3 ms·

FOMO is a sign of the vice of curiosity[0] and pride[1]. The rosier side of what you're doing is that you seem to have a means of at least managing the impulse.

FOMO is a sign of the vice of curiosity[0] and pride[1]. The rosier side of what you're doing is that you seem to have a means of at least managing the impulse. Still unfocused, still not perfect, but better than pointless chasing after information. Perhaps a way to break the habit is a kind of fasting and interruption: when you come across the temptation to indulge a distraction or archive that link, cut yourself off and remind yourself that all you're doing is dissipating your energies and working against your own good and understanding. Instead of nourishing your mind through sustained commitment, you are choosing to wallow in the shallows of the shoreline. To enter the depths, you must let go the shore. That's the decision you face here, and decisions are always a sacrificial act. You give up one thing for another. [0] Curiosity here refers to a kind of "information gluttony/lust", a kind of wandering eye. It's the same impulse that afflicts busybodies and gossips in that the desire to know has been unhinged from reason. You don't need to know most of that stuff and most of it is of little value to you. [1] Pride because there's now way you can know everything, not in this life.

keybored 4y ago
Nice diagnosis. For the cure I would look anywhere but Catholicism.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
Is a paraphrase from a john chrysostom sermon? It sounds so familiar but from a completely different context and I can't quite place it. It definitely stuck with me the first time I heard it too, and grappling with the negative side of curiosity has been valuable for me.
- sockaddr 4y ago
  > write a hacker news post about information hoarding in the style of john chrysostom
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    lmao
Mezzie 4y ago
> Curiosity here refers to a kind of "information gluttony/lust", a kind of wandering eye. It's the same impulse that afflicts busybodies and gossips in that the desire to know has been unhinged from reason. You don't need to know most of that stuff and most of it is of little value to you. Ow. I'm in this picture and don't like it. But that is a wonderful phrase, thank you for introducing it to me.
abnry 4y ago
This comment pulled me in and I've reread it several times. Tere is a lot of truth here. I appreciate how information hoarding can be a sign of status seeking. More knowledge, more skill, more times being the person who just knows the answer. Fear (of missing out) is a classic symptom of status seeking. The problem is that some degree of information hoarding has paid off for me. It sometimes really does improve your skill and impress your peers. Aside from fasting type interventions, what I think is needed in addition to this is some form of wisdom relating to knowing what is valuable to hoard, read, or study. It's like drinking alcohol. If you are getting drunk all the time it is probably a good idea to stop completely. But there are real benefits of social drinking. This makes me convinced I need more skill in establishing and recognizing priorities when it comes to information gathering.
- bgilroy26 4y ago
  A significant resource for the concept of curiositas is the virtues section of the Summa Theologica https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3167.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3167.htm For those new to the Summa, generally speaking, it is good to read an article starting with the On the Contrary and the I Answer That, and then proceed on to the Objections and Replies
- elevation 4y ago
  Another point to ponder: Whether you fill hard drives or book shelves, your collection will perish with you unless you transfer it to someone younger _and teach them to value it_ before you pass. Several of my aging friends have thousands of books they've read and shelved up. In a few years their children will think nothing of depositing them all in the landfill because the books lack both market value and sentimental value. The books simply aren't worth the hassle of sorting through. Old hard drives filled with niche data won't fare any better. Unless the ongoing existence of your collection benefits you or a protege directly, you yourself are already effectively disposing of it.
themodelplumber 4y ago
That's a pretty limited model for teaching purposes. You can also model FOMO as a beginner move, unskilled outcome, etc. For a lot of techies this is relevant since they get more traction from learning new skills than they do from moralizing, for example. One's views on morality may also be (harmfully) hyperbolic due to a similar lack of nuanced application / experience.
dmreedy 4y ago
I think there's a whole lot of truth in this, but I'd also like to try to provide a complementary position, for the balance. There is a kind of depth can come from focus, but this is a narrow kind of depth, one that can't question its own premises. It's directly analogous to the depth of a depth-first search, and has the same upsides and downsides. It's really handy when you know your target, and when you think your heuristics for having chosen that target are pretty good. Meanwhile, I think you can look at this kind of broad-spectrum curiosity as a kind of breadth-first search, again, with the same strengths and weaknesses. It definitely takes longer, and it definitely can end up amounting to not much more than wallowing. But it can also serve very well when you're not sure what the target is, or if there even is one. Furthermore, it can give access to more possible models, more analogies, more metaphor, more understanding-by-comparison, which in turn grants a depth of its own kind, especially in conjunction with true narrow depth of exploration. Since all models are wrong, and each model explores different facets of an idea, having more models gives you a broader set of tools for taking a given concept and applying it to specific areas. They may not be useful in the given moment, but they may lead to unpredictable and insightful connections later on. But of course, to your point, that all comes at the risk of never getting far enough along to apply anything in the first place. But I do believe there is a place for each. Feynman spinning plates in the cafeteria and all that.

