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The Pragmatist’s
Guide to Life

2
 The Pragmatist’s
Guide to Life

A GUIDE TO CREATING YOUR OWN ANSWERS

TO LIFE’S BIGGEST QUESTIONS

Simone & Malcolm Collins

3
© 2017 Malcolm Collins & Simone Collins
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0999715410
ISBN 13: 9780999715413

4
Contents

About This Guide

About the Authors:

Simone & Malcolm Collins

Why Bother?

Step 1 Define Your Objective Function

Why Do I Need to Think Through an Objective Function?
What Has Inherent Value?
Nothing has Intrinsic Value
Something Has Innate Intrinsic Value
Positive Personal Emotions
Distributed Positive Emotions
Limiting Extreme Negative Emotions
Freedom / Liberty / Self Determination
Immortality / Continued Existence
Your Purpose
To Have an Impact on History
Fairness/Equality
Personal Improvement
The Struggle
Art and Inspiring Others
Experience Maximization
Protect And Promote The Growth Of Human Civilization
Accumulation of Knowledge as a Species
Nature and Biodiversity
The Continuation of the Universe
Maximizing Lucidity / Enlightenment
Value Uncertainty
The Search
Covering Your Bases
Focus on What Society Says is Good
Focus on Personal Proclivities
Religious Intrinsic Values

5
 Hard Religious Belief Systems
Soft Religious Belief Systems
Personal Religious Belief Systems
Personalized Hard Religious Systems
Self-Image-Based Belief Systems
Proclivities
Step 1 Wrap Up

Step 2 Develop Your Ideological Tree

Ideologies and Objective Functions
Standards for Evidence
Building the Base of your Ideological Tree
Ideological Trees Require Regular Pruning
Ideologies that Require Careful Scrutiny
Leveraging Social Interaction To Better Think Through Your Ideology

Step 3 Define Your Internal Character

How To Turn Off Autopilot And Create Your Identity
Leveraging Moments of Lucidity
Leveraging Flux Periods
An Autopilot-Altering Case Study
Arguments Against Choosing a Self-Image
What Builds Our Self-images if We Do Not?
What Forces Built Your Present Self-image?
How We Process Emotions
Optimizing for Remembered Experiences
How Self-images Affect Our Perception
Self-image Creation and Hygiene
Avoid Allowing Your Self-Image-Powered Autopilot to Make Major
Decisions
How to Change
Thought Experiments
But it’s Not That Simple

Step 4 Define Your Public Character

Why Have Differing Public and Internal Characters?
But I’m a Social Chameleon!
Creating an Easily-Digestible Public Identity
Outlining your Public Persona
The Importance of Flaws Outline Your Final Public
Persona Carefully
Intentionally Managing your Social Network
Types of Friends

6
Read this Book with a Friend

The way our brains process the information we read is different from the way they
process information during a social interaction. Discussing each chapter with someone
you trust will allow you to more thoughtfully consider life’s big questions and build
yourself into the type of person you ultimately decide you want to be. At your request,
we will provide your desired reading companion with a free digital copy of this book
(http://pragmatist.guide/bookbuddy/).

Get a Free Audiobook

Should you prefer listening to books over reading them, visit

http://pragmatist.guide/audiobook/ to request an audiobook and we’ll send one to you
for free.

7
About This Guide

As humans, we get to choose what we believe and who we want to be. These are the
most important decisions we will ever make.

The vast majority of people never exercise their freedom to choose their identity and
beliefs. Instead, they allow others to tell them who they are, choosing only a few
trivial differentiating traits for themselves. When they react angrily or generously, they
ascribe the personality that lead them to that behavior as being something outside their
control. This is because in their minds “who they are” is something outside of their
control.

We live life as a sticky ball rolling down a sidewalk, picking up a hodgepodge of stuff
that just happens to be in our path. It is natural to try to convince ourselves that this
hodgepodge is “who we really are.” We tell ourselves this lie because thinking is hard,
and society doesn’t give us a good framework for structuring our beliefs about
ourselves and the world. Instead, we are served a smorgasbord of prefabricated
worldviews and told we have the option to choose among them.

Worse, we live in a society in which there is no profession or organization we can turn

to for help answering life’s big questions that will not pressure us to adopt beliefs
closer to their own. If you ask them what you should want to do with your life, they
tell you to do “good” things and then explain to you what you should believe “good”
is. This is not due to any flaw in these individuals or institutions, but the fact that these
institutions are designed from the ground up to lead people to the answers they believe
are right. There is no institution designed from the ground up to help people come up
with their own conclusions.

We hope to remedy this. The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life is a product of the Pragmatist
Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people in live intentionally and consider
alternative viewpoints. If you are interested in learning more, please contact us at
http://pragmatist.guide/.

In this book, we encourage the use of applied pragmatic thought—a framework for
systematically constructing your own beliefs about the world, leveraging those beliefs
to decide who you want to be as a person, and creating the person you want to be.

8
About the Authors: Simone & Malcolm
Collins

This book was written by me, Simone Collins, and my husband, Malcolm Collins.

Before I started to think about my value system, I was convinced I had the perfect life.
Upon graduating from college at the top of my class, I tried every fun and do-gooder
“dream job” I could think of—not because I wanted to, per se, but because that is what
the counterculture I grew up in told me I should pursue. This period of my life
featured colorful stints at a chocolate factory, a fashion magazine, a cupcake shop, a
medical device developer, two environmental nonprofits, and even an alternate reality
game company. I eventually settled down as an online community manager at a
Silicon Valley startup; the world had told me to take a job doing what I loved, and I
loved social media.

I had my own modest apartment near San Francisco, a group of friends to entertain on
weekends with nerdy escapades like cosplay baking parties, and enough extra income
to donate generously to charities as well as take international trips every year. I even
had the perfect wardrobe of the free-spirited Bay Area hipster, peppered with garments
like a bright pink hooded jumpsuit purchased in Harajuku, film-grade Stormtrooper
armor, and loads of vintage rayon taffeta dresses and petticoats snatched via Etsy, all
to ensure that I (and everyone who saw me) knew exactly how special of a snowflake I
was. I was living the millennial dream, doing everything I was told I was supposed to
do in order to be a content, free spirited youth.

You may be expecting me to say it all felt hollow or it wasn’t really enjoyable, but that
would be a lie. Life was great. I had worked hard and won based on the rulebook I was
given as a millennial child growing up. Life was smooth sailing—that is, until I
decided the one thing I was missing in life was romance, and in an effort to find a
romantic partner to round out my nearly-perfect life, I met Malcolm.

Malcolm was unlike anyone I had ever met. He knew exactly what he wanted from
life, had a plan to achieve it, and was 100% honest and transparent about it. When he
took his seat across from me at an Indian restaurant on our first date, the first thing he
told me was that he was looking for a wife and that he would most likely meet her that

9
autumn at Stanford Business School, due to its large pool of pre-vetted candidates.
When I asked him why he bothered to maintain an online dating profile and meet with
me in the first place, he went on to explain that, given the importance of the search for
a wife to his future life/goals, he was not in the business of ignoring any potential lead.

When I explained to him that one is not supposed to tell a potential partner things like
that on a first date, he responded, “Why? What are the advantages of keeping my
intentions hidden?”

It shocked me that I didn’t have a good answer for something that I had always been
told was obviously true.

That wasn’t the end of it. Malcolm asked me more questions—questions that made me
very angry for reasons I didn’t understand. Perhaps I was angry because despite being
obvious, these were questions I never thought to ask of myself. He asked me what,
exactly, I wanted from life, and why I wanted those things. He asked me how my
current life was optimized to achieve my objectives and what my next steps were.

These questions felt like punches to the gut. I did everything I could to dismiss them.
My life was perfect. I knew that everything had worked out splendidly for me without
my taking the time to think about these questions. “This is just who I am,” I wanted to
say, but I knew he would only respond, “Why have you chosen to be this person,
then?” In response, I could only think to say, “You don’t get to choose who you are,”
which was something I knew not to be true.

Malcolm didn’t accept the shallow, socially-correct answers I was used to being able
to mindlessly drop in an effort to shut down scrutiny. If I said, “I wanted to help
others,” he would demand that I define “help.” If I argued that I wanted others to be
happy, he would ask: “Why do you believe human happiness has value?” It was as
though I had been going about life under the impression that I was luxuriating on a
beautiful beach, only to have Malcolm brush aside a millimeter of sand to reveal a
prefabricated parking lot.

Malcolm made me realize that I didn’t know why I was living the life I was living or
where I wanted it to go. He set me face-to-face with the reality that I was just striving
for what I had been told to strive for. I had nothing to offer in response but superficial
answers and platitudes about happiness, love, equality, and freedom to fall back on.

How had no teacher or book ever asked me these questions? How could society let me
get this far without ever questioning where I was going? Sure, college philosophy
courses mentioned these questions existed, but they always gave me someone else’s
answer as soon as the question was posed, thus sparing me the burden of having to

10
actually think through them myself and come up with my own answers.

I wanted someone to just tell me the correct answer and that impulse disgusted me.
Begrudgingly, I took time to think through these big questions and, with Malcolm’s
help, I came up with answers for which I could personally vouch.

