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I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

604 points by gary__ 8y ago

adriansky 8y ago
I can relate to this. I'm always always envious of people that come up with quick and funny answers. It's a relief to know I'm not the only one.
exrook 8y ago
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 System 1 process. I think this is probably a good idea but it can be difficult in practice since it takes more effort to intentionally engage system 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#Systems https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YshRbqZHYFoEMqFAu/why-truth-and https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YshRbqZHYFoEMqFAu/why-truth-...
- pfbtgom 8y ago
  This is the premise of the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. Among other things, he explains System 1 in terms of popular cognitive biases. It's a good read.
- weberc2 8y ago
  I relate to the author of the original article in that I'm a slow thinker. I really envy people who can vocalize intelligent, confident decisions or opinions on the spot. I don't like feeling stupid because I can't articulate moderately complex thoughts on the spot. It feels like I don't think in words anymore, but rather in something like abstract math (not like a savant, mind you), and translating back to words accurately is laborious and time consuming. I like the pace of commenting on an Internet forum like this one, where I can be thoughtful and take my time and rewrite a bit before sharing.
  - Pimpus 8y ago
    Getting sharper takes practice. I like to unwind on forums too but it's not pushing you to think faster. Also, getting your thoughts, actions, and words all in alignment will help, as there will be less hesitation on each front.
    - westoncb 8y ago
      I think a key aspect to the situation though is that you won't get faster by trying to get faster. Of all places, I learned this while working in a grocery store, but have since verified the phenomenon in other domains (for example, reading; and it also just makes psychological sense). I had been stocking groceries for about a month when I had an interesting conversation with two senior employees (20 or 30 years a piece at the job). One of them was telling me that I was doing well but that I needed to start going more quickly. The other saw the mistake in this advice and said something along the lines of, "Well, hold on, though: you know speed comes naturally with practice. He'll get faster once he knows the work better." The other senior employee thought about it for a second, and then agreed in full and admitted their mistake. As a consequence, I focused on learning my work well instead of trying to be fast—and I became one of the fastest stockers in the store within a year. I don't think you can will speed to happen, or train it specially: it's a consequence of already having solved the problems at hand before, already knowing the solutions and not needing to figure things out in the moment. So you aren't going to 'get sharper'; you'll just learn particular domains better or not, and the ones you know better you'll be perceived as sharper in.
      - Pimpus 8y ago
        Well, I've gotten a lot sharper over the past year. And comparing myself to five years ago, the difference is night and day. Hmm, I see I got downvoted. Whatever.
        copperx 8y ago
        How did you get sharper?
- njarboe 8y ago
  And use your System 2 process to improve the responses your System 1 produces.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    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).
    - jpster 8y ago
      How do you train System 1?
      - yojex 8y ago
        Mindfulness meditation is one way.
  - zentiggr 8y ago
    A couple of motivational / self-help people I have read before come from pretty much exactly this formula. I'd like to say I listened to them and applied their ideas systematically, but then the failure to do so is one of the System 1 biases that they all mention... sigh.
glangdale 8y ago
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...
- glangdale 8y ago
  Also relevant: the French have a great phrase for this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier
  - remarkEon 8y ago
    Ha. Remembering that one. Is there something about the French language that lends itself more easily to great wit and very usable idioms?
    - daveFNbuck 8y ago
      There's nothing language-specific about that idiom. In English, it's staircase wit. It should work in most languages as long as you have the story to go with it.
- sitkack 8y ago
  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.
  - glangdale 8y ago
    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)
EdgarVerona 8y ago
I feel similarly. I often find that I run into people who are eager to have a face-to-face debate about something, and who come up with opinions and rationalizations that sometimes end up being dubious. But I feel a strong desire to hear them out and I generally have a hard time piecing together what makes an argument fallacious until I have time to analyze it more deeply, so I generally just take whatever they've said and chew on it a while. I feel like this helps me come to better conclusions in the long term. Sometimes, I come to agree with what they've said. Sometimes, I find their conclusions flawed. In some cases, I can tell that it's made people who present arguments that ultimately turn out to be fallacious feel justified in those arguments. The fact that I end our conversation by thanking them for giving me something to think about sometimes feels like I'm endorsing their opinion with my inability to come up with an equally quick retort. I've never really found a solution to this. At various times in my life, I have tried to hone my ability to make equally quick retorts: but I found that I didn't like who I was as a person when I tried to discuss in that way. My conversations with people became needlessly rhetorical and combative, and that I was often failing to hear what they had to say except in the context of how I could weaken it. On top of that, I became an angrier person in general. All of that felt shitty, and like the opposite of truth-seeking. For me, it's an unsolved problem. I'm mostly at peace with the fact that I need extra time to chew on opinions presented to me in the heat of the moment, but occasionally I feel deep regret for not having said something on the spot. Nonverbal conversations tend to help me with this personally - even the few moments you get to better put together how you're feeling/what you're thinking, or the ability to re-read what someone has posted, helps significantly. When it's written/typed conversation, you also don't have to deal with the sometimes disarming nature of people's reactions/facial expressions/distractions of the environment around you. I'm often most impressed with people who can do this sort of quick filtering and refinement of what they intend to say with verbal conversation: it's so alien to what I experience when talking with people face-to-face.
- jannyfer 8y ago
  I can relate. I used to be mostly a listener, formulating thoughts slowly and independently of my situation. Like you, I also tried to be a quick thinker/talker in situations and disliked who I was becoming. But nowadays I've learned to be ok with it... because I found value in trying to be charismatic so I can rally people around my cause. Put me in a completely new situation and I'll revert back to listening and thinking slowly. But talk to me about something I'm really passionate about, and I'll be a quick talker. It feels like a flow state.
jasonkostempski 8y ago
"Can you imagine how the world would work if this was the norm?" It think this is normal through electronic communication. It can be used in rapid form, but it's natural for there to be a long delay too. I prefer email and text for anything remotely important.
tcgv 8y ago
I can relate, people have always told me that I seem to think too much before answering a question. Some say I'm a slow thinker, others that I'm smart for measuring my words carefully.
buchanae 8y ago
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 it as a strength.
- senectus1 8y ago
  > I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?". I know, right? I knew I couldn't be the only person around that gets annoyed when other ask this of me and I have to divert resources the answer the annoyingly irrelevant question. even more so when after careful considering and answering, the answer is essentially ignored. every. time.
  - malux85 8y ago
    It’s not a literal inquiry, it’s the verbal equivalent of a TCP handshake. It’s protocol negotiation, volume adjustment, and preparation for transmission.
    - robryan 8y ago
      It depends, as a conversation starter it is probably okay. As an entire conversation it is almost entirely pointless, basically 2 people acknowledging that the other still exists.
      - imhoguy 8y ago
        ICMP then
      - jacobush 8y ago