keybored 4y ago

Nice diagnosis. For the cure I would look anywhere but Catholicism.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

Is a paraphrase from a john chrysostom sermon? It sounds so familiar but from a completely different context and I can't quite place it. It definitely stuck with me the first time I heard it too, and grappling with the negative side of curiosity has been valuable for me.

sockaddr 4y ago
> write a hacker news post about information hoarding in the style of john chrysostom
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  lmao

Mezzie 4y ago

> Curiosity here refers to a kind of "information gluttony/lust", a kind of wandering eye. It's the same impulse that afflicts busybodies and gossips in that the desire to know has been unhinged from reason. You don't need to know most of that stuff and most of it is of little value to you. Ow. I'm in this picture and don't like it. But that is a wonderful phrase, thank you for introducing it to me.

abnry 4y ago

This comment pulled me in and I've reread it several times. Tere is a lot of truth here. I appreciate how information hoarding can be a sign of status seeking. More knowledge, more skill, more times being the person who just knows the answer. Fear (of missing out) is a classic symptom of status seeking. The problem is that some degree of information hoarding has paid off for me. It sometimes really does improve your skill and impress your peers. Aside from fasting type interventions, what I think is needed in addition to this is some form of wisdom relating to knowing what is valuable to hoard, read, or study. It's like drinking alcohol. If you are getting drunk all the time it is probably a good idea to stop completely. But there are real benefits of social drinking. This makes me convinced I need more skill in establishing and recognizing priorities when it comes to information gathering.

bgilroy26 4y ago
A significant resource for the concept of curiositas is the virtues section of the Summa Theologica https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3167.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3167.htm For those new to the Summa, generally speaking, it is good to read an article starting with the On the Contrary and the I Answer That, and then proceed on to the Objections and Replies
elevation 4y ago
Another point to ponder: Whether you fill hard drives or book shelves, your collection will perish with you unless you transfer it to someone younger _and teach them to value it_ before you pass. Several of my aging friends have thousands of books they've read and shelved up. In a few years their children will think nothing of depositing them all in the landfill because the books lack both market value and sentimental value. The books simply aren't worth the hassle of sorting through. Old hard drives filled with niche data won't fare any better. Unless the ongoing existence of your collection benefits you or a protege directly, you yourself are already effectively disposing of it.

themodelplumber 4y ago

That's a pretty limited model for teaching purposes. You can also model FOMO as a beginner move, unskilled outcome, etc. For a lot of techies this is relevant since they get more traction from learning new skills than they do from moralizing, for example. One's views on morality may also be (harmfully) hyperbolic due to a similar lack of nuanced application / experience.

dmreedy 4y ago

I think there's a whole lot of truth in this, but I'd also like to try to provide a complementary position, for the balance. There is a kind of depth can come from focus, but this is a narrow kind of depth, one that can't question its own premises. It's directly analogous to the depth of a depth-first search, and has the same upsides and downsides. It's really handy when you know your target, and when you think your heuristics for having chosen that target are pretty good. Meanwhile, I think you can look at this kind of broad-spectrum curiosity as a kind of breadth-first search, again, with the same strengths and weaknesses. It definitely takes longer, and it definitely can end up amounting to not much more than wallowing. But it can also serve very well when you're not sure what the target is, or if there even is one. Furthermore, it can give access to more possible models, more analogies, more metaphor, more understanding-by-comparison, which in turn grants a depth of its own kind, especially in conjunction with true narrow depth of exploration. Since all models are wrong, and each model explores different facets of an idea, having more models gives you a broader set of tools for taking a given concept and applying it to specific areas. They may not be useful in the given moment, but they may lead to unpredictable and insightful connections later on. But of course, to your point, that all comes at the risk of never getting far enough along to apply anything in the first place. But I do believe there is a place for each. Feynman spinning plates in the cafeteria and all that.