I think it all started on a family trip to India when I was 13. Beggars without legs rolled up to me and I found it heart wrenching. My parents said amputee beggars often had their limbs removed just to make more money.   I reflected on this as I fell asleep in 3-4 star hotels, digested heavy Indian curries and waddled through temples. Where was the logic?  How could it make sense for me to enjoy while they suffered when the same dollar amount could buy more happiness for them?
I tried on this optimization, the most marginal happiness per dollar, and quickly felt overwhelming complexity and fear enter my mind. Everywhere I turned it felt like the good things in my life had no justification. It’s as if the supporting waters keeping my happy life afloat was a sea of justifications, unfathomably deep, and considering this optimization had pulled the cork out of the drain on the sea floor and water was rushing away. First my frivolous purchases where beached and inaccessible, then my very travel to this place was on dry land and now unjustifiable. I could see most of the rest of my life sinking fast and so I quickly replaced the stopper and let my life and its premises float freely again, albeit at a slightly lower level.

I’ve left that stopper in, using phrases like:

“It’s their life, I can’t be responsible for everyone.”
“It’s impossible to be happy if one considers others’ happiness co-equal.”
“Will my friends call my a hypocrite or worse if I live differently or raise questions?”
“If I can be considered generous by my peers, that is enough.”
“Some of us need to be rich so we can innovate for everyone, poor included.”

I look around and everyone else seems to have many happy things floating on their seas and things are going great. It makes me wonder what possessed me to pull the cork at all.  Perhaps it’s something wrong with me. Maybe the inadequacy complex of western society combined with my family’s survivalist, never-quite-okay approach has resulted in me finding a complex external problem with which to justify my internal disconnection. That is certainly a component J. Yet still I feel there is a truth and a logic in these feelings when one takes what we hold dear to a natural conclusion.

I think the difficulty is in finding a middle.  Optimizing for self and close connections is natural.  Giving self totally to the needs of others has a quiet, logical wholeness to it.  However, considering the needs of self, those close and those far is overwhelming.  At least with the tools currently at our disposal.  But I’ve gone on long enough and can post on new emotional tools next time.  What are your thoughts on this stark contrast?

“God, it’ll take all night to finish this paper” is a statement that commonly assumes:
1) That you can finish the paper in a night
2) That the paper thus finished will be adequate
3) That there is nothing more pressing than finishing this paper

If all those are true, then you have 3 impressive successes that this complaint relies on. Something to reflect happily on as you get the 3rd cup of coffee.

The order complaints come up can be telling and I often use it to rate business ideas. Nearly any business idea I float to friends results in one of the following phrases:

1) “Customers won’t use it”
2) “We can’t build it”
3) “It won’t make money”
4) “Some people will dislike it”
5) “It wouldn’t really help the world”
6) “Something else would help the world more”

Interestingly, I think people start from the top of that list and then reply with the first complaint that seems valid. This means I can instantly know that if a friend says “It won’t make money,” then the friend things it will be buildable and usable! I also find this a handy way to rank business ideas with the higher numbers being better for the world.

For example: dreamers just satisfy level 1 and struggling businesses satisfy level 2. Payday loan companies satisfy level 3 but fall victim to 4. Many businesses are happy teetering on level 4: making money with few detractors. Google purports to “Do No Evil” and satisfy level 5. Social entrepreneurs try to satisfy level 6 and beat all the complaints.

Current, pressing complaints are what most people focus on. It is somehow easy to forget about having overcome all one’s previous hardships. However, there are two kinds of people that I have noticed don’t forget: happy people and entrepreneurs. I have noticed that any person who is generally happy often has a painful complaint in the past that they are now safe from. Whenever they get down, they remind themselves of this stark contrast and are positive again. I’ve also seen a seemingly-hypocritical way that successful entrepreneurs can be satisfied with little yet desirous of more at the same time. They freely shift between deriving peace from the complaints of the past they’ve beaten and getting worked up over complaints about “how much better” something could be and striving for it. It would seem that a focus on both of these issues would provide a centering calm and I think for many an old soul it does, but successful entrepreneurs freely switch between them, mixing calm and excitement to their taste.

What hierarchies of complaints have you experienced? Are there any successes hiding within your complaints?

We all try to convince.  But some people use techniques that later make the listener feel like “I was told one thing, but the reality is something else.”  These aren’t lies, per say.  Lies are outright false statements, known to be untrue by the speaker and, often, verifiably untrue with some research.  The type of manipulations I’m talking about are “true” in the strict legal definition, a fact which hides their deeper miscommunication.

“You could make millions!”
“Lose 30 pounds in 30 days!”

Some of the most common lies are by percentage chance.  Lotteries, casinos, CEO’s, and anyone selling you on upside will tell that there is amazing potential and a good-enough chance of getting it.  The excitement for the result often overwhelms the consideration of likelihood.  To avoid this trap: determine the past success ratio, ie how many people started the process vs got the advertised result and assume your fate will be statistically similar.

