If phrases such as “goal refactoring” and “urge propagation” mean nothing to you, perhaps it’s time to shell out £2,700 on a four-day workshop to learn the self-improvement philosophy sweeping Silicon Valley: applied rationality. The basic premise is that the human mind is a crappy computer – full of bugs, but capable of reprogramming. Take the way you resist checking your bank balance because you fear the stomach lurch of finding it lower than you thought. That’s a mistake, plain and simple: you’ll be happier (and richer) in the long term if you stay aware of how much cash you’ve got. Wouldn’t it be great if we could fix such glitches?
Writing recently in the New York Times, Jennifer Kahn made the workshop sound a bit cultish, but she learned some useful tricks. Such as urge propagation – which involves trying to make your life goals as emotionally compelling as, say, scarfing down a cheeseburger. Train yourself to imagine how glorious it’ll feel to take a hot shower after your workout, and you won’t need to “make yourself” exercise; you’ll have the urge to do so.
There’s plenty of evidence that this stuff works. So why do the rationalist self-improvers Kahn interviewed – and those I’ve met myself – leave me troubled? I think it’s because they’re the people you’d expect to be drawn to that outlook. They’re in their 20s or early 30s; they’re intellectually brilliant but socially anxious, more comfortable discussing artificial intelligence than making small talk. They read a lot of sci-fi, and dream of conquering death through science. In short, they’re people who live in their heads, and who see their personal problems as engineering challenges. I don’t mean to mock: I like these people. (In some ways, I am one.) But it’s hard not to feel they’re precisely the ones who should be looking elsewhere for whatever they’re seeking, not doubling down on a data-driven, science-first approach.
There might be a more general rule here: that whatever self-improvement schemes you’re most attracted to, they’re the ones you should avoid, because your attraction could be rooted in fear of the alternatives. Applied rationality holds out the promise that self-mastery is possible, and that you can control how life unfolds. It assumes we know, roughly, what happiness would look like, and just need help making it happen. But if you’re already strongly invested in that viewpoint, there’s probably more to be gained from exploring the ways in which life isn’t controllable, or the possibility that you don’t know what’s best, that reason isn’t always the answer. Put down that rationalist handbook and take up yoga, or magic mushrooms, or gardening, or dance, or prayer.
Yet consistency requires I ask the same thing of myself. Why am I so keen to believe reason and data can’t be the path to fulfilment? Am I looking for excuses not to change, by painting my failings as too mysterious and complex for mere rationality to address? I don’t think so. But then I would say that. Maybe soon I’ll manage to convince myself that applied rationality is completely worthless – which is when I’ll really need that workshop.
