Jay Hayley has an essay called The Art of Being a Failure as a Therapist and in it he does something interesting. He tries to argue for a method of psychiatry (directive) by discussing all the ways it can be done poorly. By showing specifically where it can go wrong, Hayley knows he is proving it to be quantifiable rather than some vague, indescribable notion. In other words, he tested for falsifiability.

Jake Lodwick used the same idea in a thought experiment that is worth running through occasionally. Try to think, he says, of one thing that would finally convince you that Keynesian economics don’t really work.

A better example might be Umair Haque. Is there anything he doesn’t see as confirmation of his theories? His approach makes for a entertaining record of pithy blog posts but it also makes him callous, excessively general, and open to criticism.

If you combine Hayley’s approach with the thought experiment you have a nice way to test yourself. Think about your job. Can you write out, concretely, what you would have to do to be a failure at it? If you can’t then maybe you don’t really do anything. Or, think about something you have faith in or hold in high esteem. Can you articulate, exactly, what would have to happen for it to lose your respect? If you can’t, maybe it’s closer to worshiping than believing.

It’s just a coincidence that they all involve eating:

Putting lime or lemon in a coke – It makes no sense that restaurants assume the customer wants a lemon added to their drink rather than ask. The default should obviously be just the soda. It’s a practical example of Tversky’s conjunction fallacy. It’s much more likely that someone will like just one thing rather than one thing and another.

Adding your own credit card tips – I put the final total amount and leave the tip area blank. Your waiter functions as your cashier and is perfectly capable of doing the math themselves. In fact, that’s partially what you’re tipping them for.

Nachos with beans – The appeal of nachos is based on the interesting contrast between crunchy warm chips and the cool, soft toppings. Beans undermine the purpose of the entire dish. They put an irreversible expiration date on the meal within a matter of minutes and are therefore more appropriate as a request, not a required ingredient.

There are a few others worth observing like turning left on red (in Los Angeles), the carpool lane reverting to the furthermost most left lane in times of no traffic and declining opportunities to “wait” for someone to leave a parking space. Off the top of my head, I don’t think it’s worth struggling to pronounce any foreign word. Just say it how it appears. No one would think it politically correct to criticize the accent of someone from Mexico or France.

What other common practices do we observe that make little sense? There has to be evidence of why dissenting is more logical or convenient, not just that you don’t like it.

Once while Plato entertained guests, Diogenes entered his home and stomped on his carpets. He’s said to have shouted that he was trampling down the pride of Plato. Plato, according the guests, simply replied “Yes, Diogenes, with a pride of another sort.”

I don’t think we need any more blogs that give you career advice, networking tips or chatter incessantly about micro-movements cut off from the big picture. I agree with Seneca when he said we don’t have time to discuss the storms that befell Odysseus when every day we run into our own storms, storms in reality not fiction. Instead each day you should acquire from what you read something that helps you fight fear, stagnation, indulgence or death. If you’re setting out to write something, that should be its purpose.

But to focus on the heavier stuff inherently risks moralizing. And to moralize, like Diogenes, is to risk another kind of prideful error.