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There was a section about ego depletion. I know the science that supports ego depletion was horribly done, but nobody who has done a lot of climbing can doubt t

There was a section about ego depletion. I know the science that supports ego depletion was horribly done, but nobody who has done a lot of climbing can doubt that there's something to it. You spend all of your spoons on the hard part, get past it, and then do something dumb for the easy part that follows. Happens all the time.

energist 3y ago
[flagged]
- Terr_ 3y ago
  Even as a non-diabetic, I imagine a magically-convenient blood-glucose monitor could be very useful for some sort of digital-assistant, alerting our conscious brains to get some food or take a break. Obviously the most bang-for-the-buck would be anyone operating heavy machinery or doing surgeries or driving, but a little alert could still be useful for office-work or procrastination behavior.
  - energist 3y ago
    Very good idea. I was under the impression that most phone cameras these days can do very basic analysis and determine blood oxygenation. There probably is a glucose monitor as well and if there isn't then one probably could be built with a bit of AI.
- stefantalpalaru 3y ago
  [dead]
- runnerup 3y ago
  Please don’t copy paste ChatGPT here. Everyone here can query ChatGPT if they want to. Also it’s against the rules. Just throw in some high quality sources.
  - energist 3y ago
    Where exactly is the rule against CharGPT?
Swizec 3y ago
> then do something dumb for the easy part that follows. Happens all the time An old rule I learned doing extreme sports in high school: Never say "just one more". That's when you get hurt. I don't think you need ego depletion, brain metabolism, or any other grand science to explain why this happens. You relax, you pay less attention, you think you got this, and then you don't. Error rate is lower when you focus.
- energist 3y ago
  The brain is an organ like any other and requires nutrition for proper function. Nothing grand about noting proper nutrient flow helps with cognition. It's intuitively obvious that hungry and tired people make more mistakes.
  - Swizec 3y ago
    > hungry and tired people make more mistakes This is true. But even non hungry rested people make more mistakes when they underestimate a task. Which is what happens when you attempt a hard skill with a “eh this is the easy part” attitude.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- FridgeSeal 3y ago
  A corollary for this might be great rule of thumb I’ve got from mountain biking and skiing: “when you start to mess up the easy stuff is when you back it off and call it”. Start coming up short on the easy little tabletops? Start finding yourself in the backseat on ski turns a bit too much? Time to have a break and reevaluate before you axe yourself because your skill for recovering might be saving you on the easy stuff, but if you’re not nailing that, you’re almost certainly going to screw up something with more serious consequences.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    > “when you start to mess up the easy stuff is when you back it off and call it”. A few nights ago I was parking my car parallel to the side of a street, the usual retro maneuver. I failed it badly, unusual but it happens. I got out and did it again. Failed again. That was when I understood that I was really tired. I probably made too much sport in the previous days. I got out and made it right, then took a couple of days of rest.
derbOac 3y ago
The ego depletion literature is sort of a minefield. The lack of replicability of the classic ego depletion phenomenon is pretty clear but (like a lot of psychological phenomena) there tends to be nitpicking about definitions, and strawmen disproofs. The ego depletion idea specifically refers to the idea that exercising self-control leads to self-control fatigue, which leads to a rebound effect. No doubt there's self-control and attention in climbing, but I think another phenomenon of "attentional focus leads to fatigue which leads to poor decision" or "physical exertion leads to fatigue which leads to poor decision" is not specifically an ego depletion phenomenon. I'm not really trying to be pedantic, more thinking out loud about how phenomena that seem closely related and similar can get dismissed because of a very narrow definition of something. There's also something to be said for lab versus real-world tests of ego depletion. I've always suspected that whatever you can do in a lab ethically is not ever going to be a real-world test of ego depletion. If nothing else, it happening in the context of some study suggests that people know there's an "out", and anything that would really induce fatigue to moral temptation probably wouldn't be approved by an IRB, at least easily. I've always been skeptical of the original ego depletion phenomena as outlined in the original studies, in part because they never seemed to rule out alternative explanations well, but also have guessed that there's some variant phenomenon that is similar and explains similar things better. I also don't agree with the author that the ego depletion idea is "silly". Everyone knows about fatigue, and the idea it could be applied to temptation isn't unreasonable (on the face of it, this is how a lot of people often explain binging). Something can be incorrect but reasonable.