Having finally thought through these things, I felt as though I could see with clarity for
the first time in my life. Everything became effortless. Within a few months, I was
promoted from a low-level community manager position to Director of Marketing at
the Silicon Valley tech company where I worked—the 45th highest trafficked site in
the US—which had me managing a team of 20,000 people. A month after my
promotion, I was invited to speak at SXSW and was approached by investors who
wanted to give me money to start my own company. Within just a few months, I was
achieving things beyond my previous self’s wildest dreams, and yet these were only
stepping stones to my larger objective, because I finally knew exactly what I wanted
from life.

I need to stress, it is not that I was unhappy, unfulfilled, or unsuccessful before this
moment. It was as though Malcolm enabled me to see a new spectrum of light. I now
had a purpose, a reason to live, and a strong sense of conviction—not just a conviction
I could reference when questioned, but a conviction that permeated every breath I
took. As with the first time I put on glasses, I did not feel dissatisfied with my life
before those corrective lenses, but the clarity with which I could see the world after
putting them on was startling.

Though I am new to living life intentionally and taking ownership for my beliefs and
actions, Malcolm has been operating with this additional lens for most of his life. At
an early age, he decided exactly what he wanted his place in the world to be. He
understood that to see his objectives realized, he would need to understand how
humans think.

Malcolm’s conviction in his search has led to truly bizarre behavior. In middle school,
he took detailed notes on how hundreds of people online responded to pre-written
conversations in an attempt to create a model for predicting responses in a
conversation. Malcolm also pursued many of the steps you might expect, such as:
getting degrees in psychology, neuroscience, and biology; becoming a published
neuroscientist; contributing to work on the first commercially successful consumer
brain-computer interface device; and researching the evolution of human cognition (he
currently has work on display in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History).

Shortly before we started dating, Malcolm had made a major change in his life path
after gleaning diminishing returns from his quest to understand humans from an
academic and scientific perspective. Shifting his focus from academia to business, he

11
decided to get an MBA from Stanford, after which we created a startup together, went
through 500 Startups (a Silicon Valley startup accelerator), and got married. When our
company, ArtCorgi, evolved into one of the world’s top producers of mid-range
commissioned art (which is great, but not our purpose in life), Malcolm moved to
Korea to become Director of Strategy at Korea’s most desirable early stage VC fund
and I moved to the UK to explore the British venture scene and get a master’s degree
at the University of Cambridge. We reunited and at the ripe old age of 29 and, after
turning down the opportunity to raise our own VC fund believing the market to be
over saturated, instead leveraged our past success to raise start a fund called Collins
Family Ventures. We used this fund to buy a number of travel management companies
across North and South America, which sell flights on a wholesale basis to boutique
travel agencies, offer a free service to cut down businesses’ travel costs, and arrange
complex trips for leisure travelers on a budget (this group of agencies is called
Travelmax).

When not running our businesses, we try to spend our time discussing, refining, and
tinkering with methods that help us more effectively question our beliefs, take
responsibility for our actions, and become the versions of ourselves best capable of
achieving our objectives in life. What started out as personal reference notes have
evolved into this book.

Inspired to create a larger culture that promotes intentionality, personal responsibility,

and critical thought, we created the Pragmatist Foundation. A large part of the
Pragmatist Foundation’s goal is to give people a framework for creating their own
answers to the questions that changed my life without leading them towards any one
solution. This book was published with the intention of lighting the fire of purpose in
as many people’s hearts as possible. For that reason, we take no profit from it. All
profit made by the book is redirected into the Pragmatist Foundation.

12
Why Bother?

Is genocide a good thing?

If you don’t think genocide is good, why not?

Your reaction to this question may be one of disbelief. You might be thinking, “How
can you even ASK if genocide is a good thing?! OBVIOUSLY killing innocent people
is wrong!” And you probably wouldn’t be alone in that reaction.

Our society tells us genocide is wrong, that killing innocent people is wrong, and that
racism is wrong. However, if you believe these things only or primarily because the
culture in which you grew up told you they were obviously true, then you hold little
moral authority over someone who participated in genocide, because the culture in
which they grew up in told them genocide was a moral imperative.

If you took an average of cultures across human history—the things that most people
in most places were raised to believe were true—you would have a culture that
believed women were lesser beings than men, that some people are born better than
others, that freedom of thought is not a right, and that when you conquer a city, it is
perfectly moral to rape, kill, and enslave as many civilians as you want. Why were
most cultures in human history wrong, whereas the time and place that you just
happen to be born into correct? If you want to believe, with any intellectual integrity,
that the culture you were born into or the counterculture that accepted you is more
correct than others, you need to develop your own reasons why.

What you believe is a choice you can make—independently, for yourself. If you are
reading this book, chances are you have already made your choice and have developed
some system of thought-out beliefs about what is worth living for and why. The
framework presented in this book will help you structure your beliefs and engage you
with choices you may not have known you had. This book will also help you to build a
foundation that ensures your life and actions align with what you have decided to
believe.

Building this system for yourself will not always be pleasant. There will be moments

13
when you set down the book thinking: “This is difficult to think about! This book is
just too dense! Life has worked for me so far. I am done with this!”

This book was not written to be fun or a joy to consume. It was written to make you a
better person. Many books that claim to be about some form of “self-improvement”
are in reality collections of pleasant platitudes and stories that make you feel powerful
while merely affirming beliefs you already kind of had. Much like fad diets and
miracle cures that promise easy fixes to tough problems, “comfortable” self-
improvement books leave you utterly unchanged and unimproved.

Most self-improvement books are written with the goal of selling more books. They
achieve this by offering you the smallest suggested improvements necessary to allow
you to feel good about the person you have allowed yourself to become so that you are
likely to recommend them to others. We, brave reader, take no money from the sale of
this book. This book is only designed to help make you a better person.

Rather than spoon-feed you pre-established beliefs, this book is designed to make you
think, challenge your conceptions about the world, and develop a stronger personal
system of beliefs without giving you any pre-packaged answers. Challenging personal
beliefs is neither easy nor fun or pleasant, but it is a necessary step toward becoming
an actualized human being.

The Framework

There are four steps to gaining ownership and intentionality over your personal
identity and beliefs:
1. Determining your objective function
What is the purpose of my life?
2. Determining your ideological tree
How do I best fulfill that purpose?
3. Determining your personal identity
Who do I want to be?
4. Determining your public identity
How do I want others to think of me?

The four chapters of this guide will walk you through these steps in detail but before
that, here is a broad overview of each step.

A Brief Introduction to Step 1: Determine Your Objective Function

Your objective function is a statement of whatever you are trying to maximize with/in
your life. It is the metric by which you judge whether an action is a good or bad thing

14
to undertake.

Typically an objective function is a desire to maximize whatever group of things you

believe has intrinsic value. These things may involve personal happiness, pleasing
God, reducing suffering in others, or any number of other things people believe have
value.

Anything you do that serves your objective function is a “good” thing to do from your
perspective and anything that hinders your objective function is a “bad” thing to do.
Because of this, deciding your objective function is perhaps the single most important
decision of your life. Your objective function sets the metric by which you judge all
other decisions. Any person thinking with clarity should be referencing their objective
function before any major decision.

We use the term “objective function” and not “purpose” in part because it allows for
more flexibility in how you define what you want to achieve with your life.
Specifically, while a purpose is typically conceptualised as a singular goal, an
objective function should be thought of as a weighted combination of the things you
believe hold intrinsic value.

For example: Suppose you decide you value the happiness of others, but value your
own happiness more. If you chose this weighted combination of values as an objective
function and you encounter a scenario in which you could bring yourself happiness
through an action that meant another person must forego that exact same amount of
happiness, your objective function would direct you to undertake said action.

This chapter of the guide will help you determine your objective function by exploring
what you believe has intrinsic value. To help you consider intrinsic values that may fit
well with you, we will present you with the most common conclusions people make.
Each intrinsic value we introduce is accompanied by thought experiments, arguments
for and against, a discussion of tough implications, and important points of
consideration.

A Brief Introduction to Step 2: Determine Your Ideological Tree

The complex decisions we have to make on a daily basis do not allow us to simply
reference an objective function and reach a “correct answer.” Two people who believe
that pleasing God is the only thing of intrinsic value may decide on entirely different
and contradictory paths of action in order to achieve that goal. This happens because
these two people have different ideological trees.

Within this guide, we define an ideology as a hypothesis about how the world works

15
that you utilize to maximize your objective
function. For example, if your objective function
is to relieve suffering in others, then one of your
ideologies might be socialism because you
hypothesize that socialism is an effective means
of relieving suffering in others.

Ideologies exist within a branching hierarchy—

an ideological tree—in which some ideologies
are strictly subservient to others. An ideological
tree may have Southern Baptism at its root with
its political branch starting with representative democracy, followed by the Republican
party, followed by a particular presidential candidate. The reason we think of ideology
as a tree is that it helps us contextualize that some ideologies, e.g., “my belief that we
should elect X candidate for president,” may be directly subservient to other beliefs,
e.g., “I believe that Y political party is the best path forward for our country.” The
further down the tree an ideology is for you, the more other ideologies rely on its
correctness and therefore the more it is worth expending mental energy on ensuring it
is correct.

In this framework, ideologies are hypotheses about how the world works and as
hypotheses we should always be open to evidence that disproves them. You should
always be aware of what type of evidence would be necessary for you to alter a
particular path in your ideological tree. If you hypothesize that socialism is the best
political system for relieving suffering, what standard of information is required for
you to change your mind? Might that information already exist in the world? Have you
tried to seek it out? Where might you find it?

