Long-termism is usually sold as patience. I argue it is a cost problem instead: the price of protecting your own face is the better move you quietly chose not to make.
Source · Original essay (not a book review)
My apologies — another bad title
This piece aims to explain part of what “long-termism” means, in relatively plain terms, for use in daily life.
I first encountered “long-termism” in the first book I read on entering university — Poor Charlie’s Almanack, in which Munger returns to it repeatedly. In the year afterward, at home doing financial trading, I met it constantly again: from Graham, Buffett, and Munger down to every variety of folk legend.
From philosophy and ethics to politics and economics — and even in casual conversation with friends — it is hard to avoid.
Those four hollow characters, “long-termism,” are rather like Monroe’s skirt: forever lifted by a passing breeze, impossible not to glance at, impossible to touch.
But is long-termism really this remote and insubstantial?
What follows is not a grand narrative — only my own recent experiences and reflections.
Let me ask: did you ever encounter the following scene at school?
A teacher poses a question in class that excites you and that you want to answer.
But in the unusually silent atmosphere of the room, you never dare raise your hand.
In the end, the teacher “tactfully” answers her own question and closes the awkward moment.
Whether the impulse to answer arose from a simple wish to share your view, or from a wish to win the recognition and regard of your classmates and teacher —
the result is that you did not answer, did not share your view, and had no chance whatever of winning recognition or regard. You changed your attitude, reluctantly, in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance…
Whether your reason for not raising your hand was “good intention” — an unwillingness to break the quiet of the room, a slackening under environmental pressure — or fear that your answer would not receive the response you hoped for:
judged by outcome, you failed to achieve this “long-term goal” — answering the question and receiving a response.
Allow me to borrow the Baidu Baike definition of long-termism:
Long-termism denotes a practice of making decisions for the sake of a long-term goal or outcome; it is a combination of a value orientation and a methodology.
I simplify this as: an ideology and behavioral pattern in which options are selected according to whether they serve the achievement of a long-term goal.
If we string the actions in the case above into a timeline, then on that timeline my long-term goal is to answer the question — whether from a simple wish to share a view or from a wish to earn recognition and regard.
On the basis of the case above and of personal experience, I define long-termism as follows:
This generalized formulation does not lend itself to ranking goals by priority, so we may further divide long-term goals along the time dimension.
The basis of division is the length of time required to achieve the goal — hereafter, the goal’s horizon.
A simple example:
Losing five kilograms takes me roughly half a month; losing ten takes roughly a month and a half, since the ease of weight loss diminishes at the margin.
Although “losing five kilos” is easier and shorter-horizoned than “losing ten,” for someone who has not yet taken a single step toward losing weight, “losing five kilos” is in fact also a long-term goal.
So long-term goals divided by horizon stand in a certain nesting relationship to one another:
Another example:
Over the past two years I have come to love rock music and want to learn guitar, hoping that at some future point I can play a piece anywhere, at a gathering of friends.
I do not know how far off “some future point” is, but plainly my long-term goal is to play guitar competently at a gathering of friends.
To achieve it, I must learn to read music; learn fingering and picking; learn to perform specific pieces; learn music theory so I can improvise at a gathering; and, in order to present myself fully in such a setting, learn to manage my state of mind and overcome nervousness…
For someone who has never touched a guitar, every one of these is a “long-term goal.”
Learning to read music and learning fingering scarcely affect each other, yet both are nested within the larger goal of learning to play. Learning to play is in turn tightly linked to managing one’s state of mind, and both are nested within the ultimate goal of performing at a gathering of friends.
But managing one’s state of mind, as an important capacity, is obviously also linked to goals having nothing to do with guitar — mental composure and public-speaking technique both bear on our capacity to speak in a formal public setting.
So, taken at face value, we are long-termists whenever we are achieving a goal. But in fact the ultimate purpose of achieving short-term goals is still the achievement of that long-term one.
The foregoing is not merely wordplay about the relativity of “long” and “short.”
Once the concept of horizon is introduced, long-term goals acquire relations of nesting and association; and through those relations of nesting and inclusion, the ordering of priority emerges naturally — small goals are contained within large ones, and large goals rank above small ones.
Another example:
Suppose I want to pass the graduate entrance examination successfully this December. Having planned my study tasks by stage, I will presumably also allow myself some rest.
But even in scheduling that rest, I can choose the form of rest according to the nesting relation among goals.
On this timeline my ultimate goal is admission to graduate school. From the standpoint of long-termism, then, every form of rest should be selected on the criterion of what form of rest will best help me get in. Plainly, spending free time on a high-risk sport is not a wise choice: skiing on the weekend is far more likely to injure me. Going home and playing a few rounds of Guandan — a Chinese card game — with my family, by contrast, is comparatively safe.
