainment modeling human behavior that's more real and interesting, when you move from blockbusters toward movies and TV made for niche audiences, and when you move from serious fiction toward comedy. So maybe the global monoculture, rather than being doomed, can stay alive if it keeps integrating stuff from the edges.

January 5.

2019-01-05T17:30:58Z

January 5. So last night Leigh Ann and I went to see Mortal Engines in the theater. Philip Reeve's four-book Mortal Engines series is my favorite sci-fi of this century, with brilliant world-building, good storytelling, sharp characters, and a fun breezy style. The movie is well cast, which must be the easiest thing to do in book-to-movie adaptations. And the CGI really brings Reeve's world to life.

Otherwise it sucks. They change the book's story in dumber and dumber ways until it's basically Star Wars, and the characters and dialogue are worse than daytime TV. In one scene, a sad Frankenstein-like cyborg looks at a metal doll and says, "It has no heart.... like me." Everything in this movie is that obvious.

I even gave it the benefit of seeing it high. When I watch a great TV show high, like Scream Queens, I can see how every detail sparkles with creative zest: the set design, the music, the expressions of the actors. But Mortal Engines, except for the CGI, is just flat.

By the way, a few months ago I negatively reviewed the TV show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and I've changed my mind. I still think it's flawed, but it gets better, especially episodes 8 and 9, where it has the chance to go really dark, and backs off to still pretty dark. And there's just something about it that makes me look forward to watching it, which is rare.

January 3.

2019-01-03T15:10:27Z

January 3. The other day I wondered "whether my immunity to ritual is related to my life-long struggles with motivation." Now I'll explain what I meant. When I see people doing a ritual, I'm like "Why are they wasting time on that boring and unnecessary behavior?" They must be getting something out of it that I can't see. Thus my definition:

A ritual is a highly predictable behavior, which might seem like a chore to people who don't understand it, but actually energizes the people who do it. Or, a ritual is an engine for turning activity into motivation.

On a personal level, I suspect that physical rituals don't work for me because of my poor mind-body integration. I have to use a lot of conscious attention to not constantly bump into things, and even after 25 years of flossing my teeth every night, it's still not something I feel like doing. Meanwhile, it seems like other people can get into a groove, where their body just does the right thing without guidance from their head, and where familiar physical actions feel good to them.

There are a lot of other directions to go with this. How are mental rituals different from physical rituals? How are rituals different from habits, including bad habits? Where do games fit in? How are rituals related to culture, to childhood imprinting, to personality?

Is our civilization failing because useful activity has been de-ritualized, so that it feels draining instead of energizing? How do rituals compare with other ways of motivating people, like grand narratives or reward-and-punishment?

Finally, a sci-fi idea. What if we had a technology to instantly make behaviors compulsive? Like you zap your head while washing a dish, and suddenly you love washing dishes. That would solve the problem of low motivation, and create more dangerous problems.

January 1, 2019.

2019-01-01T13:50:43Z

January 1, 2019. New Year's Day, and thinking about metaphors in the spectacle. A Rose Bowl ref just leapt and caught the string of a balloon, and popped it. The gif will surely be a meme. As an omen for 2019, what could it represent? The triumph of authority over fun? Or the triumph of good management over distraction?