Almost as important as our objective function is the “standard of evidence” we choose

when building our ideological tree. One person may view a shift in the consensus of
the scientific community as sufficient evidence that a chosen ideology is wrong while
another may be willing to dismiss the consensus of the scientific community in the
face of a personal experience.

This chapter will drill into all of the various standards of evidence a person may
choose, the various advantages and disadvantages of each, and methods for
maintaining an up-to-date ideological tree. We all know someone whose ideological
tree ossified with age or through intellectual stagnation—someone who became
resistant to new ideas or the concept that their present views of the world could be
wrong. None of us wants to be that person. We all want to be able to change how we
view the world in light of new information. This chapter will provide you with the
framework you need to ensure your ideological tree never ossifies.

16
 A Brief Introduction to Step 3: Determine Your Personal Identity

You get to choose who you are.

Who you decide to be should be an informed decision designed to maximize your

objective function.

The human brain is not capable of referencing an objective function and ideological
tree every time it determines whether to reach for a donut, how to respond to a
question, or what to post to Facebook. Most of our lives are lived in a sort of autopilot.
This autopilot is driven by the type of person we have allowed ourselves to become in
response to the serendipitous events we have experienced in life.

It is tempting to say “I am perfect the way I am now” or “I can’t change who I am,”
but both of these statements are patently false. Who you are now is a Franken-identity
pieced together by experiences you have been randomly subjected to throughout your
life. A personal identity you consciously create is truer to you than a self-identity
created by random events.

To build your personal identity, you must take stock of your personal beliefs,
strengths, and weaknesses to determine how they can best be leveraged in pursuit of
your objective function. You must consciously decide who you are and who you are
not. To assist you in this endeavor, we discuss the psychology and neuroscience
behind the way we understand ourselves, experience emotions, maintain long-term
change in ourselves, and relate to our goals to help you build an autopilot for yourself
that keeps your behavior in line with your goals.

A Brief Introduction to Step 4: Determine Your Public Identity

When you rebuild yourself to be the type of person you want to be, there are two
versions of you that must be constructed:

1. The “you” that exists within your own mind

2. The “you” that exists in the minds of other people

The act of building yourself is akin to the act of building a house. A guide to building
houses that focused only on interior design would look silly. Likewise, someone who
paid to have a house built for them would be pretty upset if, upon their arrival, their
architect explained to them that no work had been done on the outside of the house
because “that’s not the part you see.”

17
You may be asking: “I want people to see me for who I really am. Why can’t I just
show people my internal character?” The fact is, even if they could read your mind, it
wouldn’t help them build a picture of who you are as a person.

Stop and think for a moment: if someone spent five hours yesterday from noon to
5:00pm reading your mind, would they have a good picture of who you really are?
Probably not. Now consider how many people in the last six months have spent over
five hours trying to get to know you without the ability to read your mind. Getting to
know “who you really are” is a treat reserved for only your closest and longest friends
who make up the vast minority of individuals you will ever interact with.

Asking why you can’t just force people to see you the way you see yourself is akin to
the developers of a video game asking why they can’t just put the game’s code on the
box, because that is what the game “really is” after all. If game developers just slapped
source code on product boxes, most game box covers would look boring, overly
complicated, and nearly identical.

This section explores the systems individuals use to process, store, and sort
information about people they meet. Using this information, you will be guided
through the process of building a public persona—the marketing box art of your
chosen internal character—that harnesses these systems in order to help you achieve
your objective function.

Always remember that everyone is the protagonist of their own story. This means that
you, dear reader, are a supporting character in the eyes of every human being you will
meet in your lifetime. In the story of your life, you are magnificent protagonist, but to
play a meaningful role in others’ narratives, you are best suited if you paint yourself as
a compelling supporting character. Writing yourself as a supporting character in your
own narrative is depressingly belittling to your potential, but attempting to write
yourself as a protagonist in the life of someone else is psychotically narcissistic.

In short, when building yourself, it is important to both build who you want to be in
your own eyes and who you want to be in the eyes of others.

How Applied Pragmatic Thought Relates to Religion, Atheism, and

Philosophers

Applied pragmatic thought is a non-denominational method for increasing the

intentionality of one’s beliefs and life, regardless of whether these beliefs are atheistic
or religious in origin.

This framework is, however, strictly opposed to using prefabricated “philosophical”

18
belief sets as a crutch.

While you read this guide, you will feel a natural urge to avoid having to think. By
default, whether we like to admit it or not, we tend to prefer being told what to believe
or what arguments we should use to defend what we wish were true about the world.
Nobody is exempt from this urge.

Anyone with access to an internet connection, a library, or memories of an

introductory philosophy class can access a wide range of philosophers from both the
recent and distant past who developed pre-packaged belief sets complete with fully-
prepared defenses to counter arguments and challenges. Building core beliefs about
the world based on the arguments of philosophers is like trying to get in shape using
liposuction and plastic surgery. You may look polished after the procedure, but you
will have built no foundation. Having earned nothing for yourself, you will ultimately
revert to your old habits.

If turning to pre-packaged philosophies is akin to getting liposuction, leveraging the

applied pragmatic thought framework presented in this guide is like signing up for a
gym membership. Rather than artificially applying beliefs to you, we will act as your
personal trainers and spotters, helping you to build and strengthen your own beliefs
without doing the heavy lifting for you.

Along with a lack of personal mental effort and commitment, reliance on prepackaged
beliefs carries with it the hazard of obscure vocabulary, which can slot you into
potentially constraining categories, alienate you from others, and obscure your ability
to truly understand what you are talking about.

For example, when trying to understand what you believe about the world, you may
tumble down a Wikipedia hole and land on something like Epicureanism. At first
glance, you may see Epicureanism as restrained version of an objective function
focused on “maximizing personal positive emotions” and begin identifying as an
Epicurean without realizing you are saying you identify with a worldview rather than
just an objective function (while Epicureanism has an objective function it is a lot
more than that, it is a pre-packaged worldview complete with a set of base ideologies).
These prepackaged zero thought worldviews are the microwavable dinners of identity.

Worse still is the way one can use their prepackaged buzzwords, concepts, and
fallacies to create a sense of false superiority over people with whom you are
communicating, which can ultimately prevent others from understanding your
arguments. Ironically, obscure vocabulary may prevent you from appreciating that
others’ viewpoints may be more sound and valid than your own, despite their lack of
fancy vocabulary.

19
Chances are you have, on several occasions, witnessed someone using fancy or
obscure terminology to try to win or end an argument without actually thinking about
the issue at hand. Chances are these people have not been very effective at changing
your views. In our never-ending quest to avoid reflecting on our position in the world,
there is no greater armor preventing communication than obscure terminology.

Finally, if you have reached this part of the book and are disappointed to find we
won’t be talking about Pragmatism, the philosophical movement of the late 1800s
popularized by William James and John Dewey (or any of its modern manifestations,
such as neo classical pragmatism or analytical pragmatism), then please accept our
sincerest apologies. This book is using the word “pragmatic” in the vernacular, which
runs contrary to what most would consider to be an obscure, pedantic philosophical
movement. (No offense to the philosophical movement; we are genuinely great
admirers of it. Still, objectively speaking, most people would consider a lesser-known
philosophical school of thought to be excessively academic and stuffy, which is the
antithesis of the definition of the word pragmatic).

Avoiding fancy vocabulary is not easy. Even as we wrote this guide, we found ourselves relying on
philosophical terms as a crutch and had to meticulously remove them. Do not fall into this trap.

20
STEP 1
Define Your Objective Function

ob·jec·tive func·tion
noun: objective function; plural noun: objective
functions

1. (in linear programming) the function that it is desired to maximize or

minimize.

Our objective function is the thing we attempt to maximize/minimize in/with our lives.
It is the metric by which we judge the “correctness” of any action or decision we
make. To build your objective function, you must first define what you believe has
intrinsic value, then organize these intrinsically valuable things relative to each other.

A function transforms a wide variety of inputs

into an output in a systematic way. An objective
function is a function designed to optimize for a
certain objective. Having an objective function
allows you to take in a wide variety of inputs and
know what course of action you should take
given those inputs. In the applied pragmatic
thought framework, an objective is typically
defined as maximizing a weighted combination
of things you that you believe hold intrinsic
value.

For example, you may decide you believe that

both maximizing your own positive emotional state and spreading positive emotions to
others has intrinsic value, but that your own emotional state is three times more
valuable than the emotional states of others. By knowing that this is what you believe,
you can take a set of inputs like: “I have a dollar, if I give this dollar to person X, I
estimate there is an 80% probability they will gain ten times the happiness from this
dollar than I could” and come to a confident conclusion about what course of action
you should take: “therefore, given my objective function I should give this dollar to
person X.”

21
An intrinsic value cannot be proven wrong in the same way an ideology can. Because
an ideology (as we are defining it in this book) is a hypothesis about how to maximize
an objective function, something could happen that falsifies that hypothesis. Objective
functions, on the other hand, are judgment calls. Ultimately, no one can tell you that
yours is “wrong.”

We understand the term “objective function” is not a simple English term people
commonly use and that, in this sense, it violates our pledge to avoid special
vocabulary. This is one of the only places in this guide in which we use an obscure
term as opposed to something more mainstream. We would not do this unless we felt it
were absolutely necessary. The mainstream term we would use, “purpose,” has a lot of
baggage and preconceived notions attached to it, which muddle its place in our lives.

