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I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

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Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#71

Post by glangdale »

sitkack wrote: post #31
glangdale wrote: post #4

I feel this way too. Someone once told me about their Google interview and mentioned one of the problems. I spent a fruitless 20 mins flailing around trying for a good solution, then stopped thinking about it. 5 hours later on public transit the entire (and, as it happens, perfect) solution popped, unbidden, into my head. I always thought that would have been particularly galling if it had been my interview...

Those questions are horrible. They have almost no signal, I interview a ton of people and I ask much much simpler questions, a question that starts easy and can be made more complex is best. I used to ask stupid hard questions and I have matured.

It was a great question in terms of something you might work through in classroom setting for advanced undergraduates or beyond. I thought it was really interesting. However, I think the weakness of it would be that anyone with a particular background (out-of-core) would identify it immediately. Many of the "hard questions" really come down to being some shibboleth to identify who has been at the right schools. :-) (and that's not a particularly sour note from me, as I have a CMU PhD, although I still can't get those questions)

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#72

Post by hkmurakami »

jaza wrote: post #40

Yes. This is me too. And I've seldom been bothered about it. I have many times been called slow, but never stupid, and that's fine with me. I consider myself quite articulate, but I'm much more comfortable expressing myself in written than in spoken form, mainly because I need and I cherish the extra time that the former medium gives me, to more eloquently structure and refine what's being communicated. Just because…

The only time it bothered me or affected me was when taking management consulting case interviews, where I felt like I needed to be able to think way faster (or maybe I could have done more prep work so I’d pattern match rather than think).

I jokingly tell people hat I’ll get them an answer in 2 hours. ;)

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#73

Post by throwawaymath »

brookside wrote: post #33
buchanae wrote: post #12

I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?". The book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts" has an interesting message about how introverts struggle to fit into an image of society where one must be a quick-witted extrovert in order to be successful and powerful. I think it's the same for fast vs slow thinkers. It's important to know your a slow thinker, and accept i…

David E. Davis, founder of Automobile magazine was known to ask "Is your life a rich tapestry?" instead of the usual "How are you?". I like that.

I'd like to think I'd enthusiastically engage in a question like that. But in reality I think I'd find it extremely off-putting and would want to leave the conversation.

There's this sort of...meme, I suppose, of perfect dialogue. You can see it a lot in the way movie characters talk to each other, especially the ones who are supposed to be intellectual. Think of characters like Tyrion Lannister, Robert Ford, Chuck Rhoades or Andy Dufresne.

They're not just preternaturally witty - they have excellent rhetorical poise. They don't open conversations directly, they gracefully meander to their point with some kind of obscure arcana or quiet intensity. They're theatrical in their delivery and flush with metaphors, analogies or double entendres.

That's the way I feel about questions like, "Is your life a rich tapestry?" That's not a question that's asked or spoken, it's a question that's written. It's so pointed and so raw that, at best, you'd think the asker is eccentric. If you're less charitable you'd think they're simply socially awkward. Opening conversations that way is flying too close to the Sun.

I feel that the best way to answer that question is to turn away from the person asking, as if lost in thought. Then you'd make your way to your answer circuitously, by first deflecting to talk about the origin of the word "tapestry" itself alongside some powerful childhood memory about your father or a famous quote made on the eve of war. Finally, you'd arrive at a delightfully disarming answer that gives a real insight into your life and experience.

But in actuality I'd probably be asked that at a social gathering and respond with some sort of befuddled, "Er, what do you mean?" while being utterly taken aback at the penetrating intimacy of the question. Later on I'd probably ask someone, "Hey what's up with that guy, did he self-help book big on provocative conversation starters or something?"

If you really want to go down the route of non-traditional greetings, I'd recommend, "What have you been reading lately?" or "What are you about?" They still require some situational awareness, but they're a lot less risky and polarizing. I enjoyed being asked those when I first heard them.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#74

Post by sitkack »

glangdale wrote: post #71
sitkack wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those questions are horrible. They have almost no signal, I interview a ton of people and I ask much much simpler questions, a question that starts easy and can be made more complex is best. I used to ask stupid hard questions and I have matured.

It was a great question in terms of something you might work through in classroom setting for advanced undergraduates or beyond. I thought it was really interesting. However, I think the weakness of it would be that anyone with a particular background (out-of-core) would identify it immediately. Many of the "hard questions" really come down to being some shibboleth to identify who has been at the right schools. :-) (…

> shibboleth to identify

Exactly. And it sickens me. I'd like the resumes to be scrubbed, zero knowledge of the school someone went to. I see dynamic programming problems used for the same, either you have had them in an academic setting or you probably going in blind.