“Payday loans help poor people get needed credit.”
“My proposal creates jobs”

One powerful way to convince people is to focus only on the parts of reality that support your argument.  For instance, there are a small number of people who responsibly use payday loans and pay them off before they accumulate high interest fees.  The defenders of payday loans highlight this case yet, in reality, payday loans have proven so destructive that the military has banned them < http://usmilitary.about.com/od/millegislation/a/paydayloans.htm>.  To avoid: Write down the opposite of the given statement, separately attempt to prove each is true, and examine the balance of believability.

“This is what most people in your job make”
“Our recon indicated the attack was justified.”

Saying something that the person can’t verify (or would have to risk the entire relationship to verify) forces people to accept the statement because it’s too much psychological energy to distrust someone without a solid reason. To avoid: investigate claims and doubt unverifiable statements.

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
“We’re a leading company.”

Redefining terms is a way to say something defensible while giving someone else a very different idea.  Bill Clinton later said that “sexual relations” meant intercourse however most people would think of it as “any sexual contact” which he had been denying.  To avoid: know the speakers’ and the laws’ definitions and replace words with accurate terms before you judge a statement.

“You won’t have to worry about free time once this company goes public!”
“This injustice will be solved as part of the Glorious Revolution”

Making personal goals dependent on a shared goal puts the drive usually reserved for personal goals into the shared goal. This can be a powerful force for good and ill.  Most revolutions and companies are powered by these dependent goals.  However, sometimes an authority figure encourages this behavior when it isn’t in the persons’ interest.   To avoid: consider whether doing this increases or decreases the chance of your personal goal getting fulfilled.  Handy trick: when you’re tired in bed in the morning, think of everything in your day depending on putting two feet on the floor now.

“I agree it’s not perfect, but we’re running a company/country/etc here and it’s the best we can do.”
“If we made the change you suggest, it would actually make things worse.”

An insidious manipulation is the idea that something better cannot be achieved, or even hoped for.  There are constraints and compromises in the world but removing someone’s hope for something better is a common way of quashing dissent. To avoid: watch similar companies/countries; if others do it, it’s possible.

Thoughts?  Comments?

Reading about business people, especially Richard Branson, I realized that successful people will try something, fail, try something else, fail, learn, try something else and then succeed.

As I’d read this, I’d think to myself “That sounds exhausting! Failing constantly! It must be frustrating.” As I continued reading and growing in my professional life, I reached a conclusion: successful people still feel frustration from failure, but they do something different with it, and this is part of why they (later) succeed.

Originally, when something in my life didn’t work as expected, I would feel:
“That didn’t work.” “Man, what happened?” “I suck.” “I shouldn’t even be trying to do this.” “How does everyone else do this? Dah.” “I give up, for now at least.”

With more reflection, I broke it down into sequential feelings, which I’ll call a “thought chain”. Mine was:

I failed… so..

• I made a mistake so…
  • I’m not good at this so
    • I’m a bad person so
      • I feel bad so
        • I want to distract myself
        • I don’t want to feel this way again so
          • I don’t want to fail at this again so
            • I don’t want to try again

As I read about CEOs and big thinking types, I saw in their actions a different thought chain:

I failed… so..

• I didn’t understand something about this process
  • I need to learn something to get it right next time
    • I’ll examine others who got it right
    • I’ll read the directions/books about how to do this
• Some other person lead to this not work
  • Identify and talk to that person
• Some random event made this not work
  • Try again
• I made a mistake
  • IF: Others make this same mistake and eventually succeed
    • Then this seems doable
      • See what others are doing and emulate
    • Simply try again
  • IF: Others don’t make this mistake
    • Check again what differences exist between myself and those correctly performing (assumption: same situation-> same result)
      • IF: there isn’t a clear difference between them and I
        • Feel I am not good at XXX
          • Decide to do something I am good at
          • (very low probability) Decide that I am a bad person (and thus: feel bad, distract myself, stop trying)

I like to think of the frustration as emotional energy that is then routed along one of the above thought chains and eventually results in an action being taken. The resulting action will likely make you more successful (ie trying again, examining others, etc) or less successful (ie distracting oneself, avoiding failure by not trying again, etc).

So how do we turn frustration into success? By re-routing the energy that comes from frustration. Whenever you feel a thought chain leading to “I’m a bad person” you should probably turn it around and route that energy into something more likely to succeed. Look at others, re-evaluating if the current task is the best way to achieve the given aim, and simply trying again are much better places to set your mind. It isn’t easy, but I do find it works. What do you think?