There are several problems with the term “purpose” that do not arise when we use the
term “objective function”:
Purpose is often taken to be a single, discrete thing one is trying to
achieve, which is unnecessarily limiting.
Purpose is taken to be something that is concretely “finishable.” Thus
there is often no winning in life when one has a purpose: “finishing” a
purpose before dying indicates wasted potential and failing to “finish” a
purpose before dying means failure.
Purpose is often used to refer to an ideology (e.g., to defend the
American way of life) instead of a thing of intrinsic value (e.g.,
maximizing human liberty and self- determination).

The term “objective function” and our use of term “ideology” (to define a hypothesis
for maximizing an objective function) will be the only two unique terms used in this
guide.

Why Do I Need to Think Through an Objective Function?

You may be thinking “I have a set of beliefs that work for me. Why question them?”
or “I just don’t care. This isn’t a question that is important to me.”

We would argue that the question: “What is your objective function?” is the single
most important question of your life. Your answer to this question will be used to
judge the fidelity of every decision you make. Whether an action or decision you make
is “good” or “bad” from your perspective depends entirely on what you believe is
intrinsically good or bad in the world.

Throughout history, there have been many times during which mainstream ethics
promoted presently unthinkable actions such as slavery, recreational rape, and

22
genocide.

You may think: “Sure, societies condoned unethical things in the past, but our modern
society doesn’t do that anymore.”

Consider that someone in the slaveholding South would have said the exact same thing
and 100% believed it. “We live in an age of enlightenment,” this person might
proclaim, going on to discuss how unethical people in the past were and how they had
risen above those barbaric practices. “In ancient Greece, terrible sins such as
homosexuality were allowed,” they might argue, “but we do not allow such things in
this modern day.”

You cannot know if you are a modern version of a nineteenth century slave owner if
you are not willing to look at your value system critically. It is tempting to assume that
nothing in society’s modern morality is remotely equitable to slavery, but depending
on your beliefs about what has intrinsic value, this is not necessarily true.

Many frameworks for understanding the world might view anything from abortion to
the industrial slaughter of animals for consumption as horrendously unethical. It is
entirely plausible that in a future society capable of synthetic meat production, our
present industrial slaughter of animals will be seen as terrifyingly evil on a scale equal
to any past atrocity in human history (especially if they don’t see a distinction between
the emotional state of humans and animals). Whether we choose to eat meat today
depends on our objective functions and how they relate to the lives of animals and
plants. If you do not believe the life or experiences of a cow have inherent value, you
can enjoy a hamburger with a clear conscience. However, if you do conclude a cow’s
feelings have value, you may need to change your actions and lifestyle.

The Uniqueness of Objective Functions to the Human Condition

Over time, people have found thousands of different ways to define how human
consciousness is differentiated from the way animals interact with the world. We
instinctively want to define what makes our conscious experience of the world unique.
We would like to take this opportunity to throw our proverbial hat into the ring. The
one thing a human can do that an animal cannot is choose its own objective function.

Let us consider a dog named Sparky. Sparky probably has a mental landscape in
which he exists and in which he feels pain, pleasure, pride, or boredom. Sparky
certainly creates hypotheses about how the world works while learning from those
around him. Sparky can even make choices about how best to achieve what he wants.
The one thing Sparky can’t do is choose his objective function. Like most animals,
Sparky has had his objective function bred into him: he wants to eat, procreate, carry

23
out his training (emotional conditioning), and—thanks to centuries of selective
breeding—please and be of service to his human family. (We are by no means trying
to trivialize this emotion in dogs. This emotional drive is likely more powerfully felt
than the emotion humans call love, because stronger selective pressures have created
it.)

Sparky has the capacity to think: “How do I maximize positive emotions?” but he
cannot question whether he should want to maximize his positive emotions.

The ability to ask: “Should I try to optimize the objective function that is a
combination of inbred traits and conditioning I have experienced, or should I attempt
to optimize for something else?” and then ask: “Why should I try to optimize for that
other thing?” is a uniquely human capability.

A human who chooses not to exercise their ability to choose what she wants from life
is denying the single aspect of their consciousness that differentiates them from an
animal.

A Note on Challenges to Objective Functions

Because we are firmly against pushing one belief system over another belief system,
we make a point of trying to provide the most simple, compelling argument possible
against all belief systems discussed. Every time we present why someone might
believe some specific objective function, we also attempt to create as strong an
argument as we can as to why that objective function is wrong.

Often these arguments take the form of thought experiments: analogies or forced
decisions meant to determine if you really believe what you think you believe. These
thought experiments are typically tailored to the belief system of a person we expect
might hold such an objective function (e.g., a challenge to an objective function that
would likely only be held by atheists may include the presupposition that evolution is
true and that emotional states are an emergent property of brain states, whereas an
objective function that an evangelical Christian might hold will not include such
assumptions in its discussion). For example, when challenging you to carefully
consider an objective function oriented around maximizing personal good feelings, we
may ask:

If you could live in a human-sized tube that would make you live twice as
long as you would outside the tube and pump you full of good feelings that
were more diverse and more enjoyable than any feeling you could
experience outside the tube, would you choose to drop everything about
your life this instant and commit to the tube for the rest of your life,

24
 despite the fact that you would lose all contact with friends and family and
never leave the tube again?

This challenge forces you to ask yourself if there is not something else more important
to you than this specific objective function. The challenge is not meant to question or
insult the value of the objective function itself, nor is it meant to deride anyone who
should choose it.

It is very important you do not try to “cheat” a thought experiment by arguing about
the challenge’s details, because doing so enables you to avoid a difficult but necessary
decision. By answering the question with a cheat answer such as, “No, I wouldn’t live
in the happiness tube because it is a drug and I may get addicted to it,” or “I would get
used to feeling positive emotions all the time and they would no longer feel good after
a short period,” you are avoiding the substance of the question and not allowing
yourself to be meaningfully challenged. The point of the question is to force you to
reflect on whether or not you would actually accept perfect emotional optimization
over all other things.

What Has Inherent Value?

An Overview of What People Choose to Maximize with their Objective
Functions

To establish your objective function, you must make a judgment call about what does
and does not have intrinsic value, as your values are what your objective function is
meant to maximize.

There are five broad categories people fall into when determining what does or does
not have intrinsic value:

1. Nothing has intrinsic value

2. Something has innate intrinsic value
3. Something has intrinsic value, but they don’t know what
4. Religious tradition determines what has intrinsic value
5. Desired self-perception determines what has intrinsic value

Finally, we will review proclivities, things that you may want in your life even though
you recognize they have no intrinsic value.

Nothing has Intrinsic Value

Many conclude that nothing has intrinsic value. The arguments in favor of this belief
are so simplistic and apparent they do not warrant enumeration.

25
The core argument against this category of belief system is that if there is even the
tiniest possibility that anything might have intrinsic value, it is best to go forward
assuming that thing does have intrinsic value.

Consider the following thought experiment:

You have just survived a plane crash in the desert. You have no idea
where you are or whether civilization is close by or entirely out of reach.
You can see nothing on the horizon but sand. You know for an absolute
fact that no search parties will come to save you (perhaps in this thought
experiment there are laws against saving people from plane crashes or
entering the desert you crashed in).1 What is the most logical course of
action if your goal is staying alive? Is it just to stay at the crash site,
where you know you will die, or is it worth traveling in any random
direction in the hope of finding something? If you choose to move, you are
still likely to die, but there is also a probability—albeit a small one—that
you will find water, food, or even a small camp, and will survive. What do
you do: stay put and die, or leave the crash site to see what you might
find?

In the above thought experiment it is only logical to stay with the plane if you are
absolutely certain that doing so would not decrease your probability of surviving
(assuming you are optimizing for survival, which to digest the above thought
experiment with intellectual honesty, you must assume). Because we know that
staying with the plane has a 0% probability of survival, it only is logical to stay with
the plane if you are certain there is also a 0% probability of survival no matter which
direction you might take. (A known 0% chance of survival no matter what you do is
very different from a hypothesized 0% chance of survival.)

Similarly, it is only logical to live your life assuming nothing has intrinsic value if you
are categorically certain nothing has intrinsic value. If you live life assuming nothing
has intrinsic value, there is a 0% possibility your existence will have had any meaning
or value. If, however, there is even a slight chance that something might have intrinsic
value, no matter how slight that chance might be, that thing is worth pursuit.

There are three exceptions to the above argument:

1. An individual could argue that the analogy is flawed, as even by living as
if nothing has value an individual still might stumble into a meaningful
life. While this is true, unless we have access to no meaningful
information about what does or does not have value, the probability of
living a life of value will always be higher when attempting to do so.

To hold this counter argument, you must believe that we have no way to infer what

26
may have intrinsic value. A person making this argument would also have to hold that
preventing suffering is just as likely to maximize intrinsic value as maximizing the
number of things painted purple.

2. An individual could take exception to the plane analogy’s assumption

that the stranded individual’s goal should be survival, which, in the
analogy, equates to a life of value. In essence, such a person claims that
someone who knew what was necessary to live a meaningful existence
may discard said information and instead choose to live a meaningless
existence. We have trouble believing someone would make this argument
as anything other than a thought experiment.
3. An individual could argue that a life which might have intrinsic value is
not the same as a life that does have intrinsic value. To this, we would
reply that a life with a 1% probability of having intrinsic value still has
infinitely more intrinsic value than a life we are certain lacks intrinsic
value. If one is attempting to live a meaningful existence, it is worth it to
do whatever you think has the highest probability of making your life
meaningful, even if that probability is very low.

