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Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

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Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#121

Post by Minor49er »

throwayws wrote: post #102
pritovido wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been in countries at war, like Congo, and life there was the simplest thing you could have. In fact, all the complexity appears when there is peace. People do not save or study or anything secondary when there is war. Are you going to study when you don't know where your family is? When your mother or sister or daughter has been raped and you have to protect her for being raped or killed? When they go after yo…

> You make a simple mistake(like looking weak, with no friends or too smart) and you die, it was as simple as that. Dying is simple, life living is harder.

Reminds me of the Charles Manson quote: "Living is what scares me. Dying is easy."

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#122

Post by andi999 »

superasn wrote: post #81
carabiner wrote: post #15

I see this all around me. People are fixated on careers, hobbies (FOMO), spread thin by family obligations and errands. The truth is, happiness does not derive from these things. This "busyness" is an invention. Life is simple, and happiness actually derives from having cats.

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

I agree on the short timescale, but look at the longer one. like coal mining was horrible during Orwells times, and now it is difficult but much much better due to technology. Or take saturdays. I do not know about your country, but here not having to work (and not having to go to school) on saturday happened in the last 50 years; or in Singapore in the last 15 years.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#123

Post by t0350 »

chmod600 wrote: post #70

While there is often a trade-off between internal and external complexity, the article goes too far. For instance, having a zillion inter-related modes creates internal and external complexity without improving functionality at all. Using orthogonal controls helps a lot.

Guys who made things that have a zillion inter-related modes actually spent few effort to convert the "model" to a truly conceptual model which should be much simpler or as you said, orthogonal. And I believe that this is where the complexity lied in.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#124

Post by Dirlewanger »

superasn wrote: post #81
carabiner wrote: post #15

I see this all around me. People are fixated on careers, hobbies (FOMO), spread thin by family obligations and errands. The truth is, happiness does not derive from these things. This "busyness" is an invention. Life is simple, and happiness actually derives from having cats.

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

It's why I think more and more as the days go on that the Internet, while being humanity's greatest invention, is turning out to be a net negative. Despite most human-development-related statistics pointing to the fact that humanity/civilization is at its most productive/safest in all of history, the Internet is slowly eroding away what it means to be human.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#125

Post by crusso »

pritovido wrote: post #90
toper-centage wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is simple* * YMMV. You might need to live in a developed world that assures you won't be left to die, that is not at war, that you can find a way to sustain yourself, and that you're not involved in any accidents that drastically change your otherwise simple life.

I have been in countries at war, like Congo, and life there was the simplest thing you could have. In fact, all the complexity appears when there is peace. People do not save or study or anything secondary when there is war. Are you going to study when you don't know where your family is? When your mother or sister or daughter has been raped and you have to protect her for being raped or killed? When they go after yo…

There's no escaping Maslow's Triangle.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#126

Post by kilre »

arctangent wrote: post #43
avmich wrote: post #38

> The total complexity of a system is a constant. If you make a user’s interaction with a system simpler, the complexity behind the scenes increases. It's almost obvious complexity can be created. So why it can't be destroyed as well?

Fred Brooks said [1] that there are two types of complexity, accidental and essential. While accidental complexity can be reduced the theory is that the essential complexity cannot. "Accidental complexity relates to problems which engineers create and can fix; for example, the details of writing and optimizing assembly code or the delays caused by batch processing. Essential complexity is caused by the problem to be…

I guess the whole point of design or engineering for that matter is to get as close as possible to the bare minimum of essential complexity. Elegance comes to mind, if you are able to jump over several complexity traps.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#127

Post by tareqak »

catallergies wrote: post #17
carabiner wrote: post #15

I see this all around me. People are fixated on careers, hobbies (FOMO), spread thin by family obligations and errands. The truth is, happiness does not derive from these things. This "busyness" is an invention. Life is simple, and happiness actually derives from having cats.

I'm allergic to cats. Pets also add complexity to life, e.g. when you want to go away for any length of time.

There is cat food that exists or is being developed that should help somewhat.

[0] https://www.purinainstitute.com/science-of-nutrition/neutral...

[1] https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(19)30349-5/ful...

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#128

Post by watwut »

pritovido wrote: post #90
toper-centage wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is simple* * YMMV. You might need to live in a developed world that assures you won't be left to die, that is not at war, that you can find a way to sustain yourself, and that you're not involved in any accidents that drastically change your otherwise simple life.

I have been in countries at war, like Congo, and life there was the simplest thing you could have. In fact, all the complexity appears when there is peace. People do not save or study or anything secondary when there is war. Are you going to study when you don't know where your family is? When your mother or sister or daughter has been raped and you have to protect her for being raped or killed? When they go after yo…

> In China things were also super simple. When I was there a biker was hit by a car and died.

What would you need to see to conclude that life in China for local people is as complex as for American living in United States?

I am not even differencing rural part of old school China from rich inhabitant of Beijing.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#129

Post by discreteevent »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #61
nathanvanfleet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember talking to a coworker friend of mine who was a cat owner. She said that she didn't understand dogs. They just loved you unconditionally all the time no matter what. So I guess she liked the life with the cat where it was just randomly mean or not interested in her sometimes. Kind of illustrated things to me.

You gotta earn it with a cat. Dogs are for people that need the reassurance of the unconditional love Cats are for people who have the kind of levels of self-confidence that makes the unconditional love of a dog both suffocatingly annoying and suspicious.

Dogs are partners. You can work closely with them. You don't have to hunt with a dog to appreciate this but it's very obvious if you do.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#130

Post by pegasus »

andi999 wrote: post #122
superasn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

I agree on the short timescale, but look at the longer one. like coal mining was horrible during Orwells times, and now it is difficult but much much better due to technology. Or take saturdays. I do not know about your country, but here not having to work (and not having to go to school) on saturday happened in the last 50 years; or in Singapore in the last 15 years.

The funny thing is, that horrible coal mining that technology liberated us from was part and parcel of the Industrial Revolution. Thank you technology, for saving us from the fallout of technology! Good thing this time there's no fallout.
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