Tricks and negotiations
Mar. 29th, 2006 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I am continually fascinated by the notion of having to outwit one's future self, though I don't have the sort of cunning, puzzle-oriented mind that I'd need to be very good at the problem. It's surprisingly easy, if all you need is to do something you think you'll regret later ('all', I say, as if that really weren't so dangerous or powerful), but much harder to set things up so that later you'll be forced to perform some action that you want to now, but know you won't want to then. The you afterward knows all of your tricks.
I've tried a lot of tactics, for instance, over the years, to convince myself to get up in the morning - moving the alarm clock around in the room so that I have to wake up to find it, pinning sticky notes to the clock face exhorting compliance, setting it to earlier than I need, so that I'll keep putting it a little bit forward and get used to waking up by degrees - but I've never found more than a temporary solution. Possibly the only real fix would be to develop a routine like I used to have at 16 or so, up every day at seven and into the shower before I can even consider alternatives, but that in itself would require a lengthly and difficult battle with myself to implement. As it is, I still go through periods where every morning finds me rushing through my breakfast or skipping it altogether to catch the last bus that might possibly get me to school on time.
I'm in such a period right now, but it was hard to hurry, this morning, once I got outside. It felt too good just to walk. The sun has remembered what it's like to be warm, and the air smells lovely, like spring, all plants and pavement, and distant, happy noises.
I've tried a lot of tactics, for instance, over the years, to convince myself to get up in the morning - moving the alarm clock around in the room so that I have to wake up to find it, pinning sticky notes to the clock face exhorting compliance, setting it to earlier than I need, so that I'll keep putting it a little bit forward and get used to waking up by degrees - but I've never found more than a temporary solution. Possibly the only real fix would be to develop a routine like I used to have at 16 or so, up every day at seven and into the shower before I can even consider alternatives, but that in itself would require a lengthly and difficult battle with myself to implement. As it is, I still go through periods where every morning finds me rushing through my breakfast or skipping it altogether to catch the last bus that might possibly get me to school on time.
I'm in such a period right now, but it was hard to hurry, this morning, once I got outside. It felt too good just to walk. The sun has remembered what it's like to be warm, and the air smells lovely, like spring, all plants and pavement, and distant, happy noises.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-30 06:38 am (UTC)I set the alarm,
Or fooled myself that I did.
Till morning wakes me.
(Why did I ever buy one
Without a button to snooze?)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-30 06:39 am (UTC)Some people have thought about this...
Date: 2006-03-30 07:22 am (UTC)...Laibson can sketch a formal model that describes this dynamic. Consider a project like starting an exercise program, which entails, say, an immediate cost of six units of value, but will produce a delayed benefit of eight units. That’s a net gain of two units, “but it ignores the human tendency to devalue the future,” Laibson says. If future events have perhaps half the value of present ones, then the eight units become only four, and starting an exercise program today means a net loss of two units (six minus four). So we don’t want to start exercising today. On the other hand, starting tomorrow devalues both the cost and the benefit by half (to three and four units, respectively), resulting in a net gain of one unit from exercising. Hence, everyone is enthusiastic about going to the gym tomorrow.
Broadly speaking, “People act irrationally in that they overly discount the future,” says Bazerman. “We do worse in life because we spend too much for what we want now at the expense of goodies we want in the future. People buy things they can’t afford on a credit card, and as a result they get to buy less over the course of their lifetimes.” Such problems should not arise, according to standard economic theory, which holds that “there shouldn’t be any disconnect between what I’m doing and what I want to be doing,” says Nava Ashraf.
Luckily, Odysseus also confronts the problem posed by Wimpy—and Homer’s hero solves the dilemma. The goddess Circe informs Odysseus that his ship will pass the island of the Sirens, whose irresistible singing can lure sailors to steer toward them and onto rocks. The Sirens are a marvelous metaphor for human appetite, both in its seductions and its pitfalls. Circe advises Odysseus to prepare for temptations to come: he must order his crew to stopper their ears with wax, so they cannot hear the Sirens’ songs, but he may hear the Sirens’ beautiful voices without risk if he has his sailors lash him to a mast, and commands them to ignore his pleas for release until they have passed beyond danger. “Odysseus pre-commits himself by doing this,” Laibson explains. “Binding himself to the mast prevents his future self from countermanding the decision made by his present self.”
...Brain researchers have shown that an interaction of the limbic and analytic systems governs human decision-making. The limbic system seems to radically discount the future. While the analytic system’s role remains constant from the present moment onward, the limbic system assumes overriding importance in the present moment, but rapidly recedes as rewards move into the future and the emotional brain reduces its activation. This explains impulsiveness: the slice of pizza that’s available right now trumps the dietary plan that the analytic brain has formulated. Seizing available rewards now might be a response pattern with evolutionary advantages, as future benefits are always uncertain.
- (yer Dad)