        That's not a bad thing! Acknowledging each other on the social graph.
    - 8y ago
remarkEon 8y ago
>Your first reaction is usually outdated. Interesting way to think about it. Exposure to new information elicits a response that’s based on past data and experience, leading to hesitation in reacting quickly.
3rdAccount 8y ago
I really struggled on college engineering exams and in general got lower scores than classmates that I had to tutor. Part of this was due to drastically over thinking and over-analyzing test questions. Some are extremely straightforward, but others can be interpreted several ways, although the normal person always chooses one method and it is obvious to them. I can make quick decisions on the fly in a leadership role that I would say are very good, but technical matters (Ex: Solving an engineering textbook problem) can take awhile as I explore how things work.
- westoncb 8y ago
  I've been thinking a bit about this phenomenon recently. It seemed like a vague sort of problem I was having in various contexts (first time I noticed it was working on math problems), but there wasn't a good way of stating it without it sounding like unadulterated arrogance (I'm limited because I think of SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! :P)—but I think it's real. I was reading a review for the book "Proofs and Refutations" the other day, which included this bit: > If you are someone who has trouble reading or writing proofs because you keep thinking of weird edge cases and have to verify that the proof handles all of them, ... (this is a work on the philosophy of proving things in mathematics, btw, and they go on to recommend it to those with the above affliction.) I could recognize the pattern being discussed there as exactly the thing I'd perceived myself running into. Interesting to see it repeated again in your comment :)
  - 3rdAccount 8y ago
    Good to know I'm not the only one.
truklendic 8y ago
Yes. Debates are a mechanism by which existing knowledge is diffused around society and culture. But creating something new and interesting is a slow, messy and iterative process.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Rhetoric vs. dialectic.
victor106 8y ago
Can’t wait for his book (“Hell Yeah or No”) to be released
tomahunt 8y ago
A medical doctor friend of mine pointed out that thinking slow was fine, except in an emergency or indeed any time--limited situation where the rate of response needs to be above some threshold. Think: baraster responding to opponent, a and e doctor, board-room negotiation etc.
- crehn 8y ago
  Or when fixing a large production issue at 4:30 AM when you're the only one awake.
  - NLips 8y ago
    My advice (can't remember where this is stolen from) when you need to fix a production issue in a short amount of time: Don't just do something; sit there!
eigen-vector 8y ago
I like the cached thoughts[0] theory better. It is a more eloquent explanation/argument of a similar concept. [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre/cached-thoughts https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre/cached-tho...
jordansmithnz 8y ago
I often feel the same way, although I’ve learnt to react quickly with an answer slightly better than ‘I don’t know’. Answering with related principles that you believe in and commenting on what you can, followed by ‘I need to think about this some more’ comes across better than ‘I don’t know’. I wonder if this could be related somehow to the Dunning-Kruger effect? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effec...
jaza 8y ago
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 accelerator pedal is there, doesn't mean you have to floor it all the time.
- hkmurakami 8y ago
  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. ;)
- solipsism 8y ago
  to more eloquently structure and refine what's being communicated To that end, you should avoid run-on sentences. Cramming all your thoughts together into one sentence (as you did in your second paragraph) really harms intelligibility. Also the comma in your last sentence, between "there" and "doesn't", is incredibly awkward and does not belong.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > To that end, you should avoid run-on sentences There are no run on sentences in the post you responded to with this. Particularly, the long sentence you call out is not a run-on, just a long sentence with complex structure; it has an unnecessary comma—the last one—but that is different than being a run-on.
zmmmmm 8y ago
Same here. It's frustrating being this way because you basically lose in most decision making forums by saying "I need to think about it". People who respond fast sound smart and knowledgeable. People who respond slowly don't necessarily sound stupid (I've found it's amazing how often saying nothing makes people think you are smart), but their input still gets overlooked because you end up in the position where if you can't present an argument against a decision being made a certain way on the spot then people don't see why it should wait.
alister 8y ago
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.
- munchbunny 8y ago
  That's certainly true for me. When I'm trying to give an answer quickly, I'm generally able to throw together a rough mental framework and apply it to the question at hand. It may feel insightful to the extent that it has an applied framework, but it is unlikely to hold up to scrutiny. However, if you give me actual time, then I can research and think more thoroughly, and you'll get a much more thought out answer. I think one key difference is just the confidence with which someone is able to give their initial reactions. If you internally feel less confidence, then you will feel as if you don't have an answer, when you really do have some formulation of the answer in your mind, just not one you feel great about yet. Another key factor is to what extent you've practiced giving a quick answer. For example, it's typically considered a key skill for tech industry product managers, and there's a recipe for quickly converging on some answer in the span of a few minutes. It may not be the best answer, but it's an answer. I guess what I'm saying is that if it matters to you to appear quick, it can be practiced. But in the vast majority of cases, you don't have to be fast, just aware that you need time. (Exceptions include PM interviews but not actual PM work...)
- finaliteration 8y ago
  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 the added benefit that I can also take a bit more time to recheck my work before giving a response.
  - 8y ago
westoncb 8y ago
This used to frustrate me too, but gradually my position on the matter has shifted. There's a difference between really trying to solve some problem versus engaging in conversation with someone. I understand the temptation to insist on answering the question for real—which can almost certainly not be done in the moment—but generally, when you get into this situation of being asked a deep question in conversation, your interlocutor is not expecting you to actually solve the problem at hand; (best case scenario) they may just want to try working with you on it, or see how you would approach it, or (probably most common scenario) they just want to be recognized for having suggested the problem—or any number of other motivations. Point is, the motivation of actually seeking an answer is fairly uncommon. Honestly though, my tendency is still to try and answer it for real, but I at least think about this greater context for the question now (and at least sometimes treat the situation differently as a consequence).
- nevir 8y ago
  > they just want to be recognized for having suggested the problem In a business setting, I find that this case is often more of the variety of "they are suggesting the problem, and are implying/expecting someone else to solve it" (where someone _may_ be you)
arketyp 8y ago
Sometimes it is not the substance of the reply that matters but the way in which you respond. It's called performativity. Women are more sensitive to this, and introspective guys typically fail at it.
JustMatthew 8y ago
I love reading pieces that put words to something I've felt, but never expressed before. This is definitely one of those pieces. Everyone is different, and I am sure people will agree or disagree with the point the author makes to varying degrees depending on their own lived experiences and abilities, but after reading this I think it'd be difficult for anyone to not admit that there is most certainly value in taking an asynchronous approach to conversations and discussions. And man, does this quote provides some hearty food for thought or what: "Your first reaction is usually outdated."
princeb 8y ago
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 these are even harder to come by. because there are situations that require time-critical decision making and analysis - i speak from a conveniently relevant environment which is the financial markets - and the best of the business here are those who have prepared plan A's to plan Z's well ahead of time.
