What are you optimising for?

On the values and the systems that drive your decisions…

I was asked by Claude a few days ago the following question: “When you take a decision, whose values (and what values) are you optimising for?”

I couldn’t answer. I wanted to think of something smart to say, but I knew that wouldn’t have been genuine… So I typed: “I’m not sure..”

Yesterday I started, after many failed attempts, reading Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”. He starts the book by explaining how most philosophers aren’t really in the pursuit of truth because the whole basis of their philosophies are based on an untruth. I am probably overgeneralising his thoughts and doing Nietzsche himself a disgrace ( First, because I haven’t gone past 15% of the book and second, I’ll probably need a reread either way). My point is, if most philosophers can get stuck into this trap where, in the pursuit of truth they fail to see that their basis is an untruth, most people don’t worry or have the time to question their beliefs (let alone where they came from)

Let’s start with what I thought my values were/are..

Let’s start first maybe with defining what values are in the first place: Values are a set of judgements that guide one’s decisions. If meaning is what cuts most of the noise from the endless sea of possibilities and boils down what matters for each system in a simple structure, then values are the core foundations of that filter.

So there are two questions I must address first:

1. What are my values?
2. How did I absorb them?

What are my values?

1. Meaningful Contribution ████████████ (12/10 importance)
2. Freedom/Autonomy ██████████ (10/10)
3. Peak Experiences ████████ (8/10)
4. Intellectual Growth ███████ (7/10)
5. Love/Connection ██████ (6/10)

INSTRUMENTAL (Tools to get there): 6. Financial Security ████ (4/10) 7. Competence ███ (3/10) 8. Novel Experiences ███ (3/10) 9. Physical Health ██ (2/10)

ANTI-VALUES: -1. Mediocrity -2. Constraint -3. Poverty/Dependence -4. Wasted Potential

How do you know your real values? By stress-testing them and going backwards about it… You don’t find your values by thinking about them, but by seeing what you end up doing in extreme scenarios…

Now let’s think of why am I operating in this system and whether I took it mindlessly..

Why is “meaningful contribution” at the top of the list?

It’s because of what I am, and how I ended up being shaped by the environment around myself. As I was trying to depict whether this value came simply from some form of childhood trauma or simply from.. being. And it did from both. It originated in what was already present, what was already there, but it might have used the void as a catalyst.

It turns out that I wasn’t aware of what was the system in which I was operating in. I had my values but didn’t question long enough where did they come from. Finding out what the system I was operating in didn’t change in any shape or form my values, or how I perceived them. It just tells you that there are no wrong or right values… There’s no good or evil, there’s just being. You exist in a system and optimise for whatever the system is made to optimise for. You just have to be aware of why and how you take decisions..

Most self-help talks about how you can change your habits, some of it goes into a more meta topic of how you should start by changing your beliefs, but almost nothing from the mainstream self-help industry says anything about why those two things, if changed will yeld temporary changes, because truly to change your beliefs so your habits change, you must simply change the system in which you operate in. Simple as that. How does that work? The easiest example I can think of is changing the place where you live in, your partner or the job you have. These are clichic examples, but they hold true, you just have to know why changing those will influence you.