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Why Am I So Lazy?

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Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#91

Post by jdietrich »

ghostcluster wrote: post #88
Morizero wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name for this topic is fixed vs growth mindset: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset#Fixed_and_growth You'll see that and related phrases as buzzwords sometimes.

> This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Psychologists can't replicate Carol Dweck's 'Growth Mindset' claims: https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset > The findings of Dweck’s key study have never been replicated in a published paper, which is noteworthy in so high-profile a work. One scientist told BuzzFeed News that his attempt to reproduce the findings ha…

I don't know why this was downvoted. Dweck's claims are the subject of enormous scepticism in the psychology community. Her data is a bit too neat, her effect sizes are consistently stronger than we'd expect, there's a complete lack of replication. It's not being rejected out of hand, but there are a lot of red flags.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#92

Post by dominotw »

bambax wrote: post #52

> I see this shit every day in other parents: “She hates to read!” “He’s lazy!” “She’s bad at math!” You are imprisoning your kid with your words, fuckers! That's spot on. It's really upsetting to hear people say that about children, especially people with authority (parents, grandparents). DON'T DO THAT! Or, if you have to do that (!?!) at least be positive. Don't tell a kid she's bad at math, tell her she's good at…

Wouldn't positive comments imprison also? You have to live up to the image that has been created. I know lots of Indian kids are drepressed and driven to suicide. My high school roommate commited suicide due to this.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#93

Post by codingdave »

bambax wrote: post #52

> I see this shit every day in other parents: “She hates to read!” “He’s lazy!” “She’s bad at math!” You are imprisoning your kid with your words, fuckers! That's spot on. It's really upsetting to hear people say that about children, especially people with authority (parents, grandparents). DON'T DO THAT! Or, if you have to do that (!?!) at least be positive. Don't tell a kid she's bad at math, tell her she's good at…

Don't lie to your children about their strengths and weaknesses. Help them appreciate that everyone is good at some things, not so good at others, and teach them to figure out which is which, improve what is important to them, and choose their own path through life. Not only will this make them happier with themselves, it will empower them to improve, and help them appreciate the differences of everyone surrounding them.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#94

Post by taneq »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #83
TeMPOraL wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed there is, and the way psychiatry approaches it in terms of diagnosis isn't really good, either. There is a long but very insightful article on this topic that was recently featured on HN, by Scott Alexander, who's a practicing psychiatrist: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mor... Key quote for this topic: > But “ability to concentrate” is a normally distributed trait, like IQ. We draw a…

Do you think that in fifty, maybe one-hundred, years people will look back at our present day understand of psychiatry and shake their heads.

Kind of a given. Can you think of something from the 1960s (let alone 1910s) that we look back on and think "wow, yeah, they had that figured out"? Even if it was mostly understood, the difference between "mostly understood" and actually understood is huge.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#95

Post by pbhjpbhj »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #84
rwnspace wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that there is a discrete population with the 'disease' of ADHD, in the same way that doorways are a discrete difficulty for people who are very tall. One must either move into a house with very tall doorways, or learn to stoop. In any case, you'll probably often bang your head. This analogises to ADHD because failure to meet social and societal expectations often has real (and occasionally very painful)…

> 'Attention' is normally distributed, but the environments that smoothly manage different degrees of attention are not. Does that mean we should be prescribing amphetamine to those who don't function well in the available environments?

Perhaps "making available" is better than "prescribing"?

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#96

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #75
taneq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist or that it's not a genuine disorder. I'm saying that there's a huge no-mans-land between "you're fine" and "woah yeah you clearly have ADHD and we should fix this."