- diminoten 8y ago
  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.
  - fpoling 8y ago
    This may explain why skills in chess don't translate beyond the chess. A good chess player has simply no patterns to recall in situations outside the chess.
techstrategist 8y ago
We slow thinkers are among good company, including Charles Darwin: "I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance, Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry." https://fs.blog/2016/10/charles-darwins-reflections-mind/ https://fs.blog/2016/10/charles-darwins-reflections-mind/
- usgroup 8y ago
  I’ve wondered recently if speed and intelligence have anything to do with each other at all. It does in IQ tests but Darwin by his account would have been average at best. Further, the argument goes that there exists a g factor, and performance in a test that is sufficiently complex will be predictive of performance at anything else sufficiently complex ... Yet if we allow time to vary this seems to be so obviously false...
  - some_account 8y ago
    I think most people with high iq are awful to work with since they obviously lose interest trying to explain things to less intelligent people. This makes people feel bad around them, and they avoid asking them things. I have seen nice people with high iq but I think it's more common that they are not great around people.
    - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
      I am not sure about that - those people I know who are waaay cleverer than me have bad days of course, but mostly if you ask them to explain the subject they love, they will talk (down) for days without getting bored. Perhaps it's true for us all, we love to talk about what we do.
letientai299 8y ago
I'm the opposite. I'm a fast thinker, with a bad memory, just like a computer with a strong CPU and limited RAM. I usually respond quickly and sometimes make mistakes due to lack of information and time to analyze. But it's doesn't matter much, because, in the end, we should always check our answer again, and again....
abhishekjha 8y ago
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.
- krasin 8y ago
  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.
  - abhishekjha 8y ago
    I would like to know more about this. Is there a proper book(s)/source(s) that I should follow? I never came across segment trees in my Data Structures class and I have rarely found the need to code one up in my job yet the screening process involved coding a question using segment trees. How do people get to know about these?
    - codepie 8y ago
      >Is there a proper book(s)/source(s) that I should follow? You may find these book useful: Competitive Programming 3 by Felix Halim and Steven Halim. Competitive Programmer’s Handbook (https://cses.fi/book/index.html https://cses.fi/book/index.html) >I have rarely found the need to code one up in my job Depending on your job profile, these data structures may not be used at all. But programming puzzles have become the norm for interviews in the industry.
- sankyc 8y ago
  Dude, same here! And it's not easy to squeeze out some time to practice with my tight work schedule. I'm just sticking to practice, hoping that more practice is what I need.
grosjona 8y ago
I think fast when it comes to language and logic but my mathematical thinking is very slow. In math exams at university, I usually only managed to get about half way through most exam papers. Amazingly, I still managed to pass most math courses. I knew most of the answers but it took me so long to solve them that I could never finish the whole paper. I had to really know the stuff just to get an average grade.
- sankyc 8y ago
  During my engineering, among the eight semesters, I've been able to answer only 3 papers till the last question. And yet I passed in all of them. It was sort of frustrating, though.
_mrmnmly 8y ago
that's why I hate dealing anything via phone. When someone calls me (it's a recruiter, or other) I've almost always put him/her down with the line: 'Please send me a text message, e.g. an e-mail and call me back tomorrow' or something - I prefer read information first, think over it, and then do the answer. But I think that's the main objective of phone scammers to fool you around and put the quick (bad) answer on you.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  One thing I started to notice when I was young that older, wiser, more experienced people were very good at "buying time" in situations like this by asking somebody to repeat and clarify what it was they were asking for. Rather than provide a solution, they would go through a precise definition of exactly what was being asked - and a lot of the time, while defining the problem, the asker would end up providing a solution.
amelius 8y ago
I've noticed that my responses are much quicker when I'm in "empathic mode" as opposed to "analytical mode". It may take me up to an hour to switch from analytical mode to empathic mode. The other direction is much faster. Also, and this is difficult to explain, I've noticed that trying to feel euphoric helps with being faster with responses, and being wittier. I wonder if anyone can confirm that meditation can help in becoming a faster thinker/responder.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  I think this may have something to do with stress levels and with emotions in general. I like to start meeting as observer without much emotions and prejudice. Then that gives me some space and time for thinking and formulating position on the discussion. But in case I am center of attention in a busy discussion then somehow a paralysis of thoughts flow affects my expression accuracy. I think meditation in general may help to cope with emotions, thus make mind sharper under pressure.
sankyc 8y ago
This post made my Monday better. I can relate to it so much and feel happy that there are more people out there and someone spoke about this, even wrote books! The slow thinking has been a cause of interiority complex since my childhood. I feel uncomfortable and weird when people compliment me for saying or doing something clever. I'm not used to it and this surprises me knowing that I have a potential of doing something smart and creative. But this post encouraged me to speak out all this like nothing else did. I think I'm not dumb anymore, haha! I hope I overcome this and make it my strength someday. Amen
SteveCr48 8y ago
I'll have a comment tomorrow
- ak39 8y ago
  Not in an interview, you can't.
koolhead17 8y ago
Sounds like Daniel Kahneman system 1 and 2 in short. :)
Netcob 8y ago
That's why I don't like meetings where you're supposed to come up with a solution on the spot and then break it down into tasks immediately. That only works if you have lots of closely related experience so that the solution is trivial to you anyway, or if you're a genius. Most of the time you end up with shitty "knee-jerk" software that focuses on technical details way too much instead of solving the problem. I'll think about it, maybe do some experiments / proof-of-concept, then we can talk about it again, then I'll think about your input, and then we can discuss the tasks and sub-tasks once things are starting to make sense.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  "Creativity is not a team sport", an observation from Prof Vincent Walsh on neuroscience of creativity: [There's] a very long and well-established literature in psychology that getting groups of people together is no way to come up with ideas. Creativity is not a team sport. What you're looking for is somebody's individual, intellectual trunk to make new connections and come up with something new. Let's imagine billions of neurons in my head communicating with stuff they've been talking about all their lives together: there's a high probability that occasionally they'll come up with something new. Let's now think of the line of communication that you and I have got between each other, which is impoverished, because we have to try and translate complex ideas into language, and how many times do you find you've got a good idea, it's almost in symbolic thought inside your head, and you really can't articulate it to someone. And when you do, they get the wrong idea, because really, language can't encapsulate it until it's fully formed. There's no good evidence that I know of that these brainstorming sessions will come up with a solution or a new idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfMvqkrQkYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfMvqkrQkYQ
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    This I get - i often have an idea of how some code should look or work, but trying to explain it or justify it in a JIRA ticket is flat out impossible - it's easier just to write it and go there !
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
chrisdone 8y ago