In short, to hold the belief that nothing has intrinsic value, it is not enough to think it is
very likely that nothing has intrinsic value. You must be absolutely certain, through a
logical thought process, that nothing has intrinsic value

People who choose to believe they are certain nothing has intrinsic value typically
choose one of the following objective functions:
Maximizing personal good feelings: If nothing matters, you might as
well default to what your biology tells you to do (which is, to feel good).
Moving society forward: If you do not feel good about being someone
who only seeks pleasure, you might instead choose to move society
forward primarily to cultivate a sense of superiority over others who you
see as pursuing more animalistic instincts.
Serving one’s role in society: You may, upon determining that nothing
has intrinsic value, default to maximizing non-intrinsic values such as
your role in society or family traditions—be it serving in the military,
being part of the family business, or just being the best possible
elementary school traffic cop you can be.

Considerations if you decide you believe nothing has intrinsic value

Even if you decide nothing has intrinsic value, you must still define an objective
function for yourself. Deciding that “nothing matters” doesn’t absolve you from the
logical imperative to be intentional in whatever you do decide to focus on in life and
how you pursue it.

27
Something Has Innate Intrinsic Value

In this section, we will discuss intrinsic values that may exist as part of an individual’s
objective function independent of religious traditions.

While these values are independent from religious traditions, they are not exclusively
atheist. For example, a Christian may think human suffering is intrinsically bad,
independent of what his or her religious tradition says (in fact, the classic paradox,
which asks: “How does suffering exist in a world with a good God?” presumes that
even religious individuals believe suffering is inherently of negative value independent
of religious tradition).

How does something become imbued with intrinsic value?

Before we can delve into various things an individual may believe have intrinsic value,
we will take a quick detour to discuss the two core ways a thing may be imbued with
intrinsic value. We can conclude something has either absolute intrinsic value or
relative intrinsic value.

Absolute Intrinsic Value

Something of absolute intrinsic value is something that has value regardless of the
perspective of the entity deciding whether or not it has value (in this case that entity is
you). Something of absolute intrinsic value has value somehow imbued into its very
nature. This is the way we normally think about the concept of intrinsic value. The
classic example of something with absolute intrinsic value would be a deity (God,
Allah, Yahweh, etc.).

Relative Intrinsic Value

Something with relative intrinsic value gains value through the nature of its
relationship to the entity deciding whether or not it has value (in this case, that entity is
you).

Most relative intrinsic value arguments are versions of the same base argument.

You must have value from your own perspective

Therefore, there is intrinsic value in maximizing good for yourself.

While this may seem like a fairly simple argument, it can manifest itself in a plethora

28
of ways depending on how you define “yourself” and “good.”

By extending the definition of yourself or by focusing on aspects of yourself, you can

come to wildly different conclusions about what has intrinsic value. For example, at its
broadest interpretation, you may say:
I am an entity made of stuff.
Therefore, from my perspective, things made of stuff have value when
contrasted with things that do not exist.
Therefore, something that caused the end of stuff (the universe) would
be an intrinsically negative event from my perspective and from the
perspective of all other entities made of stuff.

Pretty much all relative intrinsic values can be discounted out of hand if you
categorically reject the argument that an entity has intrinsic value from its own
perspective (i.e., that you have intrinsic value from the perspective of yourself).

Positive Personal Emotions

Maximizing positive personal emotions is most individuals’ “default” intrinsic value.

To some extent, the pursuit of happiness is an aspect of almost everyone’s objective
function, whether or not one sees it as having objective value.

Emotions are one of only a few tools evolution2 has for controlling our behavior and
thus can be quite powerful. You feel something as a positive emotion (whether it be
love, lust, or a sense of accomplishment from a job well done) because humans who
experienced these emotions in the past had a higher probability of surviving long
enough to reproduce and raise children who in turn survived and reproduced. Whether
they be love, envy, or the joy from a job well done, all emotions exist for this one
reason.

At their core, emotions are neurological states. They exist as a specific configuration
of neural pathways and levels of neurotransmitters. We even currently have the
technology to directly induce even complicated emotions through chemicals or direct
stimulation of parts of the brain.

These two facts alone are enough to convince many that positive feelings are too
trivial to have intrinsic value. The fact that emotions are mechanical, chemically-
induced states meant to help us pass on our genes certainly makes it difficult to believe
that any specific individual’s positive emotional states are of absolute intrinsic value.

That said, it is not incredibly difficult to conclude that from a relative perspective,
positive feelings have inherent value. If we are our minds and our minds perceive

29
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
indeed, most unexpected. Before this matter had been settled
the German Minister was killed. Suddenly meeting this affair
caused us deep grief. We ought vigorously to seek the murderer
and punish him.' No more. The date July 18; the murder June
20!

"Yet even in this decree there was a complete 'volte-face.'

Missionaries who were by the decree of July 2 'to be at once
driven away to their own countries' were by the decree of July
18 'to be protected in every province,' 'to be protected
without the least carelessness.' The truculence and
belligerence of the decrees issued when our troops had been
driven back had disappeared; the tone now was one of
justification and conciliation. Only one interpretation was
possible—that the Chinese had been defeated. Confirmation came
the same day. A messenger sent out by the Japanese
successfully passed the enemy's lines and brought us the news
that we had so long awaited. … By the same messenger a letter
was received by the French Minister. … The same messenger also
brought to the Belgian Minister a despatch from his Consul at
Tien-tsin. … Days followed quietly now, though 'sniping' did
not cease. Several casualties occurred among the garrison. A
Russian was killed and an Austrian wounded; an Italian wounded
and also a Japanese. In the Fu it was still dangerous for the
Christian refugees to move about, and several were hit and two
killed. But the Yamên became more and more conciliatory, until
we could gauge the advance of the reliefs by the degree of
apology in their despatches. But all supplies were rigorously
cut off, and the sufferings of the Christians were acute. …

"On the 22nd Sir Robert Hart received a despatch from the
Tsung-li-Yamên. They naïvely remarked that it was now one
month since they had heard from him, and his silence gave them
concern for his welfare. Moreover, a report had just reached them
that his house had been burned, but they expressed the hope
that he and al his staff were well. Another despatch requested
his advice upon a Customs question that had arisen in
 Shanghai. Sir Robert Hart wrote a dignified reply. For more
than a month, he said, he had been a refugee in the British
Legation with all his staff, having had to flee from his house
without warning; that all Customs records and papers, and
every paper and letter of value that he had accumulated during
a lifetime, had been destroyed; that not only his house, but
some 19 other buildings in the occupation of his staff had
been burned with all their contents; that the acting postal
secretary had been killed by a shell, and two other members of
his staff—Mr. Richardson and Mr. Macoun—had been wounded by
bullets. …

"Meanwhile, the armistice continued, if armistice it can be

called where true armistice there was none. Desultory firing
continued, and sniping was still the chief pastime at the
Chinese outposts. Friendly relations were, however, opened
with some Chinese soldiers in the Fu. A Japanese Volunteer
established a bureau of intelligence to which the enemy's
soldiers had access. One soldier was especially communicative,
and earned high reward for the valuable information that he
conveyed to us. For a week from July 26 to August 2 daily
bulletins based upon this information of the advance of the
relief column were posted on the bell tower of the British
Legation.
{127}
An unbroken series of victories was attending our relief
forces. … Letters were given to the soldier to take to the
General of the relief column, and a reward offered if an
answer should be brought next day, but no answer was ever
brought. Our informant had brought the armies along too
quickly. He was compelled to send them back. Accordingly on
the 31st he made the Chinese recapture Chang-chia-wan, killing
60 of the foreigners; advancing upon Matou he killed 70
foreigners more, and drove them back to An-ping. Next day he
drove the foreigners disastrously back to Tien-tsin with a
loss of 1,000. The day was equally disastrous to himself. Our
informant had killed the goose that lay the golden egg. For a
messenger arrived on that day with letters from Tien-tsin,
dated July 30, informing us that a large force was on the
point of leaving for our relief. … Meanwhile, while our
informant was marching our relief backwards and forwards to
Tien-tsin, Prince Ching and others were vainly urging the
Ministers to leave Peking, but whether they left Peking or not
they were to hand over the Christian refugees now under the
protection of the Legations to the mercies of the Government,
which had issued a decree commanding that they be exterminated
unless they recanted their errors. In other communications
Prince Ching 'and others' urged that the foreign Ministers
should telegraph to their Government 'en clair' lying reports
of the condition of affairs in Peking.

