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>Zuckerberg explained: “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve [F

>Zuckerberg explained: “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve [Facebook’s] community.” Interesting enough Obama said the exact same thing about his suit choices. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” [Obama] said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”(1) So decision fatigue doesn't need to go hand in hand with super casual. (1) http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chris_7 9y ago
well, http://www.trbimg.com/img-53ffb406/turbine/la-ig-obama-tan-suit-stop-freaking-out-20140828 http://www.trbimg.com/img-53ffb406/turbine/la-ig-obama-tan-s... dude loves mom jeans as well.
datatan 9y ago
On the other hand, if someones so lazy that they can't even pick out their own clothes do you really want them running the country? Seriously, if picking out something to wear gives you decision fatigue then you aren't fit to run a hot dog stand.
draw_down 9y ago
I think that reasoning is kind of lame (is it really so hard? do they eat the same thing every meal?) But certainly both Obama and Zuckerberg would be distinctive figures regardless of what they wore.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > do they eat the same thing every meal? I can't speak for Obama or Zuck, but I've been eating the same type of breakfast (cereal+milk) consistently [1]for the last 15 or so years (at age 27). Not mainly because of decision fatigue, but because I'm the polar opposite of a morning person, and the morning routine helps my drowzy morning self to leave home on time. [1] Except when I'm traveling, because I'm certainly not taking a box of cereal with me. :)
  - draw_down 9y ago
    Sounds like you are draining your precious life forces with the incredibly burdensome decision of what to eat the other two meals every day! How inefficient.
    - majewsky 9y ago
      My buy-in into the decision fatique camp is gradually increasing, though.
pcurve 9y ago
"Zuckerberg explained: “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve [Facebook’s] community." Most likely he just doesn't enjoy fashion. Some people love fashion, shopping clothes, figuring out what do dress, and derive tremendous joy from them. Zuckerberg and Obama aren't one of them. At least Obama is being more honest about the reasoning, while Zuckerberg is just spinning it.
- diegoprzl 9y ago
  Pragmatism is a good principle but as you say there are persons who enjoy clothing itself as a form of art and self-expression. Casual/minimalism (as jeans+tshirt only) in clothing is not the rational choice for everyone. As an example: Someone who doesn't particularly enjoy music could advocate that as a means to make fewer decisions and not waste time in non-adaptive behavior he doesn't listen to music. If the ingroup has similar tastes then it's converted into a "truth" and non-conformity prejudiced. Overall I think that the intelligent thing is to dress according to what is expected/acceptable. A lot of people seems to think that the move to casual dress is some kind of new achieved freedom and that we're growing out of being biased against other's persons clothing. The reality, as posts here can attest, is that it was simply a change in dressing code. There is still a bias, now it's just placed in the more "formal" clothing. I personally prefer tailored/formal clothing. But as casual dressers were discriminated in the 60s-70s so I would be in the current workplace if I dressed as I desired. The solution is simple: Dress as expected in work and as you like in your personal life. We as a species have not grown out of groupthink yet.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >I personally prefer tailored/formal clothing. But as casual dressers were discriminated in the 60s-70s so I would be in the current workplace if I dressed as I desired. Would you though? Because tailored suits are a casual hipster staple nowadays too. You can meet a guy with huge victorian mustache and beard and a fine suit and they're a graphic designer or something....
    - 9y ago
dang 9y ago
This kind of thinking became fashionable a few years ago when the studies supporting "decision fatigue" were getting press. I wonder if they'll survive the replication crisis. It seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't.
- coldtea 9y ago
  The "replication crisis" doesn't matter. Lots of people know from experience that they're staring in their wardrobe every day for tens of minutes to decide what to wear and hate it. That doesn't change for them if some experts can't replicate the original findings of some "decision fatigue" paper. The burden of choosing every day is enough, even without fatigue.
  - eyuelt 9y ago
    I think it does. I'm guessing most of the people who take the single outfit approach do so based on what they've heard about decision fatigue. Not because they want to save the 30 seconds they spend picking out a shirt every morning, but because that decision supposedly impacts their decision making for the rest of the day.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >but because that decision supposedly impacts their decision making for the rest of the day. I don't think that would be relevant. They still have to make 2000 other decisions and micro-decisions throughout the day anyway...
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > Lots of people know from experience that they're staring in their wardrobe every day for tens of minutes to decide what to wear and hate it. Simple solution: Wear what is at the top of the clothes stack in your wardrobe and add clothes that come from laundry to the bottom of the stacks in your wardrobe (for computer scientists: Make the clothing stacks in your wardrobe a FIFO queue).
    - 9y ago
coldtea 9y ago
>so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve [Facebook’s] community As if the best interests of the FB community are even in consideration...
jhoechtl 9y ago
Austrian / Europe here. We are slightly more formal in business life when it comes to how we dress but certainly more relaxed that our Italian neighbors. I remember well when I did my military service and ha to wear a uniform. At first I hated it but when I "disarmed" and went back to my civil life, the daily "burden" to decide what to wear was a distraction. Sure I quickly re-adapted but anyhow
- FanaHOVA 9y ago
  Yea Italians are a pain in the ass about dressing; people here are stuck in the 80s still when it comes to work so it only makes sense it works that way.
  - Kurtz79 9y ago
    Italian here. I don't know what your experience is, but I have to call bullshit. Such generic comments applying to an entire population should be best avoided. I have worked in Italian, British, American and Spanish engineering companies and I have not noticed any significant differences in dressing code, with the UK probably being the more formal environment (we had "Casual Fridays", which meant that the rest of the week we had to wear shirts). In the rest I could get by with a polo shirt and jeans. Of course people with more contact with the outside tend to dress more formally, but this has been true for every company I have been.
    - FanaHOVA 9y ago
      My experience is being born and raised in Rome, working with people from different cities (Pi Campus here in Rome, H-Farm in Veneto, etc) and now working in Santa Monica. Not much to call bullshit on, if you don't see any difference between Cali and Italy I don't know what to tell you.
- javier2 9y ago
  I also noticed that after military service. In the service, I had two uniforms that were exactly the same that I wore every day. At first I hated the uniform, but after I finished, I realized how convenient it is to not ever have to think about your outfit at all. I sort of practice this now as well, with a well defined 'base' of jeans and a shirt that doesn't need ironing.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
> Zuckerberg explained: “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve [Facebook’s] community.” What an awkward way to force "Look what a good CEO I am" into the conversation.
tempodox 9y ago
That is just standard boilerplate BS, but certainly more polite than "fuck you".
TeMPOraL 9y ago
But when Putin or others decide to do the same - wearing mostly the same-looking suits all the time - it's said that this is to make timestamping photos of the official more difficult. Make up your mind, Internet.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Variant of this is that some celebrities are said to dress identically from day to day to reduce the value of paparazzi photos of them.
  - wingerlang 9y ago
    I've only ever heard this about Radcliffe doing this once, do you know of more examples?
hudibras 9y ago
I was in the Navy for 20 years, and never once had to think about what to wear. Glorious. Just had to make sure to wear the clean uniform...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