This reminds me of Watt's zen-based observation that we make all decisions by gut feeling, noting that it's _us_ who grant authority to outside sources, and that any time spent making a decision is usually dithering. Regarding the article, leaning on a previously concluded opinion, or saying "I don't know", are both forms of unthinking, and not being open in the moment (dithering). "I've seen Shunryū Suzuki take 5 minutes before replying with an answer. But he never hesitates." (There's a difference, see?)
- projektir 8y ago
  Maybe that's just me but I am having serious trouble understanding what you're saying. "I don't know" is unthinking? What does unthinking mean? Or dithering, for that matter? Why is hesitation relevant here? Why is it bad?
growlist 8y ago
Wow, this is me, thank god I'm not alone! People often dismiss me as thick or scatter brained, when its just that I think at my own pace. The nice thing is that over time I do get results at work and in my personal life, and so negative perceptions are challenged.
ak39 8y ago
My acceptance of my own slow thinking has terrified me no end my whole career: terrified of interviews, on the spot tests and of selling (especially when dismissals are based on incorrect or flawed understanding). I always go home to brutalise myself with "Ah, I should have said this in response". Too late! I've always attributed my slowness to my breathing - or more precisely, my incorrect method of breathing. I mostly breathe from the chest instead of, as recommended, from below the rib cage, and more from the belly.
amorphous 8y ago
I'm not convinced that slow thinking is related to the ability to respond quickly in a conversation, or that people that come up with seemingly deep thoughts in a discussion are fast thinkers. At the beginning of my career, I have often admired how some of my (freelance consulting) colleagues handle discussions with clients, how they seem to have profound answers to any doubt or question. Over the years I came to realise that most of the questions that come up in such situations are similar and repeating. The difference between those colleagues and me is experience and that they have been in similar situations many more times before. Sure, some have more talent and social abilities, but I believe it all comes down to practice and has much less to do with pure "thinking strengths or quickness".
neillyons 8y ago
I'm the same. I often feel like my brain is a Pentium ii (256Mhz) processor and my peers have a modern 2.8Ghz processor. They seem to grasp things so much quicker. I can't but I do have the confidence that given enough time I'll figure it out.
bsaul 8y ago
i felt that with age it took me more and more time to feel that i understood something. At first i thought it was age, but whenever i compare with younger colleagues, i realize it's often that i have higher standards for what "understanding" means. Whenever you've had the experience of realizing how much more complex something that looked simple was, you start to look at every problem with much more care. That may makes me look like a a "slow" person or someone a bit thick, but then i often come up with interesting questions that makes everyone realize they didn't understand the problem as well as they thought.
mrkgnao 8y ago
Alexander Grothendieck, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century, on cognitive "facility" and giftedness: Since then I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome, to meet quite a number of people, both among my “elders” and among young people in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more ‘gifted’ than I was. I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas, juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured) things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or following through to the end. Indeed, there was little about me that identified the kind of bright student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates almost by sleight of hand, the most forbidding subjects. In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still from the perspective or thirty or thirty five years, I can state that their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They’ve done all things, often beautiful things in a context that was already set out before them, which they had no inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these bounds they would have to rediscover in themselves that capability which was their birthright, as it was mine: The capacity to be alone. (from Récoltes et Semailles)
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  For mobile users: Since then I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome, to meet quite a number of people, both among my “elders” and among young people in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more ‘gifted’ than I was. I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas, juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured) things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or following through to the end. Indeed, there was little about me that identified the kind of bright student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates almost by sleight of hand, the most forbidding subjects. In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still from the perspective or thirty or thirty five years, I can state that their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They’ve done all things, often beautiful things in a context that was already set out before them, which they had no inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these bounds they would have to rediscover in themselves that capability which was their birthright, as it was mine: The capacity to be alone.
BuckRogers 8y ago
I'm also a "slow thinker" in this regard. It's not in my view anything other than your thoughtfulness being influenced by your personality. Folks like us are attempting to be thoughtful but without trying, and we have the capacity to hold back our impulses from the cerebral cortex. People who are "quick tongued", are not always coming up with the right answer, their personality is simply more dominant. What's always struck me as odd, is that I'm vastly superior in creativity versus almost everyone I work with or meet. For me, it seems that no one has truly new ideas while they do come to mind for me, out of nowhere. I also get the sense when I'm out driving or walking around that I'm more "aware" of what's around me than others. That's discounting that seeing people be dumb enough to walk and drive with their face in their phone though, guarantees if you're not one of them, that you have at least a 50 point IQ advantage. :) I can't even really explain the feeling of awareness, but I notice a lot more, a lot faster than most people that I know.
- yemich 8y ago
  I bet you're a lot of fun at parties.
  - dang 8y ago
    We've banned this account for violating the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
Count me among the slow thinkers. So, how well do you slow thinkers do on interviews. How do you prepare? I'm currently prepping for an interview with one of the larger, popular internet companies. The prepping is going well as far as remembering some of the CS[0] stuff I don't directly use day to day, but I worry that I won't get the solutions fast enough in an interview session. I'm a respected developer where I work. My coleagues enjoy working with me and like the solutions I come up with. QA rarely has to send bugs back to me[1]. My technical boss, who I think is brilliant, respsects my solutions and generally never needs to change anything. When I am stuck, it's easy for me to ask for help. I say all this because I'm just not sure if it will come across during the interview process because I tend to mull things over a while. [0] My degree is Computer Engineering so I didn't have as much exposure to CS material to begin with that, well, CS grads would have. [1] I work with a really cool QA guy. I tell him I like to make him work for those bugs. We get along great and I actually engage with him frequently when I'm building my unit tests.
ericlnu 8y ago
I commented over there, so I won't repeat myself, but I can relate to this.
minusSeven 8y ago
I wish this worked for me in interviews. Saying "I don't know" is often an instant rejection in many interviews.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
I have this "problem" also. Makes tech interviews fun. :D Shame, because once I understand a complex system (even though it took months to get there) it is usually on a deeper level than most folks. Which leads to those "aha" moments which can and does improve productivity significantly.
l39 8y ago
As everyone here, I too consider myself as a slow thinker. Some of the reasons for the same, I believe, are (i) Always trying to get the bigger/entire picture of the problem (ii) Trying to increase the precision of the answer for the problem under question (iii) awareness that there will always be unknown unknowns (iv) trying to cater to exact needs of others (iv) Not giving importance to memory (v) a wandering mind, which wants to catch hold of too many things at the same time.
akashaggarwal7 8y ago
Felt good to read this. Are there any jobs out there for people like us?

