3 ms·

I tend to be a proponent of the resource model of cognition. E.g. you have a limited budget of willpower in a given day, and when you run out of it, it becomes

by skohan 6y ago

I tend to be a proponent of the resource model of cognition. E.g. you have a limited budget of willpower in a given day, and when you run out of it, it becomes much harder to resist that piece of chocolate cake in the fridge. By the same token, I would find it plausible to believe you have a certain budget of decisions to be made, or problems to be solved in a given period of time before quality goes down. I think it's likely this is also something like a muscle that can be trained over time.

shagie 6y ago
This is known as decision fatigue - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue It leads to things like "people who tend to have to make important decisions have fewer clothing sets" ( https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-like-barack-obama-wear-the-same-thing-every-day-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-like-barac... ) I would contend that this is part of the reason why it is difficult for people who have to make decisions about "should I pay the rent, groceries, or utilities" to be able to join the white collar jobs - as those are about making decisions. If your will power budget is exhausted on food choices (because you don't have much money), its harder to make good white collar job decisions. I would furthermore contend that the above is an excellent argument for UBI (though this gets deeper down into politics).
- skohan 6y ago
  > If your will power budget is exhausted on food choices (because you don't have much money), its harder to make good white collar job decisions. Don't you think this has a lot more to do with access? I can't imagine there are too many people saying: "I will turn down this high-paying management job because I spent my decision budget at the grocery store"
  - shagie 6y ago
    Outside of Trading Places (with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy), you don't often get the person being offered the high paying position without experience. Access, I believe, is one part of the issue. I'm thinking more of the "my willpower budget is spent on the grocery vs utility bill" leading to other poor choices that make it more difficult to get a promotion that allows for a more care free life (not worrying about bills). I believe that there are many parts of social and economic feedback loops that make it harder (and continue to make it harder) for people in environments that are willpower draining to move to jobs where the ability to make good decisions is the key value.
contravariant 6y ago
Well thought demonstrably takes effort, a ridiculous amount of your bodies resources is spent on thinking, however it's hard to pin this down in a certain 'rate'. You could probably show that calories and certain other resources get exhausted by concentrated thought, however in my experience this has little to do with speed of thought and everything to do with depth (the only times I truly felt mentally exhausted was when I was trying to dig up deeply buried fragments of memory to solve a maths problem).

by skohan 6y ago

shagie 6y ago

This is known as decision fatigue - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue It leads to things like "people who tend to have to make important decisions have fewer clothing sets" ( https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-like-barack-obama-wear-the-same-thing-every-day-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-like-barac... ) I would contend that this is part of the reason why it is difficult for people who have to make decisions about "should I pay the rent, groceries, or utilities" to be able to join the white collar jobs - as those are about making decisions. If your will power budget is exhausted on food choices (because you don't have much money), its harder to make good white collar job decisions. I would furthermore contend that the above is an excellent argument for UBI (though this gets deeper down into politics).

skohan 6y ago
> If your will power budget is exhausted on food choices (because you don't have much money), its harder to make good white collar job decisions. Don't you think this has a lot more to do with access? I can't imagine there are too many people saying: "I will turn down this high-paying management job because I spent my decision budget at the grocery store"
- shagie 6y ago
  Outside of Trading Places (with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy), you don't often get the person being offered the high paying position without experience. Access, I believe, is one part of the issue. I'm thinking more of the "my willpower budget is spent on the grocery vs utility bill" leading to other poor choices that make it more difficult to get a promotion that allows for a more care free life (not worrying about bills). I believe that there are many parts of social and economic feedback loops that make it harder (and continue to make it harder) for people in environments that are willpower draining to move to jobs where the ability to make good decisions is the key value.

contravariant 6y ago

Well thought demonstrably takes effort, a ridiculous amount of your bodies resources is spent on thinking, however it's hard to pin this down in a certain 'rate'. You could probably show that calories and certain other resources get exhausted by concentrated thought, however in my experience this has little to do with speed of thought and everything to do with depth (the only times I truly felt mentally exhausted was when I was trying to dig up deeply buried fragments of memory to solve a maths problem).