The Collector's Fallacy • Hacker News Board

Re: The Collector's Fallacy

#21

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Mon, May 15, 2017, 7:54 AM UTC

rjeli wrote: post #17

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I made the opposite experience. I made sure to tell everyone about a very ambitious project that I wasn't sure I could pull off. That way there wasn't an easy way out, and that strategy worked extremely well.

Until you find out no one really cares what you finish, and telling people before you start gets all the positive feedback without the hard work

I see where you're getting at. I won't deny peer recognition is very nice, but it isn't the sole motivation - its just booster rockets that I'm happy to use.

Re: The Collector's Fallacy

#22

Post by wernsey » Mon, May 15, 2017, 9:18 AM UTC

sorenjan wrote: post #13

The dopamine point reminds me of something I read a while ago. It said that when telling people about a new project you just started, or even just plans to start, your brain rewards you with dopamine as if you just achieved something. This can make you less likely to finish the project, since you already got rewarded for it. Not as much as if you had finished it, but for some it might be enough, so they start lacking…

Thanks. Interesting point. I found that I started a lot of hobby project, but haven't been finishing any of them lately. The one thing they have in common was that I told people about them.

The ones I did finish were the ones that I didn't tell anyone about, because they were useful only to me.

Re: The Collector's Fallacy

#23

Post by wernsey » Mon, May 15, 2017, 9:25 AM UTC

I recently realised that my articles in Pocket and the number of tabs in my browser was piling up. This was a big cause of anxiety for me. In the end I worked around the issue by just saving the links in Evernote, arranged by topic.

I now have the comfort that those articles are still there if I ever need to research that topic again, but they are out of sight and don't bother me.

Re: The Collector's Fallacy

#24

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 15, 2017, 6:54 PM UTC

scryder wrote: post #20

hueving wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any information that decreases in usefulness very quickly with time wasn't very useful to begin with. If anything, your argument supports the idea of letting things sit in a queue for months to determine if it's still relevant before bothering to consume it to begin with.

This logic is wrongheaded, as it ignores the context which causes information to expire: >Socially: I'll expand this one the most, because a similar argumentative line will apply to all the other ones. Current events stories are a common point of discussion, and current stories become less relevant over time. For example, discussion about politics at this moment, during last October, and during this January, are mark…

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