604 points by gary__ 8y ago

I can relate to this. I'm always always envious of people that come up with quick and funny answers. It's a relief to know I'm not the only one.

exrook 8y ago

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 System 1 process. I think this is probably a good idea but it can be difficult in practice since it takes more effort to intentionally engage system 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#Systems https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YshRbqZHYFoEMqFAu/why-truth-and https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YshRbqZHYFoEMqFAu/why-truth-...

pfbtgom 8y ago
This is the premise of the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. Among other things, he explains System 1 in terms of popular cognitive biases. It's a good read.
weberc2 8y ago
I relate to the author of the original article in that I'm a slow thinker. I really envy people who can vocalize intelligent, confident decisions or opinions on the spot. I don't like feeling stupid because I can't articulate moderately complex thoughts on the spot. It feels like I don't think in words anymore, but rather in something like abstract math (not like a savant, mind you), and translating back to words accurately is laborious and time consuming. I like the pace of commenting on an Internet forum like this one, where I can be thoughtful and take my time and rewrite a bit before sharing.
- Pimpus 8y ago
  Getting sharper takes practice. I like to unwind on forums too but it's not pushing you to think faster. Also, getting your thoughts, actions, and words all in alignment will help, as there will be less hesitation on each front.
  - westoncb 8y ago
    I think a key aspect to the situation though is that you won't get faster by trying to get faster. Of all places, I learned this while working in a grocery store, but have since verified the phenomenon in other domains (for example, reading; and it also just makes psychological sense). I had been stocking groceries for about a month when I had an interesting conversation with two senior employees (20 or 30 years a piece at the job). One of them was telling me that I was doing well but that I needed to start going more quickly. The other saw the mistake in this advice and said something along the lines of, "Well, hold on, though: you know speed comes naturally with practice. He'll get faster once he knows the work better." The other senior employee thought about it for a second, and then agreed in full and admitted their mistake. As a consequence, I focused on learning my work well instead of trying to be fast—and I became one of the fastest stockers in the store within a year. I don't think you can will speed to happen, or train it specially: it's a consequence of already having solved the problems at hand before, already knowing the solutions and not needing to figure things out in the moment. So you aren't going to 'get sharper'; you'll just learn particular domains better or not, and the ones you know better you'll be perceived as sharper in.
    - Pimpus 8y ago
      Well, I've gotten a lot sharper over the past year. And comparing myself to five years ago, the difference is night and day. Hmm, I see I got downvoted. Whatever.
      - copperx 8y ago
        How did you get sharper?
njarboe 8y ago
And use your System 2 process to improve the responses your System 1 produces.
- diminoten 8y ago
  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).
  - jpster 8y ago
    How do you train System 1?
    - yojex 8y ago
      Mindfulness meditation is one way.
- zentiggr 8y ago
  A couple of motivational / self-help people I have read before come from pretty much exactly this formula. I'd like to say I listened to them and applied their ideas systematically, but then the failure to do so is one of the System 1 biases that they all mention... sigh.

glangdale 8y ago

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...

glangdale 8y ago
Also relevant: the French have a great phrase for this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier
- remarkEon 8y ago
  Ha. Remembering that one. Is there something about the French language that lends itself more easily to great wit and very usable idioms?
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    There's nothing language-specific about that idiom. In English, it's staircase wit. It should work in most languages as long as you have the story to go with it.
sitkack 8y ago
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.
- glangdale 8y ago
  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)

EdgarVerona 8y ago

I feel similarly. I often find that I run into people who are eager to have a face-to-face debate about something, and who come up with opinions and rationalizations that sometimes end up being dubious. But I feel a strong desire to hear them out and I generally have a hard time piecing together what makes an argument fallacious until I have time to analyze it more deeply, so I generally just take whatever they've said and chew on it a while. I feel like this helps me come to better conclusions in the long term. Sometimes, I come to agree with what they've said. Sometimes, I find their conclusions flawed. In some cases, I can tell that it's made people who present arguments that ultimately turn out to be fallacious feel justified in those arguments. The fact that I end our conversation by thanking them for giving me something to think about sometimes feels like I'm endorsing their opinion with my inability to come up with an equally quick retort. I've never really found a solution to this. At various times in my life, I have tried to hone my ability to make equally quick retorts: but I found that I didn't like who I was as a person when I tried to discuss in that way. My conversations with people became needlessly rhetorical and combative, and that I was often failing to hear what they had to say except in the context of how I could weaken it. On top of that, I became an angrier person in general. All of that felt shitty, and like the opposite of truth-seeking. For me, it's an unsolved problem. I'm mostly at peace with the fact that I need extra time to chew on opinions presented to me in the heat of the moment, but occasionally I feel deep regret for not having said something on the spot. Nonverbal conversations tend to help me with this personally - even the few moments you get to better put together how you're feeling/what you're thinking, or the ability to re-read what someone has posted, helps significantly. When it's written/typed conversation, you also don't have to deal with the sometimes disarming nature of people's reactions/facial expressions/distractions of the environment around you. I'm often most impressed with people who can do this sort of quick filtering and refinement of what they intend to say with verbal conversation: it's so alien to what I experience when talking with people face-to-face.

jannyfer 8y ago
I can relate. I used to be mostly a listener, formulating thoughts slowly and independently of my situation. Like you, I also tried to be a quick thinker/talker in situations and disliked who I was becoming. But nowadays I've learned to be ok with it... because I found value in trying to be charismatic so I can rally people around my cause. Put me in a completely new situation and I'll revert back to listening and thinking slowly. But talk to me about something I'm really passionate about, and I'll be a quick talker. It feels like a flow state.

jasonkostempski 8y ago

"Can you imagine how the world would work if this was the norm?" It think this is normal through electronic communication. It can be used in rapid form, but it's natural for there to be a long delay too. I prefer email and text for anything remotely important.

tcgv 8y ago

I can relate, people have always told me that I seem to think too much before answering a question. Some say I'm a slow thinker, others that I'm smart for measuring my words carefully.

buchanae 8y ago

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 it as a strength.

senectus1 8y ago
> I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?". I know, right? I knew I couldn't be the only person around that gets annoyed when other ask this of me and I have to divert resources the answer the annoyingly irrelevant question. even more so when after careful considering and answering, the answer is essentially ignored. every. time.
- malux85 8y ago
  It’s not a literal inquiry, it’s the verbal equivalent of a TCP handshake. It’s protocol negotiation, volume adjustment, and preparation for transmission.
  - robryan 8y ago
    It depends, as a conversation starter it is probably okay. As an entire conversation it is almost entirely pointless, basically 2 people acknowledging that the other still exists.
    - imhoguy 8y ago
      ICMP then
    - jacobush 8y ago
      That's not a bad thing! Acknowledging each other on the social graph.
  - 8y ago

remarkEon 8y ago

>Your first reaction is usually outdated. Interesting way to think about it. Exposure to new information elicits a response that’s based on past data and experience, leading to hesitation in reacting quickly.

