My Hammertime Final Exam

• AI News Team
• March 22, 2026

​Firstly, I finally made it :~DIt’s my second attempt, firstly I tried to finish Hammertime around a year ago. I even forgot I had a LessWrong profile since, so here I am, writing my first post.PromptsDesign a instrumental rationality technique.Introduce a rationality principle or framework.Describe a cognitive defect, bias, or blindspot.Rationality Principle: One change at the timeI kinda got used to be a professional at my career, but as soon as I start to deal with routine real-life problems, my thoroughly collected knowledge suddenly disappears :~0For example, every time I begin a task, I have to remind myself that I should do as small changes as possible: that way (in case anything goes wrong) only as small part of system will be broken; plus it’s easier to review and test small changes. So every task I have to fight my urge to add “another little change” or “do a tiny refactoring”.So that’s where some life situation begins — like replacing a trash bag, — and I suddenly find myself out in the bathroom cleaning the mirror, with small 2-minute task scope grown into 2-hour monster. That’s why amygdala starts to learn a pattern “to change a trash bag is a costly operation”.While I studied productivity, I’ve heard that people who begin buidling planning/productivity system stuff tend to “overpush” extra tasks: systematization brings as feeling that every task is finishable, and even better — in a shorter time. So what? — I’ll take two :~DBut that’s a catch. You begin to grow in planning when you start to deny “maybe” tasks to keep the space for “definitely yes!” tasks. At least, that’s what they’ve been telling me for 2 years :~DRationality technique: Reversible One of my job’s parts is to write release plans. Sometimes they’re as simple as:Deploy:deploy the backend (no breaking changes, no migrations)Rollback:rollback the backend via Pipelines UISometimes there’s a database schema change where’s my colleague needed:Deploy:deploy the backend (no breaking changes)migrations applied automatically (head_revision=123abc, down_revision=bca521)Rollback:rollback the migration: alembic downgrade bca521rollback the backend via Pipelines UISometimes there are other team members so plan becomes bigger:Deploy:deploy the backend (no breaking changes)migrations applied automatically (head_revision=123abc, down_revision=bca521)deploy the frontedRollback:rollback the frontend via Pipelines UIrollback the migration: alembic downgrade bca521rollback the backend via Pipelines UIAnd so on… So what’s that about? — we tend to not think about “planned fall”, usually we only think about potential problems like:if I move to another country I might not like itif I find a new job then my boss might be meanif I have an operation under general anesthesia then I might wake up conscious at the middle of it — and have PTSD for the rest of my lifeNot all of this problems have a way to return everything to the starting point, though usually there’s a way to compensate. And it’s likely that you not only need to plan a “rollback” part, but also to modify a “rollout” part to make it more reversible. So instead of:Rollout:find a doctorprepare of operationhave an operationRollback:cryone could possible have:Rollout:find a doctor(look for bad consequences statistics)ask gf to care for me a night after operationprepare of operationbring something yummyhave a favorite show episodes downloaded to my phone’s storagehave an operationRollback:eat yummies and binge-watch the whole season during the nightcall a psychotherapistCognitive defect: eternityWe don’t see things the way they are. But what’s more important, we don’t see how things change the way they do.Couple years ago I thought that I’d never get off the energy drinks as I couldn’t go without them even for a week. Gradually my patience led to one breakdown a month, then to 1 breakdown/couple months. I started to unwind the vicious cycle and it occurs to be easier to refuse doing bad habits.So what if current “giant problems” are already being solved with small steps? At the moment it might seem to take the eternity to do something, but as long as you keep your pace, things change :~DDiscuss ​Read More