>If spending time figuring out how to optimize money/time in more complicated ways could produce a more efficient path, wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge?
Willpower and a natural inclination are the key elements here. It's common knowledge that smoking is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that it will be the main force behind people's choices to smoke or not. This applies to almost every other aspect you could think of that requires some degree of effort or interest.
An example of a non-obvious life hack would be Anki. It works exactly as intended, meaning that it makes remembering things far easier than before. But the catch is that you have to do the cards everyday. Therefore only a minority will actually use it. There is no free lunch.
You can generally try to optimize your life, but this sort of Less Wrong style ideology inevitably butts up against some awkward truths about existence, mainly that it has a free-form and serendipitous side to it that can't be gamed so easily or by reason alone. You can't power your way to an interesting life just by the mechanical application of hacks as it requires some luck, some feeling for things, and some intuition. Even if you do manage to attain an artful way of living that exploits your personal circumstances really smoothly, you are not safe from a change in your mindset or any aspect of the house of cards that will suddenly make it all crash down.
Willpower and a natural inclination are the key elements here. It's common knowledge that smoking is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that it will be the main force behind people's choices to smoke or not. This applies to almost every other aspect you could think of that requires some degree of effort or interest.
An example of a non-obvious life hack would be Anki. It works exactly as intended, meaning that it makes remembering things far easier than before. But the catch is that you have to do the cards everyday. Therefore only a minority will actually use it. There is no free lunch.
You can generally try to optimize your life, but this sort of Less Wrong style ideology inevitably butts up against some awkward truths about existence, mainly that it has a free-form and serendipitous side to it that can't be gamed so easily or by reason alone. You can't power your way to an interesting life just by the mechanical application of hacks as it requires some luck, some feeling for things, and some intuition. Even if you do manage to attain an artful way of living that exploits your personal circumstances really smoothly, you are not safe from a change in your mindset or any aspect of the house of cards that will suddenly make it all crash down.