Two days after the cessation of hostilities Prince Ching 'and

others' sent a despatch to Sir Claude MacDonald to the effect
that it was impossible to protect the Ministers in Peking
because 'Boxers' were gathering from all points of the
compass, and that nothing would satisfy them (the 'Boxers')
but the destruction of the Legations, and that the Ministers
would be given safe conduct to Tien-tsin. Sir Claude, in
reply, asked why it was that protection could be given to the
Ministers on the way to Tien-tsin and yet could not be given
to them while in the Legations in Peking. Prince Ching 'and
others' replied: 'July 25, 1900. … As to the inquiry what
difference there is between giving protection in the city or
on the road, and why it is possible to give it in the latter,
there is only an apparent discrepancy. For the being in the
city is permanent, the being on the road is temporary. If all
the foreign Ministers are willing to temporarily retire we
should propose the route to Tung-chau and thence by boat down
stream to Tien-tsin, which could be reached in only two days.
No matter what difficulties there might be a numerous body of
troops would be sent, half by water to form a close escort,
half by road to keep all safe for a long way on both banks.
Since the time would be short we can guarantee that there
would be no mishap. It is otherwise with a permanent residence
in Peking, where it is impossible to foretell when a disaster
may occur.' … In the envelope which brought this letter were
two other communications of the same guileless nature. 'On
July 24,' said the first, 'we received a telegram from Mr.
Warren, British Consul-General in Shanghai, to the effect that
while China was protecting the Legations no telegram had been
received from the British Minister, and asking the Yamên to
transmit Sir C. M. MacDonald's telegram to Shanghai. As in
duty bound we communicate the above, and beg you to send a
telegram "en clair" to the Yamên for transmission.' Tender
consideration was shown for us in the second letter:—'For the
past month and more military affairs have been very pressing.
Your Excellency and other Ministers ought to telegraph home
that your families are well in order to soothe anxiety, but at
the present moment peace is not yet restored, and your
Legation telegrams must be wholly "en clair," stating that all
is well, without touching on military affairs. Under those
conditions the Yamên can transmit them. The writers beg that
your Excellency will communicate this to the other foreign
Ministers.'

"Evasive replies were given to these communications. … Our

position at this time compelled us to temporize. We knew from
the alteration in tone of the Chinese despatches that they had
suffered defeats and were growing alarmed, but we did not know
how much longer international jealousies or difficulties of
obtaining transport were to delay the departure of the troops
for Tien-tsin. … Though now nominally under the protection of
an armistice sniping still continued, especially in the Fu,
into any exposed portion of the besieged area. … The Chinese
worked on continuously at their fortifications. … Finding that
the Ministers declined to telegraph to their Governments 'en
clair' that all was well with the Legations, the
Tsung-li-Yamên wrote to Sir Robert Hart asking him to send
home a telegram in the sense they suggested. Sir Robert
replied diplomatically, 'If I were to wire the truth about the
Legations I should not be believed.'
 "A malevolent attempt was next made by the Chinese to obtain
possession of the refugees who were in our safe keeping. On
July 27 they wrote to Sir Claude MacDonald saying that 'they
hear that there are lodged at the Legations a considerable
number of converts, and that, as 'the space is limited and
weather hot, they suggest that they must be causing the
Legations considerable inconvenience. And now that people's
minds are quieted, these converts can all be sent out and go
about their ordinary avocations. They need not have doubts or
fears. If you concur, an estimate should be made of the
numbers and a date fixed for letting them out. Then all will
be in harmony.' The reply of the diplomatic body was to the
effect that while they were considering the two last
letters—one offering safe conduct to Tien-tsin and the other
declaring that the converts might leave the Legations in
perfect security—heavy firing was heard in the direction of
the Pei-tang, which was evidently being attacked in force;
that yesterday and last night a barricade was built across the
North Bridge, from behind which shots are being continuously
fired into the British Legation. The French and Russian
Legations are also being fired upon. As all this seems
inconsistent with the above letters, an explanation is asked
for before further consideration is given to the offer.
Promptly the Yamên sent its explanation. The Pei-tang
refugees, it seemed, who were starving, had made a sortie to
obtain food. And they had fired upon the people. 'A decree,'
it went on to say, 'has now been requested to the effect that
if the converts do not come out to plunder they are to be
protected and not to be continually attacked, for they also
are the children of the State. This practice (of continually
firing upon the converts) will thus be gradually stopped.'
{128}
Such a callous reply was read with indignation, and there was
not the slightest intention on the part of any Minister to
leave Peking. Yet on the 4th of August a decree was issued
appointing Yung Lu to conduct the foreign Ministers safely to
Tien-tsin 'in order once more to show the tenderness of the
Throne for the men from afar.' …

"On August 10, Friday, a messenger succeeded in passing the

enemy's lines, and brought us letters from General Gaselee and
General Fukushima. A strong relief force was marching to
Peking, and would arrive here if nothing untoward happened on
the 13th or 14th. Our danger then was that the enemy would
make a final effort to rush the Legations before the arrival
of reinforcements. And the expected happened. …

"Yesterday [August 13] passed under a continuous fusillade

which increased during the night. Then at 3 on this morning we
were all awakened by the booming of guns in the east and by
the welcome sound of volley firing. Word flew round that 'the
foreign troops are at the city wall and are shelling the East
Gate.' At daylight most of us went on to the wall, and
witnessed the shelling of the Great East Gate. We knew that
the allies would advance in separate columns, and were on the
qui vive of excitement, knowing that at any moment now the
troops might arrive. Luncheon, the hard luncheon of horse
flesh, came on, and we had just finished when the cry rang
through the Legation, 'The British are coming,' and there was
a rush to the entrance and up Canal-street towards the Water
Gate. The stalwart form of the general and his staff were
entering by the Water Gate, followed by the 1st Regiment of
Sikhs and the 7th Rajputs. They passed down Canal-street, and
amid a scene of indescribable emotion marched to the British
Legation. The siege has been raised.

"Peking, August 15. On reading over my narrative of the siege

I find that in the hurry and confusion of concluding my report
I have omitted one or two things that I had wished to say. In
the first place, I find that I have not in any adequate way
expressed the obligation of all those confined in the British
Legation to the splendid services done by the Reverend F. D.
Gamewell, of the American Episcopal Mission [who was educated
 as a civil engineer at Troy and Cornell], to whom was due the
designing and construction of all our defences, and who
carried out in the most admirable manner the ideas and
suggestions of our Minister, Sir Claude MacDonald. To the
Reverend Frank Norris, of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel, our thanks are also specially due. He
superintended, often under heavy fire, the construction of
defences in the Prince's Fu and in other exposed places,
working always with a courage and energy worthy of admiration.
He was struck in the neck once by a segment of a shell, but
escaped marvellously from serious injury. He speaks Chinese
well, and Chinese worked under him with a fearlessness that
few men can inspire. In the second place, I noticed that I
have not sufficiently recorded the valuable services rendered
by Mr. H. G. Squiers, the First Secretary of the American
Legation, who on the death of Captain Strouts became Chief of
the Staff to Sir Claude MacDonald. He had been for 15 years in
the United States cavalry, and his knowledge and skill and the
resolution with which he inspired his small body of men will
not readily be forgotten. …

"To-day the Pei-tang Cathedral was relieved. Bishops, priests,

and sisters had survived the siege and, thanks to the
wonderful foresight of Bishop Favier, the Christians had been
spared from starvation. Japanese coming down from the north of
the city relieved the cathedral; French, British, and Russians
from the south arrived as the siege was raised. Mines had been
employed with deadly effect. The guards had lost five French
killed and five Italians. Some 200 of the Christians had
perished."

London Times,
October 13 and 15, 1900.

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (June-December).

Upright conduct of the Chinese Viceroys in
the Yang-tsze provinces.
 In his annual message of December 3, 1900, to Congress,
referring to the occurrences in China, the President of the
United States remarked with much justice: "It is a relief to
recall and a pleasure to record the loyal conduct of the
viceroys and local authorities of the southern and eastern
provinces. Their efforts were continuously directed to the
pacific control of the vast populations under their rule and
to the scrupulous observance of foreign treaty rights. At
critical moments they did not hesitate to memorialize the
Throne, urging the protection of the legations, the
restoration of communication, and the assertion of the
Imperial authority against the subversive elements. They
maintained excellent relations with the official
representatives of foreign powers. To their kindly disposition
is largely due the success of the consuls in removing many of
the missionaries from the interior to places of safety." The
viceroys especially referred to in this are Chang Chih-tung
and Liu Kun-yi, often referred to as "the Yang-tsze viceroys."

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (July).

Speech of German Emperor to troops departing to China,
commanding no quarter.

See (in this volume)

GERMANY: A. D. 1900 (OCTOBER 9).

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (July).

American troops sent to co-operate with those of other Powers.
Capture of Tientsin by the allied forces.
Death of Colonel Liscum.
Reported massacre of foreign Ministers and others in Peking.
The long month of dread suspense.
Overtures from Earl Li Hung-chang for negotiation.

