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Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

economist.com

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Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#151

Post by username90 »

tunesmith wrote: post #75
colechristensen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a word that is missing from the language or at least common usage, and that is differentiating something done with conscious effort of every little detail, and something you just do without thinking about it. (there are probably lots of words which somewhat fit the bill) The hardest way to do something is complete conscious control of every step, the easiest way is something you can do perfectly on autopilot…

Isn't that Type 1 vs Type 2 thinking, Daniel Kahneman? Sure, it's great if we could use Type 1 thinking for everything, but the problem is when things are counterintuitive. So what you really need is a good rule to follow to know when to engage in Type 2 thinking. My current programming team is doing way too much Type 1 thinking.

Type 2 thinking shapes your type 1 thinking and after a while your type 1 thinking is more accurate than your type 2 thinking for the task, that was the point of this article.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#152

Post by username90 »

colechristensen wrote: post #80
tunesmith wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that Type 1 vs Type 2 thinking, Daniel Kahneman? Sure, it's great if we could use Type 1 thinking for everything, but the problem is when things are counterintuitive. So what you really need is a good rule to follow to know when to engage in Type 2 thinking. My current programming team is doing way too much Type 1 thinking.

Close but no, thinking vs doing.

You can't do without thinking.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#153

Post by imagica »

rcoveson wrote: post #89
Barrin92 wrote: post #58

In chess there's an idiom for this. "Long think, wrong think" because it's a quite common phenomenon that very good players will ruin positions by rather than playing with their good instinct, over-analyzing a position, there's a related situation of the hardest games to win being already won positions because there's so many ways to win that people will on occasion start doing something really stupid akin to the exa…

Keep in mind the expertise required to build that intuition, though. The average person who merely knows how to play Chess should probably think before they move, or else blunder away the whole game by putting their queen on a square threatened by a knight they didn't look at. That said, most people are probably "experts"--in the sense that their intuitions can often outdo their conscious trains of thought--in more t…

Learning something new requires a lot of concentration and deliberate thinking and practice. When I learned chess I remember the friend I was playing with becoming a bit bored waiting for my moves but with time it became more automatic and only certain moves would make me think more and when not being able to evaluate or choose between alternative I'd go to gut feeling, possibly distilled from thousands and thousands of chess games played. At some point the tipping point leaned too much towards gut feeling and after some bluffing I decided to take a break from chess and moved on to something else. I think I got bored and my brain would jump to shortcuts. Then I discovered musical instruments

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#154

Post by ceilingcorner »

randmeerkat wrote: post #128
prionassembly wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Hagakure" literally starts with something like "The art of the samurai lies in a way of dying. A samurai warrior enters battle as if already dead."

The samurai died out though, where as Japan’s unchanging ancient businesses managed to remain. I wonder if quick thinking isn’t just what leads one to an early end, business, life, or otherwise. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25281164

Yet here we are, idolizing them centuries later, while an old shop is a curiosity at best. Living long != living well.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#155

Post by imagica »

feoren wrote: post #132
amatecha wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's been programming for years, one of my biggest complaints in software is over-engineering. It's so universally prevalent, I literally expect to get downvoted for even making this comment. I strongly advocate for simplicity in software implementation, allowing for maintainability and flexibility... the cleanest solution that reaches the goal and doesn't lock us too far into a narrow approach that may b…

It's a weird term, "over engineering". Think about over-engineering a bridge. What does it look like? Huge and bulky, way too expensive, able to hold much more weight than it should, lots of walkways and access points and design features that nobody really wants? But wait: "any fool can build a bridge that doesn't fall down. It takes an engineer to build a bridge that just barely doesn't fall down." The whole point o…

> he whole point of engineering is to figure out exactly what the bridge needs to do and make it do only that. So the "over-engineered" bridge is actually under-engineered -- they haven't thought enough about the actual problem. So too is most code that is called "over-engineered" -- it's far more common that people haven't though enough about the problem than that they've over-thought it.

It is different in the physical world where materials are a big factor and engineering will definitely not make free use of them. There are inefficiencies here and there but they're largely reduced. In the digital world of programming accidental and intentional complexity often slips through without anybody noticing and that is for many reasons. It's a relatively new field and is still quite inefficient. I worked in many places whose codebases are a giant maze designed with no clear architecture and sometimes I suspect this complicated mess of intentional moat building engineering.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#156

Post by cthor »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #154
randmeerkat wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The samurai died out though, where as Japan’s unchanging ancient businesses managed to remain. I wonder if quick thinking isn’t just what leads one to an early end, business, life, or otherwise. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25281164

Yet here we are, idolizing them centuries later, while an old shop is a curiosity at best. Living long != living well.

Modern fascination with samurai is less idolizing and more fetishizing. Plenty of people telling stories. Not a lot practicing the art. And those that do are (rightfully) snickered at for taking seriously something that is supposed to be mere quaint fascination.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#157

Post by ceilingcorner »

cthor wrote: post #156
ceilingcorner wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet here we are, idolizing them centuries later, while an old shop is a curiosity at best. Living long != living well.

Modern fascination with samurai is less idolizing and more fetishizing. Plenty of people telling stories. Not a lot practicing the art. And those that do are (rightfully) snickered at for taking seriously something that is supposed to be mere quaint fascination.

I’d suggest that others simply have a different perspective and that your label of “quaint” is merely your own modern bias.

Edit: In other words, many people are dissatisfied with the contemporary world set up by merchants and bureaucrats. I don’t see it as misguided or quaint for them to look to the samurai ethic as a more appealing alternative. Its historical accuracy isn’t really relevant, as all history is story creation.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#158

Post by groby_b »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #154
randmeerkat wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The samurai died out though, where as Japan’s unchanging ancient businesses managed to remain. I wonder if quick thinking isn’t just what leads one to an early end, business, life, or otherwise. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25281164

Yet here we are, idolizing them centuries later, while an old shop is a curiosity at best. Living long != living well.

But, oddly, it is also living short != living well.

Almost as if the two are unrelated concepts.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#159

Post by ceilingcorner »

groby_b wrote: post #158
ceilingcorner wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet here we are, idolizing them centuries later, while an old shop is a curiosity at best. Living long != living well.

But, oddly, it is also living short != living well. Almost as if the two are unrelated concepts.

The group under discussion, samurai, absolutely didn’t think they were unrelated.

Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)

#160

Post by vorpalhex »

float4 wrote: post #69
hnick wrote: post #66

Thinking keeps me awake. It's getting worse as I get older. Maybe it's anxiety or something related, and sometimes it's worried thoughts, but often it's just running through scenarios. Video games, media plots, what I need to do next week. My brain is far more active after 10pm, and I am personally more motivated. I get a burst of energy but it's not really the right time to clean the house so lying in bed has it all…

I'm exactly the same, only I've done it ever since I was very little and it simply never went away (I'm in my early 20s now). Usually I'm awake in my bed for at least an hour. Sometimes two. I just really can't stop thinking. It's not anxiety in my case. Any people here who were in a similar situation and were able to get rid of it, or make significant improvement?

Engagement, exercise and melatonin.

Be engaged during the day. Use that mental energy. Whatever that means, but challenge yourself and exhaust yourself.

Exercise which is just generally really good for your mental and physical state. Do note that working out later at night can make the problem worse since exercises also causes stress chemicals in your brain and it takes a few hours for those to clear.

Melatonin[1] an hour before bed. It's safe, non-habit forming, dirt cheap, very mild and surprisingly effective in my experience. I take it as needed instead of every night, but I know a few folks take it every night.

[1] - https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...

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