For those with sometimes OCD organizing tendencies, you may be interested in knowing how I track and organize the flow of my money.
My expenses breakdown is a modified version of one I read in a book a very long time ago. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what book it was, but I remember modifying it very heavily — it was more an ‘inspiration’ — so I don’t feel terrible not giving proper cudos to the author!
I tried to make a breakdown that would require very little modification over time. For example, I have an ‘insurance’ category, even though when I came up with these (early University) I was paying nothing for insurance, but foresaw the need.
The Expense categories are:
- Giving — donations, contributions, gifts
- Self — savings, investments, debt-reduction
- Taxes — federal, provincial, Employment Insurance
- Shelter — mortgage, rent, essential repairs and maintenance
- Home — groceries, phone, utilities, clothing, cosmetics, essential products
- Transportation — vehicle maintenance, gas money, bike parts, carpool money
- Fun — eating out, alcohol, events, non-essential ‘stuff’ (e.g. iPhone)
- Insurance — home, possessions, auto, life
- Miscellaneous — unknown, lending, bank fees
- Work and Education — schooling, business expenses, courses, seminars
- Other — bank transfers, withdrawals, and deposits
[click here to keep reading…]
In “The psychology of meta-ethics: Exploring objectivity” Geoffrey Goodwin and John Darley try to shed some light on the nature of our ethical beliefs. Their research is interested not in what people do in fact believe, but what people think about their own beliefs (hence the “meta”-ethics). From the abstract:
How do lay individuals think about the objectivity of their ethical beliefs? Do they regard them as factual and objective, or as more subjective and opinion-based, and what might predict such differences?
[click here to keep reading…]
Check out this essay by Paul Graham, where he creates a ‘Disagreement Hierarchy’ to elucidate the various levels of disagreement between name-calling and proper refutation.
- DH6. Refuting the Central Point – the most powerful form of refutation; refutes a key point in the argument
- DH5. Refutation – find specific points you disagree with and explain why they are mistaken; often requires quoting; the rarest and most convincing form of disagreement
- DH4. Counterargument – contradiction + reasoning and/or evidence; can be very convincing, but can also dance around with side-arguments and not get at the core
- DH3. Contradiction – stating the opposite, with little or no supporting evidence
- DH2. Responding to Tone – attacking the tone of the author and not the argument (and not the author directly)
- DH1. Ad Hominem – attacking the author and not the argument
- DH0. Name-calling – the lowest form of disagreement; e.g. “u r a fag!!!!” or “The author is a self-important dilettante.”
What good is this list? According to Graham, it has three advantages.
The first is that it helps people evaluate what they read; it provides critical readers with a tool for seeing through intellectual dishonesty.
Second, it helps writers catch themselves using a lower form of argument and may encourage the use of higher levels.
Lastly, and most importantly, it won’t just make conversations better, but it will help make the people having them happier. The lower you go down the hierarchy, the generally more meanness the argument will have.
If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way. -Graham
When reading or writing arguments, assess their quality and strive to improve them… unless you enjoy arguments digressing into flame-wars.
/A
Graham, Paul. March 2008. Accessed February 9, 2010. http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
I hesitantly try to summarize what I find already amazingly condensed and succinct. But at the risk of breaking the virtue of simplicity, here are the Twelve Virtues of Rationality. But don’t stop at this summary, read the full article yourself (it isn’t long!) by Eliezer Yudkowsky. I highly recommend it. The Twelve Virtues are:
- Curiosity – the burning itch
- Relenquishment – “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” -P. C. Hodgell
- Lightness – follow the evidence wherever it leads
- Evenness – resist selective skepticism; use reason, not rationalization
- Argument – do not avoid arguing; strive for exact honesty; fairness does not mean balancing yourself evenly between propositions
- Empiricism – knowledge is rooted in empiricism and its fruit is prediction; argue what experiences to anticipate, not which beliefs to profess
- Simplicity – is virtuous in belief, design, planning, and justification; ideally: nothing left to take away, not nothing left to add
- Humility – take actions, anticipate errors; do not boast of modesty; no one achieves perfection
- Perfectionism – seek the answer that is *perfectly* right – do not settle for less
- Precision – the narrowest statements slice deepest; don’t walk but dance to the truth
- Scholarship – absorb the powers of science
- [The void] (the nameless virtue) – “More than anything, you must think of carrying your map through to reflecting the territory.”
From The Twelve Virtues of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky.
The final one deserves the full quote that Eliezer gives from Miyamoto Musashi from The Book of Five Rings:
“The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting him.”
Your sword is rationality, and your enemy is the ignorance you use your sword to strike, always cutting to the truth, always trying to make your map reflects the territory. This virtue is unnamed because if you overly think of it as the technique with which you use your sword you risk error — perhaps the technique is wrong and you’ll never find out because you’ll focus on using that particular technique, and not of cutting to the truth.
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