chris_7 9y ago

well, http://www.trbimg.com/img-53ffb406/turbine/la-ig-obama-tan-suit-stop-freaking-out-20140828 http://www.trbimg.com/img-53ffb406/turbine/la-ig-obama-tan-s... dude loves mom jeans as well.

datatan 9y ago

On the other hand, if someones so lazy that they can't even pick out their own clothes do you really want them running the country? Seriously, if picking out something to wear gives you decision fatigue then you aren't fit to run a hot dog stand.

draw_down 9y ago

I think that reasoning is kind of lame (is it really so hard? do they eat the same thing every meal?) But certainly both Obama and Zuckerberg would be distinctive figures regardless of what they wore.

majewsky 9y ago
> do they eat the same thing every meal? I can't speak for Obama or Zuck, but I've been eating the same type of breakfast (cereal+milk) consistently [1]for the last 15 or so years (at age 27). Not mainly because of decision fatigue, but because I'm the polar opposite of a morning person, and the morning routine helps my drowzy morning self to leave home on time. [1] Except when I'm traveling, because I'm certainly not taking a box of cereal with me. :)
- draw_down 9y ago
  Sounds like you are draining your precious life forces with the incredibly burdensome decision of what to eat the other two meals every day! How inefficient.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    My buy-in into the decision fatique camp is gradually increasing, though.

pcurve 9y ago

"Zuckerberg explained: “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve [Facebook’s] community." Most likely he just doesn't enjoy fashion. Some people love fashion, shopping clothes, figuring out what do dress, and derive tremendous joy from them. Zuckerberg and Obama aren't one of them. At least Obama is being more honest about the reasoning, while Zuckerberg is just spinning it.