"On the 26th of June Major Gen. Adna R Chaffee, U. S. V., was
appointed to the command of the American forces in China. He
 embarked from San Francisco on the 1st of July, reached
Nagasaki on the 24th, and Taku, China, on the 28th. … On
reaching Nagasaki he received the following instructions,
dated, … July 19: 'Secretary War directs that you proceed at
once with transport Grant, Sixth Cavalry, and Marines to Taku,
China, and take command of American land forces, which will be
an independent command known as the China relief expedition.
You will find there the Ninth and Fourteenth Infantry, one
battery of the Fifth Artillery, and one battalion of Marines.
Sumner sailed from San Francisco July 17 with Second Battalion
of Fifteenth Infantry and recruits to capacity of vessel.
{129}
Reinforcements will follow to make your force in the immediate
future up to 5,000, and very soon to 10,000. … Reports now
indicate that American Minister with all the legation have
been destroyed in Pekin. Chinese representative here, however,
insists to the contrary, and there is, therefore, a hope which
you will not lose sight of until certainty is absolute. It is
the desire of this Government to maintain its relations of
friendship with the part of Chinese people and Chinese
officials not concerned in outrages on Americans. Among these
we consider Li Hung Chang, just appointed viceroy of Chili.
You will to the extent of your power aid the Government of
China, or any part thereof, in repressing such outrages and in
rescuing Americans, and in protecting American citizens and
interests, and wherever Chinese Government fails to render
such protection you will do all in your power to supply it.
Confer freely with commanders of other national forces, act
concurrently with them, and seek entire harmony of action
along the lines of similar purpose and interest. There
should be full and free conference as to operations before
they are entered upon. You are at liberty to agree with them
from time to time as to a common official direction of the
various forces in their combined operations, preserving,
however, the integrity of your own American division, ready to
be used as a separate and complete organization. Much must be
left to your wise discretion and that of the admiral. At all
times report fully and freely to this Department your wants
and views. The President has to-day appointed you
major-general of volunteers.' …

"In the meantime the Ninth Infantry, from Manila, reached Taku
on the 6th of July. Two battalions of that regiment, under
Colonel Liscum, pressed forward to Tientsin, reaching that
point on the 11th, and on the 13th took part with the British,
French, and Japanese forces in an attack upon the southwest
part of the walled city of Tientsin, which had been rendered
necessary by the persistent shelling of the foreign quarters,
outside of the walls, on the part of the Chinese troops
occupying the city. Colonel Liscum's command formed part of a
brigade under General Dorward, of the British army, and was
assigned to the duty of protecting the flank of the allied
forces. In the performance of that duty it maintained a
position under heavy fire for fifteen hours, with a loss of 18
killed and 77 wounded. Among the killed was the gallant
Colonel Liscum, who thus ended an honorable service of nearly
forty years, commencing in the ranks of the First Vermont
Infantry at the outbreak of the civil war, and distinguished
by unvarying courage, fidelity, and high character. The
regiment was withdrawn from its position on the night of the
13th, and on the morning of the 14th the native city was
captured, and the southeast quarter was assigned to the
American forces for police and protection. …

"At the time of the capture of Tientsin the most positive and
circumstantial accounts of the massacre of all the ministers
and members of the legations in Pekin, coming apparently from
Chinese sources, had been published, and were almost
universally believed. The general view taken by the civilized
world of the duty to be performed in China was not that the
living representatives of the Western powers in Pekin were to
be rescued, but that their murder was to be avenged and their
murderers punished. In the performance of that duty time and
rapidity of movement were not especially important. The
resolution of the commanders of the allied forces,
communicated by Admiral Kempff on the 8th of July, to the
effect that 80,000 men would be required—20,000 to hold the
position from Taku to Tientsin and 60,000 to march to Pekin,
while not more than 40,800 troops were expected to have
arrived by the middle of August, practically abandoned all
expectation of rescuing the ministers and members of the
legations alive, for it proposed that after the middle of
August any forward movement should be still deferred until
40,000 more troops had arrived. On the 11th of July, however,
the American Secretary of State secured, through the Chinese
minister at Washington, the forwarding of a dispatch in the
State Department cipher to the American minister at Pekin, and
on the 20th of July, pursuant to the same arrangement, an
answer in cipher was received from Minister Conger, as
follows: 'For one month we have been besieged in British
legation under continued shot and shell from Chinese troops.
Quick relief only can prevent general massacre.' This dispatch
from Mr. Conger was the first communication received by any
Western power from any representative in Pekin for about a
month, and although it was at first received in Europe with
some incredulity, it presented a situation which plainly
called for the urgency of a relief expedition rather than for
perfection of preparation. It was made the basis of urgent
pressure for an immediate movement upon Pekin, without waiting
for the accumulation of the large force previously proposed."

United States, Secretary of War,

Annual Report, November 30, 1900,
pages 14-16, 19-20.

As mentioned above, in the instructions of the American

government to General Chaffee, the veteran Chinese statesman
and diplomat, Earl Li Hung-chang, well known in Europe and
America, had now been recalled by the Peking government to the
viceroyalty of Chili, from which he was removed six years
before, and had been given the authority of a plenipotentiary
 to negotiate with the allied Powers. He addressed a proposal
to the latter, to the effect that the Ministers in Peking
would be delivered, under safe escort, at Tientsin, if the
allies would refrain from advancing their forces to Peking.
The reply from all the governments concerned was substantially
the same as that made by the United States, in the following
terms: "The government will not enter into any arrangement
regarding disposition or treatment of legations without first
having free communication with Minister Conger. Responsibility
for their protection rests upon Chinese government. Power to
deliver at Tientsin presupposes power to protect and to open
communication. This is insisted on." Earl Li then asked
whether, "if free communication were established, it could be
arranged that the Powers should not advance pending
negotiations," and was told in reply: "Free communication with
our representatives in Peking is demanded as a matter of
absolute right, and not as a favor. Since the Chinese
government admits that it possesses the power to give
communication, it puts itself in an unfriendly attitude by
denying it. No negotiations seem advisable until the Chinese
government shall have put the diplomatic representatives of
the Powers in full and free communication with their
respective governments, and removed all danger to their lives
and liberty."

{130}

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (July-August).

Boxer attack on the Russians in Manchuria,
and Russian retaliation.

See (in this volume)

MANCHURIA: A. D. 1900.

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (August).

Appointment of Count Waldersee to command the allied forces.
 Field-Marshal Count von Waldersee, appointed to command the
German forces sent to China, being of higher military rank
than any other of the commanding officers in that country, was
proposed for the general command of the allied armies, and
accepted as such. Before his arrival in China, however, many
of the American, Russian, and some other troops, had been
withdrawn.

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (August 4-16).

The advance of the allied forces on Peking and the capture
of the city.

The following is from the report of General Chaffee,

commanding the American forces in the allied movement from
Tientsin, to rescue the beleaguered Legations at Peking: "On
my arrival at Tientsin I called on the various generals
commanding troops, and on August 1 a conference of generals
was held at the headquarters of Lieutenant-General Linivitch,
of the Russian army. Present at the conference were the
commanding general of the Russian army and his chief of staff;
Lieutenant-General Yamagutchi and his chief of staff;
Major-General Fukushima, of the Japanese army;
Lieutenant-General Gaselee, of the British army, and his chief
of staff, General Barrow; General Frey, of the French army; the
Germans were also represented by an officer of the German
navy; myself and Major Jesse M. Lee, Ninth Infantry, and
Lieutenant Louis M. Little, of the marines, who speaks French.
The purpose of this conference was to decide whether the
armies were ready to make a movement for the relief of Pekin.
It was disclosed in the conference that the Japanese, whose
forces occupied the right bank of the river in and about
Tientsin, where also were located the British and American
forces, had by various patrols determined that the Chinese
were in considerable force in the vicinity of Pei-tsang, about
7 miles distance up the river from Tientsin, and that they
were strengthening their position by earthworks extending from
the right bank of the river westward something like 3 miles,
and from the left bank east to the railroad embankment was
also being strengthened. The forces were variously estimated,
from reports of Chinese, at from 10,000 to 12,000 men in the
vicinity of Pei-tsang, with large bodies to the rearward as
far as Yangtsun, where it was reported their main line of
defenses would be encountered.

"The first question submitted for decision was 'whether a

movement should be made at once,' which was decided in the
affirmative, two Powers only dissenting, and these not
seriously, as their doubt seemed to be that the force we could
put in movement was not sufficiently strong to meet the
opposition that might be expected. The decision was that the
attack should be made on Sunday, August 5, and as the
Japanese, British, and American forces occupied the right bank
of the river, the Russians the left, the attack should be made
without change of situation of the troops, the British to send
four heavy guns to aid the Russian column. The strategy on the
right bank of the river was left to the determination of the
British, American, and Japanese generals. The force reported
to the conference as available for the movement was: Japanese,
about 8,000; Russian, 4,800; British, about 3,000; American,
2,100; French, 800. With special effort on the part of
Captains Byron and Wood, Reilly's battery was gotten to
Tientsin August 3 and assembled. We were also able to make one
pack train available on the 4th, just in time to march with
the column. The marines and Sixth Cavalry were gotten off the
'Grant' and to Tientsin August 3. The presence of the Sixth
Cavalry at Tientsin, dismounted, enabled me to take all
available men of the Ninth and Fourteenth, also all the
marines except one company 100 strong, left to assist the
civil government of the city. By arrangement prior to my
arrival the officers selected to establish a civil government
for Tientsin were to be allowed a military force, of which the
United States should furnish 100. I was compelled, of course,
to leave the Sixth Cavalry, because the horses had not
arrived. … The troops moved out from the city of Tientsin
during the afternoon and night of August 4 and bivouacked in
the vicinity of Si-ku arsenal, the same that was taken by
Admiral Seymour in his retrograde movement."

The Chinese were driven from the Arsenal by the Japanese,

before whom they also fell back from Pei-tsang, and the first
serious battle was fought at Yang-tsun, on the 6th. Having
rested at Yang-tsun and cared for its sick and wounded, on the
7th, the army moved forward on the 8th, encountered slight
resistance at Shang-shia-wan on the 11th, found Tong-chow
abandoned, on the 12th, and reached Pekin on the 14th, having
suffered more from heat, fatigue, and the want of potable
water on the march, than from "Boxers" or imperial troops.

