6 ms·

Incidentally, I've noticed the same outcome between groups of more or less curious adults. The people who try to figure out the exact rules of everything they

Incidentally, I've noticed the same outcome between groups of more or less curious adults. The people who try to figure out the exact rules of everything they do tend to be less effective than people who figure out a strategy that works and simply execute.

abathur 5y ago
Unless it's being intentionally adjusted for, this may be encoding a bit of bias regarding experiment duration and explore/exploit strategies. (It isn't a given that the results would hold over 10x the duration, for example?)
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  I would also argue that the adults would suddenly become a lot more curious if they knew that the experiment would be 10x the duration, and each of those stars were instead dollar bills.
  - Ginden 5y ago
    > if they knew that the experiment would be 10x the duration, and each of those stars were instead dollar bills. There is catch - adding money into equation can trigger "avoid risk" behaviours.
- watwut 5y ago
  The thing is, adults are in general more effective in figuring out strategy for changed situation. There is a reason why boardgames for adults are more complex then those for 9 years old. If the game was 10x longer, adults would behave differently.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    The power of adults vs kids is the same difference as large codebase vs small codebase. Large codebases can do many amazing things quickly, but they tend to have a lot of technical debt making other things very hard to do. Kids are small codebases, they lack all those abstractions for solving problems quickly but they also lack all the technical debt, allowing them to quickly change and adapt their thinking. Why are adults better at playing games? Because good board games are designed to align with abstractions adults are likely to have and don't hit the parts with lots of technical debts. It is very easy to design games that goes against the abstractions adults have learned, but those games will be horrible to play so you wont see them. Edit: Also board games aren't meant to be mastered, you just need people to learn the simple basics. If you add the requirement to master the board game, then we can look at chess and see that people who started learning as a kid becomes way stronger than people who started learning as adults. Adults can learn to play chess much quicker than children, but an adult wont master the game.
    - watwut 5y ago
      I have kids. Small kids make eggregious logical mistakes. They have trouble to remember if they also have to focus on something else. They have super strong bias toward "immediate reward" over "reward in 3 rounds" - even if they logically understand, emotional appeal of immediate is too strong. And I am not even talking about "mastered" game. Most kids are not playing chess. It is not just difference in experience of board games. Small kids don't figure out completely new situation faster then adults. They just dont. The quickness of understanding comes in much much later.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        The first task of a small kid is to learn the structure of the modern world. That isn't in their genes, they have to learn it all, just realizing what "board game" means and why they should care about doing well in it is a monumental task, not to mention their lack of math skills makes most rational arguments impossible to follow. Adults have all of that for free and can focus on the rules, they have spent decades learning about society, games, standard board game idioms like turns and points, mathematics etc, no board game is completely novel to them.
        watwut 5y ago
        I really don't think the difference between kids and adults performance is just in experience. Kids brains are not fully developed yet, in stages we are talking about. And when you interact with them, it becomes quite apparent. There are also psychological studies and experiments, plenty doable at home if you want to have fun, pointing toward the same. Kids older then toddlers care great deal about winning. It is not true that they don't understand why they should care. If you play boardgames with kids, they understand concept of board games in general. Babies don't, toddlers don't, but it is also impossible to play with them. Framing difference between kids and adults as just lack of experience and pre-existing knowledge is, imo, more of wishful thinking or theory then anything actually observable.
        Jensson 5y ago
csa 5y ago
> The people who try to figure out the exact rules of everything they do tend to be less effective than people who figure out a strategy that works and simply execute. I agree with this idea in general, but I think it’s prudent sometimes to ask if one has the best strategy or just a good enough strategy. Folks who rarely or never reflect on this often end up at a (relatively low) local maximum. In this experiment, it would probably be reflected in the results if they had a larger sample and made a combo with the black dots block award more stars. Many adults probably would not discover this, while many/most kids probably would.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
breakyerself 5y ago
You'd never want a team made up of exclusively one or the other.
xelxebar 5y ago
> The people who try to figure out the exact rules of everything... [emphasis added] Lucky for you, this set is empty. > ... tend to be less effective than... At what? If you're an AI, then you might be overfitting on your training data. Snide jabs aside. I usually find that "good enough, just execute" has its own failure modes, different than those of "keep digging, understand deeply". Better yet, there are no "failure modes" or "successes" at all unless you have a goal to evaluate against.
- numpad0 5y ago
  >> ... tend to be less effective than... > At what? Accumulating government issued currencies? I do have an impression that technical literacy rarely pays off. It is not like human history is full of trillionaire theoretical physicists and practical machinists.
  - the_french 5y ago
    I don’t think most theoretical physicists are seeking wealth, they tend to have deeper intellectual motivations.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    >Accumulating government issued currencies? I mean, not just in terms of making money, but inventing new technologies, saving lives or any tangible measure of success. At some point, you need to play the game.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Most big inventions were made by people in their 20's. If what you say is true those people would then go on to make even more big things in their 30's, 40's, 50's etc, but that doesn't seem to happen. Rather it seems like they explored the topic early in life and then stopped exploring and just continued looked at the world from the same lens as they got older. Edit: Also all of Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon were started by people in their 20's. That is a pretty big coincidence, especially given that younger people have fewer connections and less money than older ones and therefore should in theory have a harder time starting a company.

abathur 5y ago

Unless it's being intentionally adjusted for, this may be encoding a bit of bias regarding experiment duration and explore/exploit strategies. (It isn't a given that the results would hold over 10x the duration, for example?)

