February 28th, 2022

edited 2022-02-28 · open in Roam

I'm working on a post called towardsness & awayness motivation aren't symmetric
- related stuff most interpersonal dysfunction doesn't need to be "disincentivised" because it's already only sorta working
- and my first draft has a section in it on reward is just the temporary relief of punishment
  - but as I wrote it I found myself noting that that isn't quite true
  - it's a useful pith but technically sort of incorrect
    - the main reason it's incorrect is that it implies a punisher
      - now in some sense in many cases the punisher is yourself...? hm.
    - Technically "temporary relief of punishment" isn't quite correct. Being in a state of not having enough money isn't inherently a punishment. People tend to psychologically experience it that way, but that's not about the money itself.
  - ANYWAY
  - ultimately I think I'm concluding that in order for my point to not get distracted here or over-critiqued by skeptics, I want to just remove this whole section.
    - aha! but it's easier I think to point at this wrt "rewarding yourself" (by feeling good or with cookies or something)
- scrap
  - Of course, you'll also have to deal with guilt or fear of hell, otherwise there's nowhere that you're safe. Although even if you're going to hell when you die, it seems to me that your body would still want to be in a chill physiological state when you're chilling.
a general theory of seduction
- (piece of writing I haven't yet shared)
How we get there
- described it last night as "a manual for creating pragmatic small-scale utopias"