diegoprzl 9y ago
Pragmatism is a good principle but as you say there are persons who enjoy clothing itself as a form of art and self-expression. Casual/minimalism (as jeans+tshirt only) in clothing is not the rational choice for everyone. As an example: Someone who doesn't particularly enjoy music could advocate that as a means to make fewer decisions and not waste time in non-adaptive behavior he doesn't listen to music. If the ingroup has similar tastes then it's converted into a "truth" and non-conformity prejudiced. Overall I think that the intelligent thing is to dress according to what is expected/acceptable. A lot of people seems to think that the move to casual dress is some kind of new achieved freedom and that we're growing out of being biased against other's persons clothing. The reality, as posts here can attest, is that it was simply a change in dressing code. There is still a bias, now it's just placed in the more "formal" clothing. I personally prefer tailored/formal clothing. But as casual dressers were discriminated in the 60s-70s so I would be in the current workplace if I dressed as I desired. The solution is simple: Dress as expected in work and as you like in your personal life. We as a species have not grown out of groupthink yet.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I personally prefer tailored/formal clothing. But as casual dressers were discriminated in the 60s-70s so I would be in the current workplace if I dressed as I desired. Would you though? Because tailored suits are a casual hipster staple nowadays too. You can meet a guy with huge victorian mustache and beard and a fine suit and they're a graphic designer or something....
  - 9y ago

dang 9y ago

This kind of thinking became fashionable a few years ago when the studies supporting "decision fatigue" were getting press. I wonder if they'll survive the replication crisis. It seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't.

coldtea 9y ago
The "replication crisis" doesn't matter. Lots of people know from experience that they're staring in their wardrobe every day for tens of minutes to decide what to wear and hate it. That doesn't change for them if some experts can't replicate the original findings of some "decision fatigue" paper. The burden of choosing every day is enough, even without fatigue.
- eyuelt 9y ago
  I think it does. I'm guessing most of the people who take the single outfit approach do so based on what they've heard about decision fatigue. Not because they want to save the 30 seconds they spend picking out a shirt every morning, but because that decision supposedly impacts their decision making for the rest of the day.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >but because that decision supposedly impacts their decision making for the rest of the day. I don't think that would be relevant. They still have to make 2000 other decisions and micro-decisions throughout the day anyway...
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > Lots of people know from experience that they're staring in their wardrobe every day for tens of minutes to decide what to wear and hate it. Simple solution: Wear what is at the top of the clothes stack in your wardrobe and add clothes that come from laundry to the bottom of the stacks in your wardrobe (for computer scientists: Make the clothing stacks in your wardrobe a FIFO queue).
  - 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago

>so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve [Facebook’s] community As if the best interests of the FB community are even in consideration...

jhoechtl 9y ago

Austrian / Europe here. We are slightly more formal in business life when it comes to how we dress but certainly more relaxed that our Italian neighbors. I remember well when I did my military service and ha to wear a uniform. At first I hated it but when I "disarmed" and went back to my civil life, the daily "burden" to decide what to wear was a distraction. Sure I quickly re-adapted but anyhow

FanaHOVA 9y ago
Yea Italians are a pain in the ass about dressing; people here are stuck in the 80s still when it comes to work so it only makes sense it works that way.
- Kurtz79 9y ago
  Italian here. I don't know what your experience is, but I have to call bullshit. Such generic comments applying to an entire population should be best avoided. I have worked in Italian, British, American and Spanish engineering companies and I have not noticed any significant differences in dressing code, with the UK probably being the more formal environment (we had "Casual Fridays", which meant that the rest of the week we had to wear shirts). In the rest I could get by with a polo shirt and jeans. Of course people with more contact with the outside tend to dress more formally, but this has been true for every company I have been.
  - FanaHOVA 9y ago
    My experience is being born and raised in Rome, working with people from different cities (Pi Campus here in Rome, H-Farm in Veneto, etc) and now working in Santa Monica. Not much to call bullshit on, if you don't see any difference between Cali and Italy I don't know what to tell you.
javier2 9y ago
I also noticed that after military service. In the service, I had two uniforms that were exactly the same that I wore every day. At first I hated the uniform, but after I finished, I realized how convenient it is to not ever have to think about your outfit at all. I sort of practice this now as well, with a well defined 'base' of jeans and a shirt that doesn't need ironing.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago

tempodox 9y ago

That is just standard boilerplate BS, but certainly more polite than "fuck you".

TeMPOraL 9y ago

But when Putin or others decide to do the same - wearing mostly the same-looking suits all the time - it's said that this is to make timestamping photos of the official more difficult. Make up your mind, Internet.

pjc50 9y ago
Variant of this is that some celebrities are said to dress identically from day to day to reduce the value of paparazzi photos of them.
- wingerlang 9y ago
  I've only ever heard this about Radcliffe doing this once, do you know of more examples?

hudibras 9y ago

I was in the Navy for 20 years, and never once had to think about what to wear. Glorious. Just had to make sure to wear the clean uniform...