thinking

13 October 2023

Pre-committed defaults

Uri from Atoms vs Bits identifies a useful trick to quell indecisiveness. They call it a ‘release valve principle’ but I like what he calls it in the body text: a pre-committed default.

Basically, it’s knowing what you’re going to do if you can’t decide on something. This can be particularly useful if you’re conflicted between short-term pain for long-term gain.

One thing that is far too easy to do is get into mental loops of indecision, where you’re weighing up options against options, never quite knowing what to do, but also not-knowing how to get out the loop.

[…]

There’s a partial solution to this which I call “release valve principles”: basically, a pre-committed default decision rule you’ll use if you haven’t decided something within a given time frame.

I watched a friend do this when we were hanging out in a big city, vaguely looking for a bookshop we could visit but helplessly scrolling through googlemaps to try to find a good one; after five minutes he said “right” and just started walking in a random direction. He said he has a principle where if he hasn’t decided after five minutes where to go he just goes somewhere, instead of spending more time deliberating.

[…]

The release valve principle is an attempt to prod yourself into doing what your long-term self prefers, without forcing you into always doing X or never doing Y – it just kicks in when you’re on the fence.

Source: Release Valve Principles | Atoms vs Bits

Image: Unsplash

24 June 2022

Losing followers, making friends

There’s a lot going on in this article, which I’ve taken plenty of quotations from below. It’s worth taking some time over, especially if you haven’t read Thinking, Fast & Slow (or it’s been a while since you did!)

Social media inherited and weaponised the chronological weblog feed. Showing content based on user activity hooked us in for longer. When platforms discovered anger and anxiety boosts screen time, the battle for our minds was lost.

Till this point the fundamental purpose of software was to support the user’s objectives. Somewhere, someone decided the purpose of users is to support the firm’s objectives. This shift permeates through the Internet. It’s why basic software is subscription-led. It’s why there’s little functional difference between Windows’ telemetry and spyware. It’s why leaving social media is so hard.

Like chronological timelines, users grew to expect these patterns. Non-commercial platforms adopted them because users expect them. While not as optimized as their commercial counterparts, inherited anti-patterns can lead to inherited behaviours.

[…]

In his book Thinking Fast And Slow, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman describes two systems of thought…

[…]

System 1 appears to prioritise speed over accuracy, which makes sense for Lion-scale problems. System 1 even cheats to avoid using System 2. When faced with a difficult question, System 1 can substitute it and answer a simpler one. When someone responds to a point that was never made that could be a System 1 substitution.

[…]

10 Years ago my life was extremely online. I’ve been the asshole so many times I can’t even count. Was I an asshole? Sure, but the exploitation of mental state in public spaces has a role to play. It’s a strange game. The only way to win is not to play.

Commercial platforms are filled with traps, some inherited, many homegrown. Wrapping it in Zuck’s latest bullshit won’t lead to change. Even without inherited dark patterns, behaviours become ingrained. Platforms designed to avoid these patterns need to consider this if exposed to the Dark Forest.

For everything else it’s becoming easier to just stay away. There are so many private and semi-private spaces far from the madding crowd. You just need to look. I did. I lost followers, but made friends.

Source: Escaping The Web’s Dark Forest | by Steve Lord

26 November 2020

He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them

🎺 What Time Feels Like When You’re Improvising — “A great example of flow state is found in many improvised art forms, from music to acting to comedy to poetry, also known as “spontaneous creativity.” Improvisation is a highly complex form of creative behavior that justly inspires our awe and admiration. The ability to improvise requires cognitive flexibility, divergent thinking and discipline-specific skills, and it improves with training.”

💼 SEC proposes rules for giving gig workers equity — “The five-year pilot program would allow gig companies to issue equity as long as it’s no more than 15% of a worker’s compensation during a 12-month period, and no more than $75,000 in value during a 36-month period (based on the share price when it’s issued).”

🧠 Your Brain Is Not for Thinking — “Your brain’s most important job isn’t thinking; it’s running the systems of your body to keep you alive and well. According to recent findings in neuroscience, even when your brain does produce conscious thoughts and feelings, they are more in service to the needs of managing your body than you realize.”

✊ Social Unrest Is the Inevitable Legacy of the Covid Pandemic — “Like turpentine on flames, Covid-19 has rekindled older divisions, resentments and inequities across the world. In the U.S., Black Americans suffer disproportionately from police brutality, but also from the coronavirus — now these traumas merge. And everywhere, the poor fare worse than the rich.”

👣 A new love for medieval-style travel — “We might today think of pilgrimage as a specifically religious form of travel. But even in the past, the sightseeing was as important as the spirituality. Dr Marion Turner, a scholar at Oxford University who studies Geoffrey Chaucer, points out that “it was a time away from ordinary society, and allowed for a time of play.”

Quotation-as-title by Dr Johnson. Image via xkcd.

Tag: thinking (page 1 of 5)

Pre-committed defaults

Losing followers, making friends

He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them