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Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

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Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#31

Post by pperi11 »

michaelteter wrote: post #15

At the highest level, it's difficult to argue that anything actually matters. So being in a hurry is as pointless as pondering endlessly to make the best choice. But since we create our own isolated realities, most of which are human-lifetime based, we tend to care about the passage of hours or days. And in that scope, sometimes being quick seems important, but also having perspective and time for reflection can. The…

Agreed - the rate at which we're consuming info as humans (FAST) is just harmful. Feels like it's deteriorating our bodies

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#33

Post by _yb2s »

smokel wrote: post #19

Interesting mix of pointers in this article. What I was looking for, but could not find in the article, is some more information about time perception [1]. It amazes me to no end that time seems to be passing faster and faster now that I grow older. In my youth, 10 minutes used to take ages, but now a month passes in a blink. If any of you startup guys can find a way to slow this down, I'll buy a subscription. [1] ht…

I've noticed that it slows back down to childhood levels when I am on a really fun vacation, especially one that involves heavy physical activity and fascinating new outdoor environments. I think the novelty, play, and lack of stress combined are able to 'fix' this.

I am convinced the slowing down is essentially cultural, and is a result of how our lives are different as adults- and can be fixed by understanding this.

I think this can be accomplished full time as an adult by not taking things so seriously, and taking a lot more (not physically dangerous) risks. Go on adventures, don't obsess over fear of financial ruin, don't care about status or 'careers' and time will slow down.

As a single dad, I can't really figure out how to do that full time given my responsibilities, but can manage it for stretches of time on weekends and evenings.

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#34

Post by polishdude20 »

smokel wrote: post #19

Interesting mix of pointers in this article. What I was looking for, but could not find in the article, is some more information about time perception [1]. It amazes me to no end that time seems to be passing faster and faster now that I grow older. In my youth, 10 minutes used to take ages, but now a month passes in a blink. If any of you startup guys can find a way to slow this down, I'll buy a subscription. [1] ht…

Isn't it just the fact that every moment is somehow compared to our experience of the sum total of all our moments. As you get older, a day becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of time out of your total lived days.

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#35

Post by Kranar »

Swizec wrote: post #11
hospitalJail wrote: post #9

I wonder if the author is unaware Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow has been debunked. I suppose its a 6 year old article, but I'm still embarrassed when I have thoughts related to that book.

Debunked how? Got links? I'm curious because I remember quite enjoying that book and he did get a Nobel for that whole area of research whereas we're just random HN commenters.

Debunked might too harsh of a claim, but the book does not make any strong testable predictions so that it can either be validated or debunked. The book certainly is not fraudulent in anyway, but the research is of quite limited value. Claims about prospect theory, priming, endowment effects and happiness heavily center around what is referred to as WEIRD populations (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), and even more specifically middle class Americans. The work has not found much success generalizing to other cultures or demographics, either geographically or even within ethnic communities within the U.S.

For the most part, the book puts forth some interesting ideas and presents some interesting metaphors and it is certainly more technical than most treatments of this subject, but in terms of actually making concrete statements that can be used to actually understand human psychology, there isn't a whole lot to debunk to begin with.

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#36

Post by jmcphers »

smokel wrote: post #19

Interesting mix of pointers in this article. What I was looking for, but could not find in the article, is some more information about time perception [1]. It amazes me to no end that time seems to be passing faster and faster now that I grow older. In my youth, 10 minutes used to take ages, but now a month passes in a blink. If any of you startup guys can find a way to slow this down, I'll buy a subscription. [1] ht…

A lot of the reason that time seems to pass more quickly as we age is that we have fewer and fewer novel experiences; when each day resembles the one before it, whole months can disappear in lived monotony.

I like to think of memory as using a sort of compression algorithm. Repeated data gets compressed away; novel data takes up space.

So you can slow down your time perception by making your life less compressible. Do things differently; make bigger changes in your life more often; make more milestones; take more trips; change things up; be random.

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#37

Post by rcme »

yamrzou wrote: post #23
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #3

Sloths are living proof of this.

You are joking, but you are right: From Why Are Sloths So Slow? ( https://slothconservation.org/sloths-move-slow/ ): > The answer is surprisingly simple: Being slow is an incredibly successful strategy for survival. In fact, being slow has helped sloths to survive on this planet for almost 64 million years.

I have the opposite conclusion. Many things have existed for millions of years, the vast majority of which are not slow. Therefore, being slow is a pretty terrible survival strategy. And, in practice, you see evidence of this: faster animals routinely kill slower ones.

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#38

Post by dilawar »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #25

The literature on intelligence is kind of all over the place Higher intelligence is thought to be linked with more efficient use of resources rather than just faster or slower thinking: Diffusion markers of dendritic density and arborization in gray matter predict differences in intelligence https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04268-8 But, larger and faster neurons are found in people with higher IQ?: Large an…

Boy, this modern obsession with IQ is no less intense than old Indian obsession with purity. The fact that IQ can't be measured or even defined any better than purity does not take the force away.

Fortunately, IQ based society looks less evil than prurity based. At least your place in society is not strictly fixed by your birth.

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#39

Post by gmadsen »

dilawar wrote: post #38
pazimzadeh wrote: post #25

The literature on intelligence is kind of all over the place Higher intelligence is thought to be linked with more efficient use of resources rather than just faster or slower thinking: Diffusion markers of dendritic density and arborization in gray matter predict differences in intelligence https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04268-8 But, larger and faster neurons are found in people with higher IQ?: Large an…

Boy, this modern obsession with IQ is no less intense than old Indian obsession with purity. The fact that IQ can't be measured or even defined any better than purity does not take the force away. Fortunately, IQ based society looks less evil than prurity based. At least your place in society is not strictly fixed by your birth.

IQ(rather g-score) is the most well understood measurement in all of pyschology..

Re: Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)

#40

Post by nico »

There is a mantra the navy seals use in training: go slow, slow is smooth, smooth is fast

You are supposed to repeat it in stressful situations to hell you come down and avoid making costly mistakes

There is also a saying is Spanish: vísteme despacio que tengo prisa (dress me slowly because I’m in a hurry)

Which essentially advises to slow down when in a hurry

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