The ideology and behavioral pattern of long-termism may therefore be summarized as:
Suppose we, like Buffett and Munger, face a supposedly enormous investment opportunity:
Becoming an excellent investor is plainly a longer long-term goal than the one in (1). This calls to mind what my teacher always said when I was learning to trade: “This market has never lacked stars; what it lacks is survivors.” Stable profitability far outranks a single leap to the top.
Using the plain definition above, “long-termism” should not be hard to grasp. It is this: when facing temptation or difficulty, stop and ask yourself, “Will retreating here help me achieve my goal?”
Just as, however painful, I must get out of bed each morning — because if I do not, the alarm clock on the floor keeps ringing and wakes my sleeping roommates, and waking them is plainly not conducive to the long-term goal of maintaining a “good guy” persona. Which is really a way of forcing myself to achieve the still larger long-term goal of going to bed and rising early every day.
That, presumably, counts as a homely sort of long-termism — even if it sounds nothing like the spectacular version described in the finance books.
As social persons, most of us cannot survive independently, since our needs cannot be met by ourselves alone. Seeking and building social relations is therefore an inevitable outcome.
From this I take a premise for what follows: in the process of achieving long-term goals, we will inevitably be affected by society — that is, by other people.
Return to the story of answering the classroom question. Was my unwillingness to answer really born of high principle, of an unwillingness to disturb the quiet of the room?
Honestly, the reason was probably the latter of the two above: fear of a response from society (from others) that would fall short of expectation.
Sociology defines social action as conduct that is subjective, invested with some meaning, and oriented toward others. The phrase oriented toward others implies the social fact that we always stand in some relation to others in social life.
We are in all likelihood unable to escape social relations, and our conduct in all likelihood carries an orientation toward others — even silence in a classroom. That silence is in fact my having invested silence with the meaning I don’t want to answer and directed it at the teacher…
Since we cannot escape social relations, we cannot escape the influence other members of society, and social relations themselves, exert upon us.
The cost of face is contained within this.
I define the cost of face as: the loss produced by conduct not conducive to achieving a long-term goal, undertaken out of fear of failure — that is, out of fear of a response from the outside world falling short of expectation.
Although similar in meaning to opportunity cost, it differs from it: opportunity cost is the value of the second-best option, the most valuable of the alternatives forgone.
The loss produced by “saving face” is a loss of what is conducive to achieving the goal — the value of the optimal option, the one that should have been chosen.
The loss from not acting in order to save face is greater!
We may console ourselves that everything is arranged for the best, but opportunity lost is opportunity that does not return is equally real.
An example from just the other day:
The dormitory’s shared bathroom has only ten showerheads. Every night, in the half hour before the water is shut off at eleven, the room is packed.
I returned to school too late on Sunday and, arriving at the dormitory, ran straight into the shower rush hour — obliged to wait outside, awkwardly clutching my towel.
But those inside who had already finished do not leave immediately. They dry off and dress in the changing area, which takes several minutes.
And those few minutes, to someone who has been waiting at the door for a long while and is worried the water is about to be cut, are quite excruciating.
Given my “reserved” temperament and habits, I would in most cases simply wait patiently outside for those few minutes…
This time was different. I gathered my courage, went in, and asked one of the students who was getting dressed whether I could use his showerhead.
Fortunately, he agreed readily.
Of course, accepting my request cost him nothing. He merely gained the close-quarters greeting of a filthy, naked stranger — the shower room being so loud that any conversation at a distance is impossible.
Viewed through long-termism, my goal here was to finish showering before the water was cut. To achieve it, I tore off my “face,” communicated bravely with a stranger, and obtained the chance to shower promptly.
Had I refused to ask for help in order to protect my “face” — to maintain my aloof persona, to avoid being refused — I would in all likelihood have waited outside until eleven and then greeted the new week filthy and empty-handed.
Change the scenario slightly:
Suppose I return to that shower scene needing to complete the day’s assigned study.
From the standpoint of long-termism, it is incumbent on me to create every opportunity to shower quickly, and to return to my study as soon as I have dressed.
That task might belong to the day, the week, the semester, or the year — long-term goals nest, after all.
And had I refused to ask for help in order to save face, I would in all likelihood have waited several extra minutes at the door. For a long-termist, what a price those minutes are: I lose time I could have spent studying, time that would have helped me reach the long-term goal.
You may well laugh at the absurdity of these examples — but for me, asking others for help is genuinely not easy, still less a stranger, and still less in an environment where both parties are naked…
If we work from the definition above, long-termist behavior is conduct oriented toward completing a long-term goal, disregarding all external interference.
Change the scene once more: suppose my long-term goal is to keep learning new things.
