Defining Your Values

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a guide to being human personal-philosophy personal values

One of the most important things that any person can do is to define then order their values. How you define your values defines what actions you take, and how you even frame the way you think of problems. Because this, it is important to not only define them, but also to rank them.

When we talk about values, we’re not only talking about people and their actions. We’re talking about groups of people, companies, and even tools.

Types of Values

There isn’t one class of values, and all values aren’t created equally. Some matter more than others, some matter different than others. Here are some useful categories. Regardless of the values that you define however, or in what category you place them, it’s important to rank them in an order. Values will come into conflict with eachother, and you will have to pick one over the other.

Core values

Core Values are things that you are now willing to compromise on. For example, a pacifist will not compromise on killing another person, as that is their core value. A Soldier, on the other hand, might kill people even if it isn’t their preference, but it definitely isn’t a core value.

Some companies have making money as a core value, some (like non-profits) care more about their impact.

Core values are the whole raison d’etre. Even then, while it might seem that more core values are better, often the inverse is true. Core values, by definition, are restrictive.

Although core values are what you care about most, like all other values, they have to be ranked. Even core values can come into conflict with eachother. Which will you sacrifice when they do?

Secondary Values

Things you would like to have , but don’t need to have (i.e. things you’re willing to give up). These values are useful to give direction, but are also doubly useful in a way that core values can’t be: They can be negotiated. This is extremely useful, especially when values are ranked.

For example, if one of my core values is that I matter most, and one of my secondary values is to not cause harm, if a situation presents itself where I must kill someone to live, the choice is clear. This kind of thinking is ever-present in the corporate world where self-preservation is a core value. Sure, most companies would like to fund socially responsible programs to meet their CSR goals, but if push comes to shove, almost every corporation will choose survival over good.

What you don’t care about

Although things you don’t care about seem irrelevant, knowing what you don’t care about is incredibly useful. If you’re designing a manufacturing tool, and you don’t care about looks, only functionality, trading looks for functionality is a no brainer. If you’re designing a product, and don’t care about chinese language, you don’t have to use a tool that accomodates chinese. If you don’t care about being first, you can trade being first for more time, etc.

Things that you don’t care about are useful because often, you can trade them for things you do care about.

Design is About Values

(Shamelessly ripped from a Talk by Steve Klabnik )

When designing a life, product, or even company, the most important aspect of that endeavor are the values that you choose for it. Values WILL lead every decision you make. In my time at sparkademy, I’ve learned the importance of value-based decision making, in the sense that often, when values don’t align in the moment, it’s important to ask why. If you’re doing something, it’s because you value that action higher than others. Why?

Choose your values carefully.

The Values of Your environment

Every tool, person, company, etc. that you interact with has values. Everything you do or make has values. If you work for a company that does horrible things, what does that say about your values? If you eat shark meat, it means you don’t value sharks. Often, the things that say most about you are what you interact with.

“Quien con lobos anda, aullar aprende”.

“Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres.”

“Birds of feather flock together”.

When values conflict

If you’ve ever had an emotional argument, it has almost always wil have been a conflict of values. Maybe you value safety over fun, maybe you value cost over quality. If you argue about politics, the argument is almost never about the facts of what happened, but rather of the values. Maybe you think people don’t deserve help, and everyone should be as independent as possible. Almost every political argument can be looked at through the lens of different values having a different rank. For some, autonomy is more important than safety, for others, maybe privacy is more important than safety, for others still, maybe only safety matters.

If you are in an argument, try to get to the root cause of it.

Case Study: The Rust Programming Language

How rust views tradeoffs

A programming language has a lot of choices to make, and usually by a lot of people. Because they tend to be both very theory-intense and practical, well-defined values are a must. Even if you don’t care about programming, this is a great talk.

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