Ignoring errors because one thinks they aren't important

While reading a discussion on FI discord, I thought of an example of something.

curi said:

> So I have some ideas like judging every error we can find to matter a lot more than most people think it does. I find ignoring errors is a major error.

I've noticed a type of error that people ignore.

Imagine someone who is sad about a major bad event that happened in their family. While talking about their sadness and why they're sad, they say things like "What's the point?" while not following up that question with an answer. They just kinda use the question as a statement like "There is no point". That's an error. And when I raise it as an issue -- that it's an error -- they seem to not value it. They think it doesn't matter. Then think it's not important that they said something that doesn't make sense. They want to continue talking about their sadness or whatever was the subject of the sadness.

I think part of why they remain sad is that they don't address these kinds of things.

The kind of thing that I think deserves attention in this example case is addressing the question and related questions. Like, "... the point of what?" The person might answer, "the point of living", "the point of getting up out of bed". I would ask, "Well what was the point before the major bad family event?" If you can answer that question, then you have something you can try carry over to the new question -- the new question is "What's the point [of getting out of bed given the new major bad family event]?"

More generally, after having figured out that you ask the question "What's the point?" as if it's a statement "There is no point.", and that that's a mistake, then you should lookout for the same type of mistake going forward and do problem-solving about it each time it happens. Don't just ignore it as if it doesn't deserve attention/error-correction.

Imagine someone who gets annoyed (and says something indicating that he's annoyed) because something is not working while trying to achieve some goal. Getting annoyed is a mistake. The time and energy spent on it is time and attention not being spent on problem-solving. So it's counter-productive to the goal he's trying to achieve. Getting annoyed has an opportunity cost. I think each case of getting annoyed deserves attention/error-correction. Doing so will give him an opportunity to change his mental habits such that the new habits are compatible with his goals.