A more humane and useful questions starts off easy, if they get that, add in extra conditions to make it more difficult and extract more signal. Almost any easy questions can from duh to omg in a handful of criteria.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#75

Post by diminoten »

njarboe wrote: post #64
exrook wrote: post #3

It's interesting to compare this to the idea of the brain having two systems of cognition: a "System 1" process that is automatic and quick to respond, relying on memorized behaviors; and a "System 2" process that is more methodical, logical, and deliberate, but far slower to react. The author's point being that we should try harder to use our System 2 thought process at the expense of quick turnaround from the Syste…

And use your System 2 process to improve the responses your System 1 produces.

I think this is the part people forget too often about the "two system" theory written about in "Thinking Fast and Slow".

You can improve your System 1 responses, and there's a decent amount of the book that talks about all the ways System 2 post-hoc justifies the System 1 response, so it's not like System 2 is always going to be better.

Having a good System 1 response is a much clearer way to arrive at a solid decision than only hoping your System 2 is going to catch all of your biases.

Not trying to train your System 1 is, in my opinion, lazy. There are no "fast" or "slow" thinkers (we're all both), just people who have trained their System 1 and people who don't take the time (people with disorders notwithstanding).

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#76

Post by diminoten »

finaliteration wrote: post #51
alister wrote: post #46

I'm wondering if what Sivers feels about himself is true for everyone. Maybe those sharp people who give an insightful reply right off the bat would give an even better reply if they had more time. This is why I prefer email over instant messaging, phone calls, or collaborative online chat when asking questions (except trivial questions). I want a considered reply, not something off the cuff.

I’m one of those “sharp” people and I often feel like I’m keeping up and thinking quickly enough but constantly stumble over my words. It’s difficult for me to take what’s in my head and turn it into an immediate verbal response sometimes, which leaves me feeling incredibly stupid or like I’m not making sense. I very often find that if I sit down and write something out I can communicate it much more clearly, with th…

I'd even go so far as to suggest that a person's personality dictates what they think of themselves as on the "fast" or "slow" spectrum, based on the memories they choose to focus on.

I (probably wildly) speculate that the people who think they're "fast" remember times when they were fast thinkers, and the people who think they're "slow" remember times when they were slow, even though all of us have experiences with both situations.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#77

Post by abhishekjha »

Does this have any thing to do with me being extremely awful/slow at competitive programming? I tried a few online sites like codeforces, hackerrank, codechef and after a few easy problems, I ended up getting stuck for forever. I had to often look for the solution which was more than often a trick that I hadn't come across and my existing knowledge base failed to take me there.

Is there any way to improve this? To be honest, I am asking this because I am failing every single interview screening which generally involves trick questions. I would love to know the relation between the two.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#78

Post by Brian_K_White »

brookside wrote: post #33
buchanae wrote: post #12

I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?". The book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts" has an interesting message about how introverts struggle to fit into an image of society where one must be a quick-witted extrovert in order to be successful and powerful. I think it's the same for fast vs slow thinkers. It's important to know your a slow thinker, and accept i…

David E. Davis, founder of Automobile magazine was known to ask "Is your life a rich tapestry?" instead of the usual "How are you?". I like that.

I would not like to put random people on the spot like that. That is frankly a supremely inconsiderate thing to ask along the lines of "Are you wealthy?" "Do you have a lot of sex?". Fine if your answer happens to be yes, or fine if you happen to be quick with some deflecting come-back about the metaphorical "interesting times". At least now, thanks to this post, I can -slowly, haha- develop an angle on an answer, along the lines of "Well it might have been uniformly bland today, but now it's got at least one bad bit to break up the monotony, being asked an inconsiderate personal question like that, especially with you not being my mom or my therapist." Or maybe just ask right back "Is your wife's sex life a rich tapestry?"

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#79

Post by diminoten »

princeb wrote: post #57

like to put it out to you to not think of 'fast thinkers' as people who can think on the spot, but actually people who have spent a lot of time and effort thinking ahead of time, so that when a question or situation arises, the remaining effort is simply pattern-matching and recall. the even better ones prepare a logical narrative for the purpose of knowledge diffusion and education even if the opportunity to use the…

Chess is a good example of this. Seeing a chess master play appears like incredible analysis and advanced thinking (and it certainly is in some cases), but a lot of the time it's pattern recognition and recall ability. In other words, as you say, they've literally been thinking about the scenario they're in now before, and already have an answer prepared.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#80

Post by krasin »

abhishekjha wrote: post #77

Does this have any thing to do with me being extremely awful/slow at competitive programming? I tried a few online sites like codeforces, hackerrank, codechef and after a few easy problems, I ended up getting stuck for forever. I had to often look for the solution which was more than often a trick that I hadn't come across and my existing knowledge base failed to take me there. Is there any way to improve this? To be…

I am a slow thinker, but had been moderately successful in competitive programming during high school days.

The trick is to code a lot outside of the competitions and know all these tricks, as well as to have common snippets of code in your fingertips.

I still find that experience quite useful in my day-to-day programming.

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