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Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

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Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#201

Post by [deleted] »

recursive wrote: post #195
c0pium wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loathe talking to people who rehearse the conversation ahead of time. They invariably don’t respond to what I actually said but rather change what I said to line up with what they practiced in the mirror. Or they say some version of “I expected you to say foo, to which I would have responded bar”. Cool story, but totally irrelevant. If you don’t have an answer at the time just say so and follow up later. Waiting fo…

I think you loathe talking to people who do it badly. Doing it well is like playing live jazz. You can practice the song, but if you don't listen to what your bandmates are doing, your awesome rehearsed solo is going to be bad.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#202

Post by indigoabstract »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #196
indigoabstract wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Low IQ is more predictive of success than High IQ. I'm curious what you meant by that. Could you please explain?

A very low IQ has a very clear and predictable effect on life. A very high IQ does not.

Ah, I see. Ever the optimist, I was imagining the low IQ folks had maybe found some unexpected ways to compensate.

Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#204

Post by brudgers »

rcarr wrote: post #27
brudgers wrote: post #8

The reason to rehearse martial arts is to get in fewer fights. You spar to drive home the point that a fight entails the other person landing punches and all you will walk away with is some bruises. Nobody likes you more because you won the argument. "Yes, and..." is much better tool. Even when dealing with socio-paths because saying one thing and doing another is also useful. What I mean is that what works for me is…

It's funny that you mention "yes and..." here because I've been going to as many improv lessons and jams as I possibly can over the last two months and my ability to socialize, memorise things and general mood has improved exponentially. I've literally had suicidal thoughts for years - all gone. I genuinely think modern society is really fucking us up and improv is the antidote. You're just allowed to be silly, have…

HN introduced me to Yes-and. I've never done improv.

Using it instead of the the-problem-with-that-is I was raised on has improved my life as well.

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#205

Post by saltcured »

reddiky wrote: post #123
dijit wrote: post #38

This is something that's easy to have an opinion on so you're going to get buried. I'll do my best to make a high-signal comment here, but it will be drowned by all the other replies, which also likely touch on these points. First, "slow-thinking" is really just a different way of expressing your thinking and you should begin by leaning into it rather than leaning away. Take time, allow yourself to pause to collect y…

> Finally, do your best to avoid situations where a "quick decision" is needed; this is good advice even for "quick thinkers". Fast decisions are often poor ones - the counterpoint to that is dragging something out over many weeks or across many meetings - but putting yourself in a situation where the unknowns become knowns or the scope of the landscape and weight of the decision can be properly assessed is important…

This seems like it is tapping into the same risk management strategy as in Agile methods? Essentially allowing for more frequent course correction. I assume "small" here blurs together cost and latency .

The tradeoff of this kind of incremental planning and execution is that it becomes more reactive and myopic. You can end up stuck at a local maxima or worse, just executing a random walk.

I think a large part of becoming "quick" in an effective way is to improve your triage skills. This is a meta-decision process where you quickly estimate the time-dependent risks and priorities.

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#206

Post by timfsu »

indigoabstract wrote: post #181
faeriechangling wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ tests being invalid is more politics than science. Among other things, rejecting the existence of cognitive inequality is necessary to justify systemic racism via the continued existence of Asian quotas (Affirmative Action). Since lots of people benefit from this racism, there’s a huge interest in denial. In western countries, when there’s a few billion people in Asia, and you let a tiny amount in gatekeeping them…

> Low IQ is more predictive of success than High IQ. I'm curious what you meant by that. Could you please explain?

Not OP, but I understood that to mean any difference in IQ below average (100) has a high impact on success, but differences above 100 have relatively less impact

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#207

Post by Bagged2347 »

indigoabstract wrote: post #181
faeriechangling wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ tests being invalid is more politics than science. Among other things, rejecting the existence of cognitive inequality is necessary to justify systemic racism via the continued existence of Asian quotas (Affirmative Action). Since lots of people benefit from this racism, there’s a huge interest in denial. In western countries, when there’s a few billion people in Asia, and you let a tiny amount in gatekeeping them…

> Low IQ is more predictive of success than High IQ. I'm curious what you meant by that. Could you please explain?

I think their point is a low IQ nearly always means low success, but a high IQ doesn't always mean high success.

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#208

Post by bigfont »

lemming wrote: post #193
bigfont wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bother? Given the breadth of diagnostic classes these days, there's a good chance you can find a practitioner[0] willing to make a diagnosis. That said, aside from getting funding for treatment or acceptance of accommodations, receiving a label of disordered often does not help, but does add harmful stigmatization. The OP's son seems normal, functioning, and isn't harming anyone. On the other hand, the diagnosing…

Our daughter was diagnosed with dyscalculia, and the diagnosis was very helpful, both for us and for her. She was really struggling with maths and felt like she must just be stupid. The diagnosis helped her to understand that it's just a very concrete thing that she has that affects one aspect of her functioning, and doesn't mean that she's dumb, or lazy, or whatever other story she had ended up telling herself. We a…

It sounds like the diagnosis marked a point of positive transformation. Before the diagnosis, your daughter attributed her math challenges to global stupidity and laziness. After the diagnosis, she attributed it to a specific difficulty with math. That reframing does sound healthy and helpful. It also sounds like the diagnosis helped you accept the situation and adapt your teaching modality.

Certainly, funding for treatment and acceptance of accommodation can make a life-changing difference. That in part motivates many caring and concerned practitioners to widen diagnostic criteria, so that more people can access benefits. I can see how I came across as trivializing those benefits. Quite the contrary, though, I meant to express that yes, diagnostic labels can bring positive results, and we need to weigh those against the negative results, especially when other options exist.

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#209

Post by lowbloodsugar »

matwood wrote: post #97
osullip wrote: post #29

Don't speak. People fill voids and awkward situations by saying stuff, even if that stuff is wrong. It's OK to be quiet. It's also OK to say 'Let me think about that'. Lose some arguments. And unless the situation you are in that requires a quick decision is life or death, it probably doesn't need one.

> Don't speak. Great advice. Nothing shows confidence more than asking a question and then waiting for answer. Let the awkward silence sit. And when you do speak, keep answers short and to the point. It also conveys confidence. Anytime I see/hear someone rambling in email/on meeting, I know they are not confident in what they are saying.

>Anytime I see/hear someone rambling in email/on meeting, I know they are not confident in what they are saying.

Well then you are dismissing people unfairly. You won't hear a peep out of me if I don't know the answer. On the other hand, if I have mountains of data that proves my point, or if the problem is nuanced, you'll hear all of it.

I'm working on getting better at distilling that data into short, actionable points for people like VPs (because I'm now at the level where these people read what I write).

But if you were to assume that I'm not confident, based on my inability to boil it down, you'd be drawing the wrong conclusion. You should listen to me because I'm nearly always right, and when I'm wrong, I'm usually the first to identify that fact and provide a solution.

Also I am autistic, which certainly impacts my communication.

Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?

#210

Post by eastbound »

10729287 wrote: post #55
paulsutter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’m a disappointing person to try to debate or attack. I just have nothing to say in the moment, except maybe, 'Good point.' Then a few days later, after thinking about it a lot, I have a response" - Derek Sivers ( https://sive.rs/slow ) This sounds very admirable to me

Phenomenon also known as Esprit de l'escalier : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier I suffer from it myself and i'm definitely better at answering by email than in an oral discussion when i'm overwhelmed by thoughts and can't focus on one.

Finally enough, the French expression is “présence d’esprit”.

Only few people in France know about this sequence involving Diderot and the king, and I only know about it because I’ve lived in… California.

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