Returning now to the report of General Chaffee, we take from

it his account of the final movement to the walls of Pekin, of
the forcing of the gates and of the clearing of Chinese troops
from the city: "The Japanese when taking possession of
Tong-Chow in the morning [of the 12th] advanced troops toward
Pekin for a distance of 6½ miles. It was finally agreed that
the next day, the 13th, should be devoted to reconnaissance;
the Japanese should reconnoiter on the two roads to the right
or north of the paved road which is just north of the canal;
the Russians on the paved road, if at all; the Americans to
reconnoiter on the road just south of the canal; the British a
parallel road 1½ miles to the left of the road occupied by the
Americans. On the 14th the armies should be concentrated on
the advance line held by the Japanese, and that that evening a
conference should be held to determine what the method of
attack on Pekin should be. On the morning of the 13th I
reconnoitered the road to be occupied by the Americans with
Troop M, Sixth Cavalry, Reilly's battery, and the Fourteenth
Infantry up to the point specified in our agreement, or about
7 miles from Tong-Chow. Finding no opposition, I directed the
remainder of my force to march out and close in on the advance
guard. This force arrived at midnight. The British
reconnoitered their road with some cavalry. The Japanese
 reconnoitered their front and also the front which properly
belonged to the Russians.

{131}

"For reasons unknown to me the Russians left their camp at

Tong-Chow about the time that my troops were marching to close
on my advance guard. They followed the road which had been
assigned to them, and about nine o'clock heavy firing was
heard in the vicinity of Pekin. It was the next day
ascertained that they had moved forward during the previous
evening and had attacked the 'Tong-pien-men Gate,' an east
gate of the city near where the Chinese wall joins the Tartar
wall. Very heavy artillery and considerable small-arm firing
was continued throughout the night. At the time of the
occurrence I supposed the firing to be the last efforts of the
Chinese troops to destroy the legations. …

"The 14th being the day decided upon for the concentration on
the line 7 miles from Tong-Chow, I made no preparations for
carrying on any operations beyond a small reconnaissance by a
troop of cavalry to my front, which duty I assigned to Captain
Cabell. … My cavalry had been absent not more than an hour,
when Mr. Lowry, the interpreter who had accompanied it, raced
back and informed me that Captain Cabell was surrounded by
Chinese cavalry. I immediately ordered a battalion of the
Fourteenth Infantry to fall in, and we went forward about a
mile and a half and found Captain Cabell occupying some
houses, firing from the roofs on a village in his front. I
insisted on the French troops giving me the road, which they
reluctantly did. Having joined Cabell, I continued the
reconnaissance to my front, wishing to get as near the wall of
the city as I could, but not expecting to move my whole force,
which was contrary to the agreement at Tong-Chow on the
evening of August 12. Without serious opposition we arrived at
the northeast corner of the Chinese city, having brushed away
some Chinese troops or 'Boxers' that fired from villages to
our left and front. About 10 o'clock I saw the advantage of
holding the ground that I had obtained, and directed all my
force to move forward, as I had then become aware of Russian
troops being in action on my right, and could also hear the
Japanese artillery farther to the right. My left flank at this
time was uncovered, except by a small force of British
cavalry. The British troops did not advance from Tong-Chow
until the 14th, owing to the agreement previously referred to.
On that day they marched for the line of concentration and
found my force advancing on Pekin. At noon a British battery
was at work a mile to my left and rear.

"At 11 a. m. two companies of the Fourteenth Infantry, under

the immediate command of Colonel Daggett, had scaled the wall
of the Chinese city at the northeast corner, and the flag of
that regiment was the first foreign colors unfurled upon the
walls surrounding Pekin. The two companies on the wall, with
the assistance of the troops facing the wall, drove away the
Chinese defenders from the corner to the east gate of the
Chinese city, where the British entered without opposition
later in the day. About noon it was reported to me that the
Russians had battered open 'Tung-pien-men gate' during the
night and had effected an entrance there. I arrived at the
gate soon afterwards and found in the gate some of the
Fourteenth Infantry, followed by Reilly's battery. The Russian
artillery and troops were in great confusion in the passage,
their artillery facing in both directions, and I could see no
effort being made to extricate themselves and give passage
into the city. One company of the Fourteenth Infantry deployed
itself in the buildings to the right of the gate and poured
effective fire onto the Tartar wall. Captain Reilly got two
guns through a very narrow passage to his left, tearing down a
wall to do so, and found a position a few yards to the left of
the road where he could enfilade the Tartar wall, section by
section, with shrapnel. The Fourteenth Infantry crossed the
moat and, taking position paralleling the moat, deployed along
a street facing the Tartar wall, and with the aid of the
artillery swept it of Chinese troops. In this way, gradually
working to the westward, the Tartar wall was cleared of
opposition to the 'Bait-men gate' and beyond.

"Orders were sent to the Ninth to follow up the movement of

the Fourteenth Infantry and Reilly's battery as soon as the
wall was cleared of Chinese; also to follow the movement to
the 'Chien-men' gate of the Tartar city. The marines were to
follow the general movement, but later were ordered to protect
the train. At about 3 o'clock p. m. our advance had arrived
opposite the legations, the fire of the Chinese having
practically ended, and we drew over to the Tartar wall and
entered the legation grounds with the Fourteenth Infantry by
the 'water gate or moat,' Reilly's battery passing through the
'Chien-men' gate, which was opened by the American and Russian
marines of the besieged force. The Fourteenth Infantry was
selected on this occasion in recognition of gallantry at
Yang-tsun and during this day. The British troops entered at
the 'Shahuo' gate of the Chinese city, and following a road
through the center of the city to opposite the legations,
arrived there through the 'water gate or moat' in advance of
the United States troops. Having communicated with Minister
Conger, I withdrew the troops from the legation and camped
just outside near the Tartar wall for the night. My casualties
during the day were 8 enlisted men wounded in the Fourteenth
Infantry, 1 enlisted man wounded of Battery F, Fifth
Artillery, and 1 officer and 2 enlisted men wounded of the
marines. …

"I was informed by Mr. Conger that a portion of the imperial

city directly in front of the Chien-men gate had been used by
Chinese to fire on the legations, and I determined to force
the Chinese troops from this position. On the morning of the
15th I placed four guns of Reilly's battery on the Tartar wall
at Chien-men gate and swept the walls to the westward to the
next gate, there being some slight opposition in that
direction, supported by poor artillery. About 8 o'clock a. m.
 the Chinese opened fire on us at Chien-men gate, from the
second gate of the imperial city north of Chien-men gate,
whereupon I directed an attack on the first gate to be made,
and in a short while Lieutenant Charles P. Summerall, of
Reilly's battery, had opened the door of this gate. Our troops
entered, and were met with a severe fire from the next gate,
about 600 yards distant. Fire was directed upon the second
gate with the battery and such of the infantry as could be
elevated on the Tartar wall and side walls of the imperial
city and act effectively. In the course of half an hour the
Chinese fire was silenced, and Colonel Daggett led forward his
regiment to the base of the second gate. Lieutenant Summerall
was directed to open this gate with artillery, which he did.
The course just indicated was pursued for four gates, the
Chinese troops being driven from each gate in succession, the
fourth gate being near what is known as the 'palace grounds,'
which is surrounded by the 'imperial guards.'

{132}

"At a conference that afternoon it was decided not to occupy

the imperial city, and I withdrew my troops into the camp
occupied the night before, maintaining my position on the
Tartar wall at Chien-men gate. The idea of not occupying the
imperial city was not concurred in by the ministers in a
conference held by them the next day. In their opinion the
imperial city should be occupied. It was later decided by the
generals to occupy the imperial grounds, and in consequence of
this decision I reoccupied the grounds we had won on the 15th,
placing the Ninth Infantry within as guard at the gate where
our attack ceased.

"During the 15th and the attack upon the gates referred to our
losses were 2 enlisted men killed and 4 wounded, Ninth
Infantry; 3 enlisted men killed and 14 wounded, Fourteenth
Infantry; 1 enlisted man, Battery F, Fifth Artillery, wounded.
At 8.50 o'clock a. m. of this date Captain Henry J. Reilly,
 Fifth Artillery, was struck in the mouth and almost instantly
killed when standing at my left elbow observing the effect of
a shot from one of his guns by his side.

"At a conference of the generals on the afternoon of the 16th

the Chinese and Tartar cities were divided to the various
forces for police and protection of the inhabitants. The
United States troops were assigned to the west half of the
Chinese city and to that section of the Tartar city lying
between the Chien-men gate and Shun-chin gate of the south
wall of the Tartar city and north to the east and west street
through the Tartar city, being bounded upon the east by the
wall of the imperial city."

United States, Secretary of War,

Annual Report, November 30, 1900,
pages 61-71.

CHINA: A. D. 1900 (August 5-16).

The horrors of the allied invasion.
Barbarity of some divisions of the army in the march
from Tien-tsin to Peking.
Murder, rape, pillage and destruction.

Of the conduct of some divisions of the allied army which

advanced from Tien-tsin, and which represented to "the heathen
Chinee" the civilized and Christian nations of Europe and the
Western world, a writer in "Scribner's Magazine," who
evidently shared the experience and witnessed the scenes of
the march, gives the following account: "The dreary stretches
through which the Pei-ho flows, never attractive to the
Western eye, presented, as the allied armies slowly traversed
them, a scene of indescribable desolation. … In a region which
usually contained a population of many millions, scarcely a
human being, besides those attached to the allied armies, was
to be seen. Towns and villages were completely deserted. In
China an ordinary town will have from one to three hundred