First, a little history.  I’m 29, graduated Stanford with a Computer Science degree in 2002, and worked for two websites, Tickle.com and Bebo.com.  I learned a bunch about social networking, how to run a web business and how to get people to click on things.  At Bebo, I became a manager and earned enough to take a break.

My last day was Dec 31st, 2009. I took a 3-month world trip to see friends, did a 1-week Buddhist retreat and now I’m home in San Francisco thinking about the future.

I’ve had so many thoughts about what I need, what the world needs, and what’s newly possible at this time.  If I had to give a few high-level bullets they might be:

• At this point in my career, I don’t need to focus on making money; I’d like to focus on making meaning.
• The best way to make meaning is to bring people happiness.  The deeper and longer-lasting the happiness and the more people you bring it to, the better.
• My past job was understanding complex systems and making simple solutions that work.  I’ve done this in technology and in management.
• I think the biggest block to happiness in the developed world is ourselves.  People not knowing how to focus their energy for the long term happiness of themselves and the people around them.
• I think the world is ripe for change.  More than ever you find:
  • Books looking into how people really work
  • Fresh focus on happiness over productivity
  • Expanding consciousness of other peoples and the environment
  • Growing disillusionment with simplistic and traditional systems of us-vs-them thinking
  • I’ve thought about these issues for years.  I feel that now is the time to really delve into them and see what I can learn and, perhaps, create.

This is some high-level stuff, but that’s the purpose of this blog.  It will help me to clearly lay out my ideas and I hope very much to get your feedback.  I think the resulting understanding and inspiration will be worth the work.

As I write this blog, I will be continuing to research these topics, improve my technology skills and rejuvenate myself.  My hope is that the ideas in this blog and my own abilities will come together within 2010 and result in worthwhile mental architecture, companies and systems for human interaction.

So, dear reader, tell me your thoughts on this post and what you’d like us to talk about next. Comment below or, if you like, email me at blog at-symbol darius . com.

Is Robin Hood evil?

Rich man held up on the road: “Yes, he’s evil, he took my money! What if he took YOUR money?” EVIL
Community at large: “Robin Hood is the best, he gives us money that the rich don’t need anyways.” GOOD
Society: “Well, he violates our laws, thus he’s bad.  We can’t have people robbing willy-nilly.” EVIL

So it would seem that the same action, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, is evil, then good, then evil again as you expand the scope of people you talk to and needs you optimize for.

Now, some high-level thoughts:

Every “evil” act benefits one entity at the too-great expense of another.   If a bandit raids a farmer’s cellar, the bandit eats while the farmer loses his hard-earned food.

Every “good” act benefits one entity without harming another excessively.  If a farmer spends a day in the fields helping his crops grow, that is good.

So, the real question is whether an act “harms another excessively.”

Cigarette companies

Let’s take cigarette companies’ executives’ decision to promote a product they knew was likely to result in early death for their customers.  Evil or not?

I think it comes down to whether you believe “doing everything legal to increase sales of a product that is likely to kill people” is “harming another excessively”.  The executive who made those decisions will say that the rule for what is excessive is set by the law and that people don’t have to buy their cigarettes.  So in their minds, the answer is “no, it’s not”.  However, many people think that aggressively selling a dangerous product IS harming others excessively, thus evil.

“But Darius, this is obvious stuff, cigarette companies and Robin Hood, c’mon.  Give me something interesting.”  Very well, lets it break down.

I think you can separate out the benefits and harms of an action into groups of people, time horizons and care factors.  Let’s try it out:

Effect of cigarette companies’ decisions

(time horizon is long-term, numbers made up)

Then you apply care factors:

Cigarette company decision equation: (Smokers’ Health=1,  Cigarette Company Profits=1000)
(loss of life) * 1  + (Make millions more) * 1000 > (lose less life) * 1 + (Make millions less) * 1000

Concerned citizen decision equation: (Smokers’ Healthy=1000,  Cigarette Company Profits=1)
(loss of life) * 1000  + (Make millions more) * 1 < (lose less life) * 1000 + (Make millions less) * 1

I think the above difference in the care factor is the true reason that cigarette companies can say they feel that they aren’t “harming another excessively”.  In their equation, the benefit to themselves outweighs the harm to their customers.  However, many people and indeed the government eventually, agree with the latter equation that takes the needs of customers into account more.  I think that often by breaking down decisions to people, time horizons and care factors, you can understand “evil” decisions faster and address them.

Some quick other thoughts:

• I think the history of justice is one of increasing the care factors on distant parties.  We have increased the care factor  by which we multiply the needs of minorities, the environment, the disabled and more over the last 100 years.
• Getting drunk makes less sense if you’re optimizing for 24 hrs than just 4 hrs.
• Adults and kids often disagree about the time horizons to optimize against.
• Having a child dramatically alters the core optimizations of people, time horizon and care factors.

Thanks for getting through my first post, feedback welcomed.