Activity Feed
#4422·Benjamin Davies, 13 days agoVeritula should have a 'Posts' tab next to the 'Discussions' tab, where people can browse the things people post on their profiles.
I first want to see some more people posting to their profiles so there’ll be enough ideas to show in that tab.
#4494·Benjamin Davies revised 8 days agoSuggestion: Make italicised text the same colour as regular text.
Bold text is good in red. Italicised text is less legible, and the red compounds that.
This would also create more of a differentiation of emphasis between bold and italicised text.
Valid, done.
#4493·Benjamin Davies, 8 days agoI'm struggling to understand how this ties in with your original post about common preferences.
Both ideas are about working toward a universal theory of creation by studying parallels between mind and economy.
#4476·Dennis Hackethal, 11 days agoNice bio:
A life aimed at infinity 🦉 🐚 🕯️ 🚀
I’m guessing:
🦉 = wisdom
🕯️ = enlightenment
🚀 = progressBut I wonder what the seashell means… 🤔
Pretty close!
🦉 = wisdom / focus / attention
🐚 = the fractal, recursive aspects of life, particularly in epistemology / striving towards "inward infinities"
🕯️ = this / having "the lights on" (being sentient, as opposed to being a philosophical zombie or a mindless animal)
🚀 = progress / striving towards "outward infinities" / let's colonise the galaxy!
I realise I don't have any overtly moral emojis in that set. But maybe that is fine.
Suggestion: Make italicised text the same colour as regular text.
Bold text is good in red. Italicised text is less legible, and the red compounds that.
It also creates more of a differentiation of emphasis between bold and italicised text.
Suggestion: Make italicised text the same colour as regular text.
Bold text is good in red. Italicised text is less legible, and the red compounds that.
This would also create more of a differentiation of emphasis between bold and italicised text.
#4485·Dennis Hackethal, 9 days agoSomebody on Twitter wrote, addressing old-school programmers in the context of vibe coding, “Your once exclusive access just got democratized.”
I wonder if that’s the same or at least analogous to minds error correcting some skill to the point they automatize it.
In both cases, access to knowledge becomes cheap and fast.
I'm struggling to understand how this ties in with your original post about common preferences.
5 Minute Creativity
TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.
A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.
But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"
He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"
This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*
I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!
But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.
I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.
My favourite part of the article is this:
Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.
I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):
In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:
When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?
Then, actually do the obvious things.
In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:
Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.
I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.
(It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started using this idea with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. But don't let impatience cause you to reduce the number of minutes you go with—the best ideas often come when we are getting bored or feeling a little friction. The point of this practice is to spend more time thinking about something than you would naturally.)
Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!
*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!
5 Minute Creativity
TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.
A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.
But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"
He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"
This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*
I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!
But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.
I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.
My favourite part of the article is this:
Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.
I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares).
In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:
When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?
Then, actually do the obvious things.
In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:
Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.
I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I hadn't spent 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.
It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. If you are considering using a smaller number of minutes, I urge you to keep in mind why it is you're doing this in the first place—you're intentionally giving yourself more time to think than you would give yourself naturally. This is about experimenting with a new thinking pattern, so consider allowing yourself to feel some amount of boredom or friction when you are first trying it, rather than cutting the 5 minutes shorter. (The boredom may also be a sign that the problem isn't worth 5 minutes of your time, in which case... find a different problem!)
Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!
*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!
#4475·Dennis HackethalOP, 11 days ago… the posts are lost amongst the other user activity.
To be clear, when you say “posts”, you mean specifically ideas the user posted only to their profile, outside of discussions?
What about reposts from discussions?
I think users will expect reposts to appear on their profile alongside their posts on the wall. That seems natural.
Suggestion: Make italicised text the same colour as regular text.
Bold text is good in red. Italicised text is less legible, and the red compounds that.
It also creates more of a differentiation of emphasis between bold and italicised text.
Suggestion: Allow reacts to be used in the activity feed.
That way I can quickly add colour to whatever has been happening recently on the site.
I like the thrust of the idea.
Like, when parents worry that their kids are having too much fun, and when socialists are suspicious of companies turning a profit… is that an expression of the same fear?
I believe these both stem from the same zero-sum worldview: that any gain anywhere must come at an equivalent cost somewhere else. Businesses making profit must be exploiting something or someone to do so. Children doing what is fun comes at the cost of their Proper Education or their dopamine receptors.
To this sort of person, no good thing can ever be an unmitigated good thing.
I like the thrust of the idea.
Like, when parents worry that their kids are having too much fun, and when socialists are suspicious of companies turning a profit… is that an expression of the same fear?
I believe these both stem from the same zero-sum worldview: that any gain anywhere must come at an equivalent cost somewhere else. Businesses making profit must be exploiting something or someone to do so. Children doing what is fun must come at the cost of their Proper Education or their dopamine receptors, etc.
To this sort of person, no good thing can ever be an unmitigated good thing.
#4474·Dennis Hackethal, 11 days agoCan there be such a thing as too much fun?
Can there be such a thing as too much profit?In both cases, I think ‘no’. And I wonder if the fear of ‘too much’ fun and ‘too much’ profit is fundamentally the same thing.
Like, when parents worry that their kids are having too much fun, and when socialists are suspicious of companies turning a profit… is that an expression of the same fear?