Indeed there is, and the way psychiatry approaches it in terms of diagnosis isn't really good, either. There is a long but very insightful article on this topic that was recently featured on HN, by Scott Alexander, who's a practicing psychiatrist: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mor... Key quote for this topic: > But “ability to concentrate” is a normally distributed trait, like IQ. We draw a…

This isn't a problem specific to ADHD or psychiatry. Many conditions are similarly defined by an arbitrary cutoff of symptom severity, or where a given quantity falls in terms of percentile or standard deviation in some reference population. I think the underlying problem is the orthodoxy of medical billing/insurance that says every treatment has to be associated with a distinct condition indicated by a particular diagnostic code.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#97

Post by ianai »

bambax wrote: post #52

> I see this shit every day in other parents: “She hates to read!” “He’s lazy!” “She’s bad at math!” You are imprisoning your kid with your words, fuckers! That's spot on. It's really upsetting to hear people say that about children, especially people with authority (parents, grandparents). DON'T DO THAT! Or, if you have to do that (!?!) at least be positive. Don't tell a kid she's bad at math, tell her she's good at…

Actually the thing to do is remove the violence of the language. Simply acknowledge whatever situation with no subjective statements. “Your math grade is a C. Would you like tutoring?”

Violent language like your examples hurt people. Those hurts sum to resent and ultimately more violence. The following book goes into this in depth: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Marshall B. Rosenberg, Arun Gandhi

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#98

Post by falcolas »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #75
taneq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist or that it's not a genuine disorder. I'm saying that there's a huge no-mans-land between "you're fine" and "woah yeah you clearly have ADHD and we should fix this."

Indeed there is, and the way psychiatry approaches it in terms of diagnosis isn't really good, either. There is a long but very insightful article on this topic that was recently featured on HN, by Scott Alexander, who's a practicing psychiatrist: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mor... Key quote for this topic: > But “ability to concentrate” is a normally distributed trait, like IQ. We draw a…

I didn't care for that article much, though there's a lot of good information in there. Why don't I care for it? Because it looks at ADHD only in terms of the capability for concentration. There are more symptoms and co-morbid pathologies associated with ADHD, and the ability to concentrate is only one of them.

The biggest one that bugs me is the inability to automatically associate actions with their outcomes if the two are separated by more than a few minutes or hours. Associating a huge spending spree with the inability to eat in the future is nearly impossible, both in planning forward and looking back. Medication doesn't directly help with this, it requires explicit thinking through of the potential outcomes (which is in turn hampered by the primary inattentivity component of ADHD).

Procrastination is, oddly enough, borne out of this, and not inattentivity. Until the consequence is imminent, the value of doing an action is so close to 0 to not matter.

The other pathology which is also little discussed is hyper focus. A seeming benefit of having ADHD, until you realize there is little conscious control over what that focus latches onto. Again, medication doesn't help much here either, other than potentially limiting the topics you can hyperfocus on.

I guess I just ask that people keep in mind that there's more to ADHD than having trouble concentrating on a particular task.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#99

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pkalinowski wrote: post #90

Being lazy is natural and it is what pushes humanity forward. We don't want to do things, so we try to work on it less in the future - automating things, improving efficiency etc. Being "lazy" about some things is good for you. Do not focus much on stuff which is not very important for you personally.

Hmm, I don't know about that, I see at least three different character types:

1) those who want to avoid labour, the lazy, some of whom are driven to invention to reduce their labour in order to have more leisure;

2) those who are happy to work in the current system, the content, they get on and do what's needed;

3) those who want to reduce their direct labour in the current system in order to "labour" in other ways, the driven, they want to automate daily living so they can work on other things;

There are subgroups within these for example "the lazy" has a group who will accept a lower quality of life in order to reduce labour, and a group who will prefer to use other people's labour to reduce their own, etc., etc..

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

falcolas wrote: post #98
TeMPOraL wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed there is, and the way psychiatry approaches it in terms of diagnosis isn't really good, either. There is a long but very insightful article on this topic that was recently featured on HN, by Scott Alexander, who's a practicing psychiatrist: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mor... Key quote for this topic: > But “ability to concentrate” is a normally distributed trait, like IQ. We draw a…

I didn't care for that article much, though there's a lot of good information in there. Why don't I care for it? Because it looks at ADHD only in terms of the capability for concentration. There are more symptoms and co-morbid pathologies associated with ADHD, and the ability to concentrate is only one of them. The biggest one that bugs me is the inability to automatically associate actions with their outcomes if the…

Is there a good way at all to tackle the issues you mention? I ask because, well, I kind of recognize myself in this description.
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