3rdAccount 8y ago

I really struggled on college engineering exams and in general got lower scores than classmates that I had to tutor. Part of this was due to drastically over thinking and over-analyzing test questions. Some are extremely straightforward, but others can be interpreted several ways, although the normal person always chooses one method and it is obvious to them. I can make quick decisions on the fly in a leadership role that I would say are very good, but technical matters (Ex: Solving an engineering textbook problem) can take awhile as I explore how things work.

westoncb 8y ago
I've been thinking a bit about this phenomenon recently. It seemed like a vague sort of problem I was having in various contexts (first time I noticed it was working on math problems), but there wasn't a good way of stating it without it sounding like unadulterated arrogance (I'm limited because I think of SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! :P)—but I think it's real. I was reading a review for the book "Proofs and Refutations" the other day, which included this bit: > If you are someone who has trouble reading or writing proofs because you keep thinking of weird edge cases and have to verify that the proof handles all of them, ... (this is a work on the philosophy of proving things in mathematics, btw, and they go on to recommend it to those with the above affliction.) I could recognize the pattern being discussed there as exactly the thing I'd perceived myself running into. Interesting to see it repeated again in your comment :)
- 3rdAccount 8y ago
  Good to know I'm not the only one.

truklendic 8y ago

Yes. Debates are a mechanism by which existing knowledge is diffused around society and culture. But creating something new and interesting is a slow, messy and iterative process.

dredmorbius 8y ago
Rhetoric vs. dialectic.

victor106 8y ago

Can’t wait for his book (“Hell Yeah or No”) to be released

tomahunt 8y ago

A medical doctor friend of mine pointed out that thinking slow was fine, except in an emergency or indeed any time--limited situation where the rate of response needs to be above some threshold. Think: baraster responding to opponent, a and e doctor, board-room negotiation etc.

crehn 8y ago
Or when fixing a large production issue at 4:30 AM when you're the only one awake.
- NLips 8y ago
  My advice (can't remember where this is stolen from) when you need to fix a production issue in a short amount of time: Don't just do something; sit there!

eigen-vector 8y ago

I like the cached thoughts[0] theory better. It is a more eloquent explanation/argument of a similar concept. [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre/cached-thoughts https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre/cached-tho...

jordansmithnz 8y ago

I often feel the same way, although I’ve learnt to react quickly with an answer slightly better than ‘I don’t know’. Answering with related principles that you believe in and commenting on what you can, followed by ‘I need to think about this some more’ comes across better than ‘I don’t know’. I wonder if this could be related somehow to the Dunning-Kruger effect? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effec...

jaza 8y ago

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 accelerator pedal is there, doesn't mean you have to floor it all the time.

hkmurakami 8y ago
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. ;)
solipsism 8y ago
to more eloquently structure and refine what's being communicated To that end, you should avoid run-on sentences. Cramming all your thoughts together into one sentence (as you did in your second paragraph) really harms intelligibility. Also the comma in your last sentence, between "there" and "doesn't", is incredibly awkward and does not belong.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > To that end, you should avoid run-on sentences There are no run on sentences in the post you responded to with this. Particularly, the long sentence you call out is not a run-on, just a long sentence with complex structure; it has an unnecessary comma—the last one—but that is different than being a run-on.

zmmmmm 8y ago

Same here. It's frustrating being this way because you basically lose in most decision making forums by saying "I need to think about it". People who respond fast sound smart and knowledgeable. People who respond slowly don't necessarily sound stupid (I've found it's amazing how often saying nothing makes people think you are smart), but their input still gets overlooked because you end up in the position where if you can't present an argument against a decision being made a certain way on the spot then people don't see why it should wait.

alister 8y ago

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.

munchbunny 8y ago
That's certainly true for me. When I'm trying to give an answer quickly, I'm generally able to throw together a rough mental framework and apply it to the question at hand. It may feel insightful to the extent that it has an applied framework, but it is unlikely to hold up to scrutiny. However, if you give me actual time, then I can research and think more thoroughly, and you'll get a much more thought out answer. I think one key difference is just the confidence with which someone is able to give their initial reactions. If you internally feel less confidence, then you will feel as if you don't have an answer, when you really do have some formulation of the answer in your mind, just not one you feel great about yet. Another key factor is to what extent you've practiced giving a quick answer. For example, it's typically considered a key skill for tech industry product managers, and there's a recipe for quickly converging on some answer in the span of a few minutes. It may not be the best answer, but it's an answer. I guess what I'm saying is that if it matters to you to appear quick, it can be practiced. But in the vast majority of cases, you don't have to be fast, just aware that you need time. (Exceptions include PM interviews but not actual PM work...)
finaliteration 8y ago
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 the added benefit that I can also take a bit more time to recheck my work before giving a response.
- 8y ago

westoncb 8y ago

This used to frustrate me too, but gradually my position on the matter has shifted. There's a difference between really trying to solve some problem versus engaging in conversation with someone. I understand the temptation to insist on answering the question for real—which can almost certainly not be done in the moment—but generally, when you get into this situation of being asked a deep question in conversation, your interlocutor is not expecting you to actually solve the problem at hand; (best case scenario) they may just want to try working with you on it, or see how you would approach it, or (probably most common scenario) they just want to be recognized for having suggested the problem—or any number of other motivations. Point is, the motivation of actually seeking an answer is fairly uncommon. Honestly though, my tendency is still to try and answer it for real, but I at least think about this greater context for the question now (and at least sometimes treat the situation differently as a consequence).

nevir 8y ago
> they just want to be recognized for having suggested the problem In a business setting, I find that this case is often more of the variety of "they are suggesting the problem, and are implying/expecting someone else to solve it" (where someone _may_ be you)

arketyp 8y ago

Sometimes it is not the substance of the reply that matters but the way in which you respond. It's called performativity. Women are more sensitive to this, and introspective guys typically fail at it.