Maybe the role of profit in the economy is the same as that of fun in a single mind: it signals successful discovery of common preferences.
I like the thrust of the idea.
Like, when parents worry that their kids are having too much fun, and when socialists are suspicious of companies turning a profit… is that an expression of the same fear?
I believe these both stem from the same zero-sum worldview: that any gain anywhere must come at an equivalent cost somewhere else. Businesses making profit must be exploiting something or someone to do so. Children doing what is fun comes at the cost of their Proper Education or their dopamine receptors.
To this sort of person, no good thing can ever be an unmitigated good thing.
#4474·Dennis Hackethal, 11 days agoCan there be such a thing as too much fun?
Can there be such a thing as too much profit?In both cases, I think ‘no’. And I wonder if the fear of ‘too much’ fun and ‘too much’ profit is fundamentally the same thing.
Like, when parents worry that their kids are having too much fun, and when socialists are suspicious of companies turning a profit… is that an expression of the same fear?
Maybe the role of profit in the economy is the same as that of fun in a single mind: it signals successful discovery of common preferences.
Somebody on Twitter wrote, addressing old-school programmers in the context of vibe coding, “Your once exclusive access just got democratized.”
I wonder if that’s the same or at least analogous to minds error correcting some skill to the point they automatize it.
In both cases, access to knowledge becomes cheap and fast.
#4451·Benjamin Davies revised 12 days ago5 Minute Creativity
TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.
A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.
But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"
He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"
This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*
I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!
But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.
I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.
My favourite part of the article is this:
Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.
I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):
In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:
When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?
Then, actually do the obvious things.
In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:
Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.
I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.
(It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started using this idea with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. But don't let impatience cause you to reduce the number of minutes you go with—the best ideas often come when we are getting bored or feeling a little friction. The point of this practice is to spend more time thinking about something than you would naturally.)
Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!
*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!
Let me know what you think about all this.
One of my colleagues at Apple was an incredibly competent veteran engineer whom I respected a lot. One of the things he taught me was to not always go with my first instinct, but to come up with several solutions to a problem and seeing which one is best. (Looking back and putting it in Veritula terms, I’d rephrase it as: which one survives all criticism. I think in practice, that’s what he did, too.) So your post resonates with me.
Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind …
This approach isn’t necessarily bad, though. I think it depends on whether you already have a considered opinion on a matter. Sometimes, you might do the first thing that pops into your mind because it’s the result of many rounds of previous error correction from similar situations, and you’ve automatized the solution. Then I think it’s fine.
#4451·Benjamin Davies revised 12 days ago5 Minute Creativity
TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.
A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.
But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"
He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"
This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*
I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!
But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.
I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.
My favourite part of the article is this:
Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.
I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):
In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:
When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?
Then, actually do the obvious things.
In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:
Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.
I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.
(It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started using this idea with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. But don't let impatience cause you to reduce the number of minutes you go with—the best ideas often come when we are getting bored or feeling a little friction. The point of this practice is to spend more time thinking about something than you would naturally.)
Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!
*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!
But don't let impatience cause you to reduce the number of minutes you go with—the best ideas often come when we are getting bored or feeling a little friction.
That sounds like it could be a bit self-coercive at times.
#4451·Benjamin Davies revised 12 days ago5 Minute Creativity
TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.
A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.
But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"
He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"
This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*
I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!
But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.
I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.
My favourite part of the article is this:
Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.
I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):
In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:
When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?
Then, actually do the obvious things.
In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:
Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.
I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.
(It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started using this idea with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. But don't let impatience cause you to reduce the number of minutes you go with—the best ideas often come when we are getting bored or feeling a little friction. The point of this practice is to spend more time thinking about something than you would naturally.)
Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!
*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!
Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it.
Should it say ‘hadn’t spent’ rather than “didn’t spend”? Or ‘would do … if I didn’t’.
#4451·Benjamin Davies revised 12 days ago5 Minute Creativity
TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.
A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.
But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"
He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"
This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*
I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!
But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.
I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.
My favourite part of the article is this:
Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.
I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):
In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:
When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?
Then, actually do the obvious things.
In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:
Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.
I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.
(It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started using this idea with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. But don't let impatience cause you to reduce the number of minutes you go with—the best ideas often come when we are getting bored or feeling a little friction. The point of this practice is to spend more time thinking about something than you would naturally.)
Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!
*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!
I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):
In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:
You have two consecutive colons there. Maybe you meant to merge those two parts?
#4267·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month agoComposing a top-level idea on mobile is atrocious. Need to scroll all the way down to see the form, the form keeps hiding itself, etc.
Fixed as of 9ea99f9.
#4436·Benjamin Davies, 13 days agoBug: When I try to type a top level idea into a discussion on my phone, the text is covered by the keyboard.
Should be fixed as of 9ea99f9 but let me know if you’re still having issues.
#4445·Benjamin Davies, 13 days agoWhen I go on a profile, the posts are lost amongst the other user activity.
Posts should have an exclusive place on the profile, as well as featuring in the user activity.
Done as of af4e814. There’s now a default wall tab and an activity tab. The wall only shows posts made specifically to the profile. That means posts by the user and others to that profile, and the user’s reposts from anywhere. Version chains are collapsed into the most recent version.