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We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

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Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#101

Post by tomp »

mapcars wrote: post #72
CPAhem wrote: post #3

Interestingly those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone to depression. False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism.

>those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone to depression. No, depression comes when you are only applying logic to life and essentially seeing that there is no meaning to it. Logic can not live without meaning, but life is tremendously bigger that our limited logic, regardless how fanciful we make it. >False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism. No, this co…

Logic tells me there's no objective meaning to life. Logic also tells me that I can pick whatever subjective meaning (for life, myself, my actions, people around me and whatever else).

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#102

Post by intarga »

ukj wrote: post #83
intarga wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgent does not mean the same thing as important. Urgent tasks can be important or unimportant, but what makes them urgent is that they must be done soon/now rather than later, or that their value drops greatly if left to later. Armed with this knowledge, we can categorise tasks in four: urgent-important, urgent-unimportant, unurgent-important, and unurgent-unimportant. Urgent-important tasks are always the highest p…

This is a perfect example of faking it! The very thing this thread is about. Instead of figuring out how to make the hard choice between Urgent Important in the first place, you've drawn a distinction which lets you kick the can down the road. Choosing between Unurgent-Important Urgent-Unimportant is exactly the same problem as choosing between Urgent Important. You have two tasks: A or B. Which one should you work o…

Perhaps its my stupidity, but I don't see what this has to do with faking?

The point was that importance is not the same thing as urgency, which the parent comment didn't seem to understand.

>Choosing between Unurgent-ImportantUrgent-Unimportant is exactly the same problem as choosing between UrgentImportant.

Sure, in the other formulation you simply make the assumption that the important task is unurgent, and the urgent task is unimportant, and so they are the same, as long as we're on the same page.

>You have two tasks: A or B. Which one should you work on first?

I actually did address this. If you have time for both the urgent one comes first, if you may have time for only one the important one comes first.

Urgent is not a synonym for important, and the point of drawing the distinction is to recognise that relative priorities can be different depending on context, such as how much time is available.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#103

Post by onorton »

youfoundkris wrote: post #60

I must be broken, because I am 100% sure I would always respond with letting the interviewer know I do not know that band. Could this lying behavior be more present in specific countries?

It's probably because they are at a music festival and don't want to come across as people not "in the know" at said festival in front of thousands of people. I'm sure if it was just a newspaper reporter or a random person, they probably would just admit that.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#104

Post by AbitofAsum »

mapcars wrote: post #100
newshorts wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the articles subject, I’d like to clarify... Are you an authority or somehow involved in research on depression? Or are you simply feigning knowledge on a subject you know little or nothing about?

I don't have anything to support what I'm saying nor I need to. My knowledge does not come from a billion dollar research, and it does not have to. The question is only are you looking for a solution or a solution proven by authorities of your choice.

This statement, given the previous comments and the context of the article, belies a certain depth, a conundrum I find myself facing periodically.

The basic notion being that, that which we believe, is true. This is nonsense on the face of it. Being nonsense doesn't prevent it from being a seemingly fundamental and perplexing aspect of being a human.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#105

Post by bookofjoe »

mapcars wrote: post #72
CPAhem wrote: post #3

Interestingly those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone to depression. False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism.

>those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone to depression. No, depression comes when you are only applying logic to life and essentially seeing that there is no meaning to it. Logic can not live without meaning, but life is tremendously bigger that our limited logic, regardless how fanciful we make it. >False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism. No, this co…

"Love is giving something you don't have to someone who doesn't exist."—Jacques Lacan

Generalizable to: Life has no meaning, but we can give it a meaning.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#106

Post by bookofjoe »

drawkbox wrote: post #41

We are all confident idiots and this is why the ego was created in evolution. Ego is needed to make you think you are better than others at something, eventhough initially you may not be. Without ego, people would be Marvin The Paranoid Android but depressed because we didn't have the capabilities or opportunities to compete with all the smarter people around or in history. People that are laser focused and don't lis…

"If we wait till we're ready, we'll never get started."—Eleanor Roosevelt

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#108

Post by friendlybus »

CPAhem wrote: post #3

Interestingly those who tend to be more realistic in their self expectations are more prone to depression. False confidence may be the route to happiness or at least optimism.

The 'healthy positive delusion' idea is really poisonous. It's more like almost all productive work is stepping into the unknown, so our collection of tools and abilities are going to be stretched regardless of our confidence in them or not.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#109

Post by ukj »

intarga wrote: post #102
ukj wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a perfect example of faking it! The very thing this thread is about. Instead of figuring out how to make the hard choice between Urgent Important in the first place, you've drawn a distinction which lets you kick the can down the road. Choosing between Unurgent-Important Urgent-Unimportant is exactly the same problem as choosing between Urgent Important. You have two tasks: A or B. Which one should you work o…

Perhaps its my stupidity, but I don't see what this has to do with faking? The point was that importance is not the same thing as urgency, which the parent comment didn't seem to understand. >Choosing between Unurgent-Important Urgent-Unimportant is exactly the same problem as choosing between Urgent Important. Sure, in the other formulation you simply make the assumption that the important task is unurgent, and the…

>The point was that importance is not the same thing as urgency, which the parent comment didn't seem to understand.

There is nothing to understand about that point. It's a linguistic distinction which makes no practical difference.

The prioritisation problem is like this: When forced to choose which task do you schedule first?

The Urgent one or the Important one?

If you always lean towards Urgent things, you will neglect the Important. If you always lean towards Important things, you will neglect the Urgent.

>Sure, in the other formulation you simply make the assumption that the important task is unurgent, and the urgent task is unimportant, and so they are the same, as long as we're on the same page.

We are on the same page. It doesn't matter how you label them, if two tasks have equal priorities you have no way to decide which task to schedule first.

Conversely: if you have a way to decide which task to schedule first, then (to you) they clearly have different priorities.

The one you've chosen to do is the task with higher priority! Obviously - because you chose to do it first.

You have no solution to this problem. You are faking the fact that you do. You are flipping a proverbial coin (like the rest of us).

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

#110

Post by rglover »

drawkbox wrote: post #41

We are all confident idiots and this is why the ego was created in evolution. Ego is needed to make you think you are better than others at something, eventhough initially you may not be. Without ego, people would be Marvin The Paranoid Android but depressed because we didn't have the capabilities or opportunities to compete with all the smarter people around or in history. People that are laser focused and don't lis…

This was helpful, thank you :)
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