JustMatthew 8y ago

I love reading pieces that put words to something I've felt, but never expressed before. This is definitely one of those pieces. Everyone is different, and I am sure people will agree or disagree with the point the author makes to varying degrees depending on their own lived experiences and abilities, but after reading this I think it'd be difficult for anyone to not admit that there is most certainly value in taking an asynchronous approach to conversations and discussions. And man, does this quote provides some hearty food for thought or what: "Your first reaction is usually outdated."

princeb 8y ago

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 these are even harder to come by. because there are situations that require time-critical decision making and analysis - i speak from a conveniently relevant environment which is the financial markets - and the best of the business here are those who have prepared plan A's to plan Z's well ahead of time.

diminoten 8y ago
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.
- fpoling 8y ago
  This may explain why skills in chess don't translate beyond the chess. A good chess player has simply no patterns to recall in situations outside the chess.

techstrategist 8y ago

We slow thinkers are among good company, including Charles Darwin: "I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance, Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry." https://fs.blog/2016/10/charles-darwins-reflections-mind/ https://fs.blog/2016/10/charles-darwins-reflections-mind/

usgroup 8y ago
I’ve wondered recently if speed and intelligence have anything to do with each other at all. It does in IQ tests but Darwin by his account would have been average at best. Further, the argument goes that there exists a g factor, and performance in a test that is sufficiently complex will be predictive of performance at anything else sufficiently complex ... Yet if we allow time to vary this seems to be so obviously false...
- some_account 8y ago
  I think most people with high iq are awful to work with since they obviously lose interest trying to explain things to less intelligent people. This makes people feel bad around them, and they avoid asking them things. I have seen nice people with high iq but I think it's more common that they are not great around people.
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    I am not sure about that - those people I know who are waaay cleverer than me have bad days of course, but mostly if you ask them to explain the subject they love, they will talk (down) for days without getting bored. Perhaps it's true for us all, we love to talk about what we do.

letientai299 8y ago

I'm the opposite. I'm a fast thinker, with a bad memory, just like a computer with a strong CPU and limited RAM. I usually respond quickly and sometimes make mistakes due to lack of information and time to analyze. But it's doesn't matter much, because, in the end, we should always check our answer again, and again....

abhishekjha 8y ago

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.

krasin 8y ago
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.
- abhishekjha 8y ago
  I would like to know more about this. Is there a proper book(s)/source(s) that I should follow? I never came across segment trees in my Data Structures class and I have rarely found the need to code one up in my job yet the screening process involved coding a question using segment trees. How do people get to know about these?
  - codepie 8y ago
    >Is there a proper book(s)/source(s) that I should follow? You may find these book useful: Competitive Programming 3 by Felix Halim and Steven Halim. Competitive Programmer’s Handbook (https://cses.fi/book/index.html https://cses.fi/book/index.html) >I have rarely found the need to code one up in my job Depending on your job profile, these data structures may not be used at all. But programming puzzles have become the norm for interviews in the industry.
sankyc 8y ago
Dude, same here! And it's not easy to squeeze out some time to practice with my tight work schedule. I'm just sticking to practice, hoping that more practice is what I need.

grosjona 8y ago

I think fast when it comes to language and logic but my mathematical thinking is very slow. In math exams at university, I usually only managed to get about half way through most exam papers. Amazingly, I still managed to pass most math courses. I knew most of the answers but it took me so long to solve them that I could never finish the whole paper. I had to really know the stuff just to get an average grade.

sankyc 8y ago
During my engineering, among the eight semesters, I've been able to answer only 3 papers till the last question. And yet I passed in all of them. It was sort of frustrating, though.

_mrmnmly 8y ago

that's why I hate dealing anything via phone. When someone calls me (it's a recruiter, or other) I've almost always put him/her down with the line: 'Please send me a text message, e.g. an e-mail and call me back tomorrow' or something - I prefer read information first, think over it, and then do the answer. But I think that's the main objective of phone scammers to fool you around and put the quick (bad) answer on you.

commandlinefan 8y ago
One thing I started to notice when I was young that older, wiser, more experienced people were very good at "buying time" in situations like this by asking somebody to repeat and clarify what it was they were asking for. Rather than provide a solution, they would go through a precise definition of exactly what was being asked - and a lot of the time, while defining the problem, the asker would end up providing a solution.

amelius 8y ago

I've noticed that my responses are much quicker when I'm in "empathic mode" as opposed to "analytical mode". It may take me up to an hour to switch from analytical mode to empathic mode. The other direction is much faster. Also, and this is difficult to explain, I've noticed that trying to feel euphoric helps with being faster with responses, and being wittier. I wonder if anyone can confirm that meditation can help in becoming a faster thinker/responder.

imhoguy 8y ago
I think this may have something to do with stress levels and with emotions in general. I like to start meeting as observer without much emotions and prejudice. Then that gives me some space and time for thinking and formulating position on the discussion. But in case I am center of attention in a busy discussion then somehow a paralysis of thoughts flow affects my expression accuracy. I think meditation in general may help to cope with emotions, thus make mind sharper under pressure.

sankyc 8y ago

This post made my Monday better. I can relate to it so much and feel happy that there are more people out there and someone spoke about this, even wrote books! The slow thinking has been a cause of interiority complex since my childhood. I feel uncomfortable and weird when people compliment me for saying or doing something clever. I'm not used to it and this surprises me knowing that I have a potential of doing something smart and creative. But this post encouraged me to speak out all this like nothing else did. I think I'm not dumb anymore, haha! I hope I overcome this and make it my strength someday. Amen

SteveCr48 8y ago

I'll have a comment tomorrow

ak39 8y ago
Not in an interview, you can't.

koolhead17 8y ago

Sounds like Daniel Kahneman system 1 and 2 in short. :)

Netcob 8y ago

That's why I don't like meetings where you're supposed to come up with a solution on the spot and then break it down into tasks immediately. That only works if you have lots of closely related experience so that the solution is trivial to you anyway, or if you're a genius. Most of the time you end up with shitty "knee-jerk" software that focuses on technical details way too much instead of solving the problem. I'll think about it, maybe do some experiments / proof-of-concept, then we can talk about it again, then I'll think about your input, and then we can discuss the tasks and sub-tasks once things are starting to make sense.

dredmorbius 8y ago
"Creativity is not a team sport", an observation from Prof Vincent Walsh on neuroscience of creativity: [There's] a very long and well-established literature in psychology that getting groups of people together is no way to come up with ideas. Creativity is not a team sport. What you're looking for is somebody's individual, intellectual trunk to make new connections and come up with something new. Let's imagine billions of neurons in my head communicating with stuff they've been talking about all their lives together: there's a high probability that occasionally they'll come up with something new. Let's now think of the line of communication that you and I have got between each other, which is impoverished, because we have to try and translate complex ideas into language, and how many times do you find you've got a good idea, it's almost in symbolic thought inside your head, and you really can't articulate it to someone. And when you do, they get the wrong idea, because really, language can't encapsulate it until it's fully formed. There's no good evidence that I know of that these brainstorming sessions will come up with a solution or a new idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfMvqkrQkYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfMvqkrQkYQ
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  This I get - i often have an idea of how some code should look or work, but trying to explain it or justify it in a JIRA ticket is flat out impossible - it's easier just to write it and go there !
- fjsolwmv 8y ago

chrisdone 8y ago

This reminds me of Watt's zen-based observation that we make all decisions by gut feeling, noting that it's _us_ who grant authority to outside sources, and that any time spent making a decision is usually dithering. Regarding the article, leaning on a previously concluded opinion, or saying "I don't know", are both forms of unthinking, and not being open in the moment (dithering). "I've seen Shunryū Suzuki take 5 minutes before replying with an answer. But he never hesitates." (There's a difference, see?)