energist 3y ago

[flagged]

Terr_ 3y ago
Even as a non-diabetic, I imagine a magically-convenient blood-glucose monitor could be very useful for some sort of digital-assistant, alerting our conscious brains to get some food or take a break. Obviously the most bang-for-the-buck would be anyone operating heavy machinery or doing surgeries or driving, but a little alert could still be useful for office-work or procrastination behavior.
- energist 3y ago
  Very good idea. I was under the impression that most phone cameras these days can do very basic analysis and determine blood oxygenation. There probably is a glucose monitor as well and if there isn't then one probably could be built with a bit of AI.
stefantalpalaru 3y ago
[dead]
runnerup 3y ago
Please don’t copy paste ChatGPT here. Everyone here can query ChatGPT if they want to. Also it’s against the rules. Just throw in some high quality sources.
- energist 3y ago
  Where exactly is the rule against CharGPT?

Swizec 3y ago

> then do something dumb for the easy part that follows. Happens all the time An old rule I learned doing extreme sports in high school: Never say "just one more". That's when you get hurt. I don't think you need ego depletion, brain metabolism, or any other grand science to explain why this happens. You relax, you pay less attention, you think you got this, and then you don't. Error rate is lower when you focus.

energist 3y ago
The brain is an organ like any other and requires nutrition for proper function. Nothing grand about noting proper nutrient flow helps with cognition. It's intuitively obvious that hungry and tired people make more mistakes.
- Swizec 3y ago
  > hungry and tired people make more mistakes This is true. But even non hungry rested people make more mistakes when they underestimate a task. Which is what happens when you attempt a hard skill with a “eh this is the easy part” attitude.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
FridgeSeal 3y ago
A corollary for this might be great rule of thumb I’ve got from mountain biking and skiing: “when you start to mess up the easy stuff is when you back it off and call it”. Start coming up short on the easy little tabletops? Start finding yourself in the backseat on ski turns a bit too much? Time to have a break and reevaluate before you axe yourself because your skill for recovering might be saving you on the easy stuff, but if you’re not nailing that, you’re almost certainly going to screw up something with more serious consequences.
- pmontra 3y ago
  > “when you start to mess up the easy stuff is when you back it off and call it”. A few nights ago I was parking my car parallel to the side of a street, the usual retro maneuver. I failed it badly, unusual but it happens. I got out and did it again. Failed again. That was when I understood that I was really tired. I probably made too much sport in the previous days. I got out and made it right, then took a couple of days of rest.

derbOac 3y ago

The ego depletion literature is sort of a minefield. The lack of replicability of the classic ego depletion phenomenon is pretty clear but (like a lot of psychological phenomena) there tends to be nitpicking about definitions, and strawmen disproofs. The ego depletion idea specifically refers to the idea that exercising self-control leads to self-control fatigue, which leads to a rebound effect. No doubt there's self-control and attention in climbing, but I think another phenomenon of "attentional focus leads to fatigue which leads to poor decision" or "physical exertion leads to fatigue which leads to poor decision" is not specifically an ego depletion phenomenon. I'm not really trying to be pedantic, more thinking out loud about how phenomena that seem closely related and similar can get dismissed because of a very narrow definition of something. There's also something to be said for lab versus real-world tests of ego depletion. I've always suspected that whatever you can do in a lab ethically is not ever going to be a real-world test of ego depletion. If nothing else, it happening in the context of some study suggests that people know there's an "out", and anything that would really induce fatigue to moral temptation probably wouldn't be approved by an IRB, at least easily. I've always been skeptical of the original ego depletion phenomena as outlined in the original studies, in part because they never seemed to rule out alternative explanations well, but also have guessed that there's some variant phenomenon that is similar and explains similar things better. I also don't agree with the author that the ego depletion idea is "silly". Everyone knows about fatigue, and the idea it could be applied to temptation isn't unreasonable (on the face of it, this is how a lot of people often explain binging). Something can be incorrect but reasonable.