Needs, wants, predictable catastrophes

Some thoughts re: Career-related decisions

Step one is avoiding predictable catastrophes. Predictable failure modes ranked from worst to least bad, with the understanding that the less bad catastrophes often lead to the next (but it’s also possible to leap to worse outcomes):

1. Suicide
2. Hopelessness
3. Moral degeneration
4. Sexual abuse
5. Malevolent psychiatric abuse
6. Chronic physical abuse
7. Criminal predation/ethnic cleansing
8. Negligent psychiatric abuse
9. Imprisonment, reeducation camp
10. Acute illness
11. Chronic illness
12. Addiction, OCD, fixations
13. Depression, chronic frustration
14. Crime (as perpetrator)
15. Economic isolation
16. Chronic stress
17. Social isolation
18. Homelessness
19. Grinding poverty
20. Systemic economic slavery
21. Lethargy
22. Confusion
23. Overspecialization
24. Overextension, busyness
25. Benevolent slavery

The difference between a life spent well and a life spent poorly is valuing things precisely and getting a good return on any tradeoffs. Therefore, I need to be very clear about what I value, and how much I value those things. As a rule of thumb, I measure my prosperity by the average amount of time I can sit and look at the grass each day for no reason.

Considerations:

• Quality-adjusted years of life
• Sleep
• Health: Sleep, diet/hydration, lifting, cardio, alone time
• God’s favor
• Being around people I like
• Working with people I like
• Creative output

God’s favor can’t be priced and shouldn’t be spent, but the others can be treated as currencies to spend well as part of a better life. Currencies to balance:

• Marginal hours of sleep I’d lose for X
• Marginal stress score I’d endure (0-100 Garmin score) over Y days for X, call this the inverse of “energy”
• Marginal days sick/low-quality I’d endure for X (sickness scored 0-4, perfect health to miserable and dying)
• Money I’d spend for X
• Hours of creative time I’d forego for X
• Hours of curiosity drive I’d forego for X
• Hours of free play time I’d forego for X

Anything that isn’t on that list I’d price in terms of them. Sex isn’t a need but if God’s favor weren’t a factor I’d pay up to $700 for sex with an HB10 the first time and up to $300 for sex with an HB7, etc. (less successively, in keeping with the law of marginal returns). I’d stay up all night to sleep with a 10 but at my old age I probably wouldn’t stay up all night for a 7. Got shit to do tomorrow.

Idealized currency levels (per day) such that any more would be marginal:

• 9 hours of good sleep
• Average stress score of 25 (with both spikes and valleys)
• No sick/low-quality days
• No spending, positive incoming
• 4 hours of creative time
• 3 hours of curiosity time
• 2 hours of intense physical work
• 2 hours of meditation and planning
• 3 hours of exercise
• 1 hour of free play
• 2 hours of intimate human contact

Baseline currency levels for break-even maintenance:

• 8 hours of good sleep per day
• Average stress score of 50 (with both spikes and valleys)
• 1 sick/low-quality day per week
• 10% buffer in budget
• 1 hour of creative time every two days
• 1 hour of curiosity time every two days
• 1 hour of intense physical work every two days
• 0.5 hours of meditation and planning every two days
• 1 hour of exercise
• 1 hour of free play every three days
• 2 hours of intimate human contact once per week

Maximum allowable short-term deficiencies before I’d expect to enter one of the predictable failure modes:

• Sleep
  • 6 hours of sleep per day for up to six weeks
  • 4 hours of sleep per day for up to four days
  • 2 hours of sleep per day for up to two days
  • 1 sleepless night
• Stress/energy
  • Stress of 60 for 2 months
  • Stress of 80 for 2 weeks
  • Stress of 100 for 2 days (i.e. Patton’s 48-hour rule)
• Health
  • 3 sick/low-quality days per week for 4 months
  • Poor health for 4 weeks straight
• Money
  • 0% buffer in budget for six months
  • 10% deficit for three months
  • 25% deficit for six weeks
  • 50% deficit for 3 weeks
• Other
  • No creative outlets for a week
  • Nothing to sate curiosity drive for two weeks
  • No physical work (i.e. real work) for three weeks
  • No meditation or planning for three months
  • Completely sedentary lifestyle for six weeks
  • All work and no play for two months
• Isolation
  • Zero intimate human contact for three years
  • Zero IRL human contact at all for one year (i.e. internet only)
  • Solitary confinement for three months