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Do you read HackerNews all day and never actually do anything?

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Re: Do you read HackerNews all day and never actually do anything?

#25

Post by chrisbroadfoot »

AgentConundrum wrote: post #5
pierrefar wrote: post #2

Yes, which is why there is a useful noprocrast setting in your profile.

I've never used the noprocrast option on HN, but I've tried other things. The problem is that pretty much any roadblock you put up can be trivially defeated. For example, if I were to put sites like reddit or HN in my hosts file, and point them to 127.0.0.1, it really wouldn't take me more than 30 seconds or so to get around it. It should work as a reminder that, "oh yeah, I should be doing something else" but that n…

For example, if I were to put sites like reddit or HN in my hosts file, and point them to 127.0.0.1, it really wouldn't take me more than 30 seconds or so to get around it. It should work as a reminder that, "oh yeah, I should be doing something else" but that never seems to work for me.

I did this when writing my dissertation. It worked really well. I find that most of my browsing comes from clicking through to the sites in my "Most visited sites" homepage. Blocking them was a good neg that broke this harmful browsing pattern.

Re: Do you read HackerNews all day and never actually do anything?

#27

Post by klodolph »

Well, I'm working on something real right now. It's a web application that works now but it's a total hack. I want to actually make it into something usable by others so a couple days ago I black holed Reddit in /etc/hosts. It worked so well I'm considering the same for Hacker News, too.

There's the comment by "AgentConundrum" who argues that any method of limiting access to an addiction such as HN can be circumvented -- the simple truth is that you can't outsmart yourself. However, I see it differently.

When I open a browser window and click the Reddit bookmark, it gives me an error. While I'm staring at that error message, my higher thought processes have a chance to kick in and argue about what to do next. I think, "Editing my hosts file would be an admission of defeat. I'm better than that."

It's like the "brush your teeth" diet. You know, the one where you brush your teeth after you've had enough to eat. Whenever you want to have a snack, you think, "I can't... I just brushed my teeth. Snacking would undo my progress with dental hygeine."

Both of these tricks are flat-out illogical. A hypothetical rational person would not be affected by these tricks. However, if you were a hypothetical rational person, you wouldn't need to change your behavior in the first place.

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