Optimizing for Feelings
browsercompany.substack.com
Optimizing for Feelings
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#2Hunter S. Thompson would have made one shitty PM. God bless anyone who works at this company.
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#3Oh hell yes.
The concept that we do things based on our emotions will strike a certain type of individual as wrong, simply because they've become so used to looking at things like a machine.
To that person I say: you are doing it right now. You are doing things based on your emotion, and it doesn't always feel... good, but it is how humans work.
Humans are highly evolved organisms, and our emotions emerge from a vast collection of observations (both conscious and unconscious) made by our nervous system. Especially important is the unconscious aspects of emotion. We can often tell things are rotten before we can describe why.
Trusting our gut is underrated.
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#4Content aside, that’s an excellent font.
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#5Oh hell yes. The concept that we do things based on our emotions will strike a certain type of individual as wrong, simply because they've become so used to looking at things like a machine. To that person I say: you are doing it right now. You are doing things based on your emotion, and it doesn't always feel... good, but it is how humans work. Humans are highly evolved organisms, and our emotions emerge from a vast…
Probably there are as many emotional reactions to some given aspect of software as there are people. How do you optimize for every individual?
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#6Content aside, that’s an excellent font.
Your comment is optimal with regard to my feelings. Thank you.
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#7I would love to proven wrong but I’m skeptical that a company started 2 years ago with $18 million of Series A VC funding to repay and no shipping product is going to be able to optimize for anything but growth and getting acquired
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#8Oh hell yes. The concept that we do things based on our emotions will strike a certain type of individual as wrong, simply because they've become so used to looking at things like a machine. To that person I say: you are doing it right now. You are doing things based on your emotion, and it doesn't always feel... good, but it is how humans work. Humans are highly evolved organisms, and our emotions emerge from a vast…
Emotions are guidance, not binding. If you are not able to manage them on your own (an important aspect of adulthood), they will get into your way at some point in life. Yes, they are real, but acting on your emotions unconditionally is dangerous when you are in a position of responsibility or power.
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#9Oh hell yes. The concept that we do things based on our emotions will strike a certain type of individual as wrong, simply because they've become so used to looking at things like a machine. To that person I say: you are doing it right now. You are doing things based on your emotion, and it doesn't always feel... good, but it is how humans work. Humans are highly evolved organisms, and our emotions emerge from a vast…
The other side of it is mediocrity.
Emotions point in a direction. They don't inform the user of what knowledge, time and meaning that may be needed along the way.
Emotional reasoning often directs people to a mediocre end, most commonly seen in failed indie video games or niche tech projects constantly worked on with no end in sight. People end up in nurturing tribes trying to follow an irrational direction without the higher meaning needed to convert a direction into a result. Eventually time catches up to all of them and you don't hear about the nothing that comes of it.
Your gut is like a wet finger in the wind, it indicates a direction of the prevailing winds.
I think the article was talking more about feelings, sensation and desirability than emotions.
Re: Optimizing for Feelings
#10I have an alternative proposal: optimize for the product of usefulness and performance.
That is, optimize for (number of tasks user performs using your software) / (time spent per task)
Actually measurable, too.