Discussion
No Magic Pill
_dwt: It’s ok, Harlan, you save up for that baby and don’t let the cult browbeat you over it.(People are fuzzy and while game theory is fun and even sometimes useful, this kind of stuff skeeves me out and I think it lures “smart” people in and gets them to empower the SBFs of the world. My altruism is ineffective and I’m happy that way.)
strken: I'm not convinced setting clear lines is a net positive. A line means digging your heels in. The act of setting a line makes you resistant to change: you anchor your values as they are today, and it comes at the cost of tomorrow.Domestic violence is an obvious line to set, but are you really going to cut a good friend off for not repaying a loan? I would argue that the former is a net good (protects people from abuse) while the latter is a net harm (causes people to abandon their friends when times are bad, without helping to get repaid). I would also argue that most lines fall into the latter category.Setting lines to protect moral, philosophical, or political beliefs seems even worse, because it's preventing you from changing your mind about those things. Once you've set a line, you can't adapt to change as easily. Having criteria for changing your mind is a band-aid over the problem, because those criteria are set by you as you are today, and they're biased by your current beliefs.
my_throwaway23: Most people don't treat their line setting as holy scripture. Besides, nobody stops you from putting your actions on a sliding scale.Did your good friend not repay his loan? Okay, what's the size of the loan, and how did they react when you reminded them? What's the circumstances surrounding the loan itself - did they borrow for the down payment of a mansion, or did they borrow to buy cheese?Also, if you're treating your life as a game theory set piece then perhaps that's a place where you should start making changes. Just sayin'.
groby_b: This is neat in theory, but unworkable in practice.The hard line trigger almost always happens in a wider context. You often want the wider context, but it's impossible to fully define. Let's try a few examples from the article:"Hard line: Annual raise is 0%" -> What if it comes with a much larger stock grant? Or additional paid time off? Or something else you value? Will you really just mechanistically quit?"Hard line: A friend doesn’t repay an $X loan" -> really? What if, say, they lost their job? You want to make friendship contingent on your friends employed. There's a reason there's an adage saying "Don't loan money to a friend, you might need to decide whom you like more"."Hard line: A government blatantly violates a constitutional amendment" -> Not even waiting for a court decision? What if it's Abraham Lincoln suspending Habeas Corpus? Or Wilson enforcing the espionage act, if that's more your political leaning? What if the government first repeals the amendment - will you be pro-slavery if it's made legal?The world isn't a series of if-then statements. Even a hard line requires more than a single condition - at best, that condition reminds you to re-evaluate where you are.
rdevilla: Overly general vibeslopped platitudes.