Then the next time I have a chance to answer a question in class, I should speak up. Even if my answer differs from the teacher’s view, I will in all likelihood come away with the correct answer, or with a line of thinking different from my own settled convictions. Even where right and wrong are not at stake, it can stimulate my thinking.
Choosing to speak has, in fact, nothing to do with whether my answer is correct, and nothing to do with what my “face” is worth in gold. The only relevant thing is that it helps me achieve my long-term goal.
Consider the influencers we sometimes see filming in public. Are they not nervous, anxious, or afraid of the puzzled or even contemptuous looks of passersby? Yet we still end up seeing the videos they post, shot in crowded public places. Whether filming in such settings brings them traffic, followers, or income, standing there bravely and submitting to others’ judgment in order to achieve their goal — is this not also a form of long-termism?
“Long-termism,” plainly stated, means: nobody gets in my way — whether that “nobody” is my own fear and ignorance, or others’ gaze and judgment.
The long-termist should be like Zhang Fei holding the bridge at Changban: to all who block my path — who dares fight me to the death?
So for the long-termist, in the presence of teachers and of one’s betters, one should be willing to speak and adept at asking; and when there is a chance to improve a capacity one wants, one should contend for it boldly and not be ashamed of “losing face.”
When we look back on those moments of “lost face” and embarrassment after achieving the goal — that is the best arrangement.
Perhaps a few theories of self-related bias from social psychology can help us “stop caring about face”:
The spotlight effect — others don’t actually care that much about you. The spotlight effect refers to our tendency, when observing ourselves, to overestimate our own salience, to see ourselves as the center of a situation, and to overestimate the attention others pay us. No one in the world cares about us more than we do. Advance bravely toward the goal; sometimes there is no need to mind the outside world’s view, because the outside world is not looking at you at all.
Self-serving bias — we care about ourselves too much. Self-serving bias refers to our tendency, when processing self-relevant information, to excuse our failures readily while accepting the glory of success gladly — and, in many cases, to believe ourselves better than others. Do not think yourself too excellent. While it brings confidence, it also brings fear of failure, because we always want to maintain that excellent image. This is not liberation; it is confinement.
False uniqueness — we are not that distinctive either. False uniqueness refers to our tendency, upon succeeding, to regard our own intelligence and character as extraordinary, in order to satisfy our self-image.
It is precisely because we regard ourselves as excellent that we fall into confinement.
We all live in other people’s worlds — but neither you nor I is Truman, and no one is watching the broadcast.
Long-termism means disregarding every factor that would obstruct the achievement of your long-term goal.
Of course, achieving a long-term goal sometimes exacts a price that is not low.
Some adults neglect their families for their careers; some excellent students persist in reading in the dormitory every night, forgoing the chance to go out with friends.
I have no intention of inducing anyone toward a refined and selfish egoism. I mean only to point out that the fear produced by “saving face” constrains our conduct, and that this self-constraint carries a considerable price of its own.
My personal view:
They will understand you. If you are a long-termist, the people around you are likely long-termists too, and they will in all likelihood understand and support your choices and conduct. This is the inevitable result of the mutual influence of social action and social relations, not some mysticism of “fate.”
Don’t worry about internal friction. If you are a long-termist, your long-termist ideology and values are mutually reinforcing. When value orientation and long-term goal converge, you will in all likelihood not feel torn about your choices, because in your heart you already believe that disregarding short-term interference in service of a long-term goal is the right choice.
Do what you believe is right, and don’t regret it. Long-term goals may change as the social stage changes, but we cannot return to the past. Rather than blame ourselves, we go forward. Everything is arranged for the best…
In sociology, Max Weber defines power as the likelihood that an actor in a social relationship can carry out his own will despite resistance.
For my part, in plain terms: the ability to achieve our aim even when we encounter obstruction in the course of achieving it.
If we treat that resistance and obstruction as our own fear of failure — if, in acting, we avoid, retreat, or abandon the attempt because we fear a response falling short of expectation — then we have in fact surrendered our own power, because we failed to carry out our will against resistance originating in ourselves.
At this level, long-termism is itself a form of power: the power to be entitled to achieve our own long-term goals.
This is not the power widely debated and contested at the level of innate endowment and human rights. It is power we confer upon ourselves.
It is in fact a power of courage — a power we ought to return to ourselves, having had it stripped away by our own “face.” Put otherwise, it is the reward for daring to accept a challenge and daring to face defeat.
Long-termism is not, in fact, as remote as we read it to be in books, still less as spectacular as it sounds in the mouths of the famous.
They say life is a marathon. May we all cross the plain of Marathon as Pheidippides did — and may we meet at last in Athens.
I only answer from what is written on this site.
Type a few words — I will show you where it says so.