AussieWog93 5y ago
I would also argue that the adults would suddenly become a lot more curious if they knew that the experiment would be 10x the duration, and each of those stars were instead dollar bills.
- Ginden 5y ago
  > if they knew that the experiment would be 10x the duration, and each of those stars were instead dollar bills. There is catch - adding money into equation can trigger "avoid risk" behaviours.
watwut 5y ago
The thing is, adults are in general more effective in figuring out strategy for changed situation. There is a reason why boardgames for adults are more complex then those for 9 years old. If the game was 10x longer, adults would behave differently.
- Jensson 5y ago
  The power of adults vs kids is the same difference as large codebase vs small codebase. Large codebases can do many amazing things quickly, but they tend to have a lot of technical debt making other things very hard to do. Kids are small codebases, they lack all those abstractions for solving problems quickly but they also lack all the technical debt, allowing them to quickly change and adapt their thinking. Why are adults better at playing games? Because good board games are designed to align with abstractions adults are likely to have and don't hit the parts with lots of technical debts. It is very easy to design games that goes against the abstractions adults have learned, but those games will be horrible to play so you wont see them. Edit: Also board games aren't meant to be mastered, you just need people to learn the simple basics. If you add the requirement to master the board game, then we can look at chess and see that people who started learning as a kid becomes way stronger than people who started learning as adults. Adults can learn to play chess much quicker than children, but an adult wont master the game.
  - watwut 5y ago
    I have kids. Small kids make eggregious logical mistakes. They have trouble to remember if they also have to focus on something else. They have super strong bias toward "immediate reward" over "reward in 3 rounds" - even if they logically understand, emotional appeal of immediate is too strong. And I am not even talking about "mastered" game. Most kids are not playing chess. It is not just difference in experience of board games. Small kids don't figure out completely new situation faster then adults. They just dont. The quickness of understanding comes in much much later.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      The first task of a small kid is to learn the structure of the modern world. That isn't in their genes, they have to learn it all, just realizing what "board game" means and why they should care about doing well in it is a monumental task, not to mention their lack of math skills makes most rational arguments impossible to follow. Adults have all of that for free and can focus on the rules, they have spent decades learning about society, games, standard board game idioms like turns and points, mathematics etc, no board game is completely novel to them.
      - watwut 5y ago
        I really don't think the difference between kids and adults performance is just in experience. Kids brains are not fully developed yet, in stages we are talking about. And when you interact with them, it becomes quite apparent. There are also psychological studies and experiments, plenty doable at home if you want to have fun, pointing toward the same. Kids older then toddlers care great deal about winning. It is not true that they don't understand why they should care. If you play boardgames with kids, they understand concept of board games in general. Babies don't, toddlers don't, but it is also impossible to play with them. Framing difference between kids and adults as just lack of experience and pre-existing knowledge is, imo, more of wishful thinking or theory then anything actually observable.
        Jensson 5y ago

csa 5y ago

> The people who try to figure out the exact rules of everything they do tend to be less effective than people who figure out a strategy that works and simply execute. I agree with this idea in general, but I think it’s prudent sometimes to ask if one has the best strategy or just a good enough strategy. Folks who rarely or never reflect on this often end up at a (relatively low) local maximum. In this experiment, it would probably be reflected in the results if they had a larger sample and made a combo with the black dots block award more stars. Many adults probably would not discover this, while many/most kids probably would.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

breakyerself 5y ago

You'd never want a team made up of exclusively one or the other.

xelxebar 5y ago

> The people who try to figure out the exact rules of everything... [emphasis added] Lucky for you, this set is empty. > ... tend to be less effective than... At what? If you're an AI, then you might be overfitting on your training data. Snide jabs aside. I usually find that "good enough, just execute" has its own failure modes, different than those of "keep digging, understand deeply". Better yet, there are no "failure modes" or "successes" at all unless you have a goal to evaluate against.

numpad0 5y ago
>> ... tend to be less effective than... > At what? Accumulating government issued currencies? I do have an impression that technical literacy rarely pays off. It is not like human history is full of trillionaire theoretical physicists and practical machinists.
- the_french 5y ago
  I don’t think most theoretical physicists are seeking wealth, they tend to have deeper intellectual motivations.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Accumulating government issued currencies? I mean, not just in terms of making money, but inventing new technologies, saving lives or any tangible measure of success. At some point, you need to play the game.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Most big inventions were made by people in their 20's. If what you say is true those people would then go on to make even more big things in their 30's, 40's, 50's etc, but that doesn't seem to happen. Rather it seems like they explored the topic early in life and then stopped exploring and just continued looked at the world from the same lens as they got older. Edit: Also all of Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon were started by people in their 20's. That is a pretty big coincidence, especially given that younger people have fewer connections and less money than older ones and therefore should in theory have a harder time starting a company.