projektir 8y ago
Maybe that's just me but I am having serious trouble understanding what you're saying. "I don't know" is unthinking? What does unthinking mean? Or dithering, for that matter? Why is hesitation relevant here? Why is it bad?

growlist 8y ago

Wow, this is me, thank god I'm not alone! People often dismiss me as thick or scatter brained, when its just that I think at my own pace. The nice thing is that over time I do get results at work and in my personal life, and so negative perceptions are challenged.

ak39 8y ago

My acceptance of my own slow thinking has terrified me no end my whole career: terrified of interviews, on the spot tests and of selling (especially when dismissals are based on incorrect or flawed understanding). I always go home to brutalise myself with "Ah, I should have said this in response". Too late! I've always attributed my slowness to my breathing - or more precisely, my incorrect method of breathing. I mostly breathe from the chest instead of, as recommended, from below the rib cage, and more from the belly.

amorphous 8y ago

I'm not convinced that slow thinking is related to the ability to respond quickly in a conversation, or that people that come up with seemingly deep thoughts in a discussion are fast thinkers. At the beginning of my career, I have often admired how some of my (freelance consulting) colleagues handle discussions with clients, how they seem to have profound answers to any doubt or question. Over the years I came to realise that most of the questions that come up in such situations are similar and repeating. The difference between those colleagues and me is experience and that they have been in similar situations many more times before. Sure, some have more talent and social abilities, but I believe it all comes down to practice and has much less to do with pure "thinking strengths or quickness".

neillyons 8y ago

I'm the same. I often feel like my brain is a Pentium ii (256Mhz) processor and my peers have a modern 2.8Ghz processor. They seem to grasp things so much quicker. I can't but I do have the confidence that given enough time I'll figure it out.

bsaul 8y ago

i felt that with age it took me more and more time to feel that i understood something. At first i thought it was age, but whenever i compare with younger colleagues, i realize it's often that i have higher standards for what "understanding" means. Whenever you've had the experience of realizing how much more complex something that looked simple was, you start to look at every problem with much more care. That may makes me look like a a "slow" person or someone a bit thick, but then i often come up with interesting questions that makes everyone realize they didn't understand the problem as well as they thought.

mrkgnao 8y ago

Alexander Grothendieck, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century, on cognitive "facility" and giftedness: Since then I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome, to meet quite a number of people, both among my “elders” and among young people in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more ‘gifted’ than I was. I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas, juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured) things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or following through to the end. Indeed, there was little about me that identified the kind of bright student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates almost by sleight of hand, the most forbidding subjects. In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still from the perspective or thirty or thirty five years, I can state that their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They’ve done all things, often beautiful things in a context that was already set out before them, which they had no inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these bounds they would have to rediscover in themselves that capability which was their birthright, as it was mine: The capacity to be alone. (from Récoltes et Semailles)

nothrabannosir 8y ago
For mobile users: Since then I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome, to meet quite a number of people, both among my “elders” and among young people in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more ‘gifted’ than I was. I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas, juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured) things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or following through to the end. Indeed, there was little about me that identified the kind of bright student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates almost by sleight of hand, the most forbidding subjects. In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still from the perspective or thirty or thirty five years, I can state that their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They’ve done all things, often beautiful things in a context that was already set out before them, which they had no inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these bounds they would have to rediscover in themselves that capability which was their birthright, as it was mine: The capacity to be alone.

BuckRogers 8y ago

I'm also a "slow thinker" in this regard. It's not in my view anything other than your thoughtfulness being influenced by your personality. Folks like us are attempting to be thoughtful but without trying, and we have the capacity to hold back our impulses from the cerebral cortex. People who are "quick tongued", are not always coming up with the right answer, their personality is simply more dominant. What's always struck me as odd, is that I'm vastly superior in creativity versus almost everyone I work with or meet. For me, it seems that no one has truly new ideas while they do come to mind for me, out of nowhere. I also get the sense when I'm out driving or walking around that I'm more "aware" of what's around me than others. That's discounting that seeing people be dumb enough to walk and drive with their face in their phone though, guarantees if you're not one of them, that you have at least a 50 point IQ advantage. :) I can't even really explain the feeling of awareness, but I notice a lot more, a lot faster than most people that I know.

yemich 8y ago
I bet you're a lot of fun at parties.
- dang 8y ago
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JustSomeNobody 8y ago

Count me among the slow thinkers. So, how well do you slow thinkers do on interviews. How do you prepare? I'm currently prepping for an interview with one of the larger, popular internet companies. The prepping is going well as far as remembering some of the CS[0] stuff I don't directly use day to day, but I worry that I won't get the solutions fast enough in an interview session. I'm a respected developer where I work. My coleagues enjoy working with me and like the solutions I come up with. QA rarely has to send bugs back to me[1]. My technical boss, who I think is brilliant, respsects my solutions and generally never needs to change anything. When I am stuck, it's easy for me to ask for help. I say all this because I'm just not sure if it will come across during the interview process because I tend to mull things over a while. [0] My degree is Computer Engineering so I didn't have as much exposure to CS material to begin with that, well, CS grads would have. [1] I work with a really cool QA guy. I tell him I like to make him work for those bugs. We get along great and I actually engage with him frequently when I'm building my unit tests.

ericlnu 8y ago

I commented over there, so I won't repeat myself, but I can relate to this.

minusSeven 8y ago

I wish this worked for me in interviews. Saying "I don't know" is often an instant rejection in many interviews.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

I have this "problem" also. Makes tech interviews fun. :D Shame, because once I understand a complex system (even though it took months to get there) it is usually on a deeper level than most folks. Which leads to those "aha" moments which can and does improve productivity significantly.

l39 8y ago

As everyone here, I too consider myself as a slow thinker. Some of the reasons for the same, I believe, are (i) Always trying to get the bigger/entire picture of the problem (ii) Trying to increase the precision of the answer for the problem under question (iii) awareness that there will always be unknown unknowns (iv) trying to cater to exact needs of others (iv) Not giving importance to memory (v) a wandering mind, which wants to catch hold of too many things at the same time.

akashaggarwal7 8y ago

Felt good to read this. Are there any jobs out there for people like us?