People often suggest not to go to the supermarket when hungry. But I’ve found that it works the other way too: if I go shopping right after a large lunch, little of the food I see ‘inspires’ me, so I buy way too little and I’ll find myself having to go back to the supermarket way sooner than I had planned (well, either that or having to endure hunger for a few hours a day—which one I choose depending on whether my weight is above or below my (moving) target).
People often suggest not to go to the supermarket when hungry. But I’ve found that it works the other way too: if I go shopping right after a large lunch, little of the food I see ‘inspires’ me, so I buy way too little and I’ll find myself having to go back to the supermarket way sooner than I had planned
Perhaps if you go to the supermarket when you really don’t feel like going to the supermarket you will end up with decisions biased towards not needing to go to the supermarket. ie. Buying lots of food.
That’s what I got as well, and then I downvoted the article because the parable was overly long and confusing, as compared to the clarity of this simple message.
Me too. I didn’t imagine many people would fail to get this or get something else. Indeed I was a bit surprised to read Strange7′s comments on this thread.
I think the site has some very noble aims, but I’m not all that confident in the corresponding ability to realize those aims. My hope is that a bit of roundabout satire now and then might help. “Trolling” implies something more like opportunistic malice.
Well, judging from the post’s karma score, we do realize that. (Personally, I upvoted, because I think I’ve been in similar situations—though I can’t remember any specific one.)
BTW, I’ve noticed that lots of times comments are downvoted in the evening and upvoted in the morning (where I am—Italy, timezone UTC+01:00). I wonder if this mean that people from certain timezones are more liberal with karma than people from other timezones.
BTW, what do people here feel about the use of we to denote a group of people which includes myself even though I didn’t personally take part in the action? I don’t do that very often (it reminds me of the days when I was a football (soccer) fan and it was customary to say us and you (pl.) to mean ‘the team I support’ and ‘the team you support’); OTOH I once saw a documentary where the presenter consistently used us and them to mean ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’ and ‘H. sapiens neanderthalensis’ when speaking about events taking place several tens of millennia ago, which kind of jarred me.¹ And I’ve seen a comment in a feminist blog when a female commenter scolded a male commenter because he had said “men” instead of “us”.
¹ Maybe because, as an European, I likely do have a non-negligible fraction of Neanderthal DNA.
The parable would have been much more effective if this were hinted at or something. Very few people (I would think) possess this key bit of background knowledge.
It hasn’t got a moral. It’s just a pattern of human activity I’ve noticed, filtered through a metaphor to highlight the relevant parts and remove distracting contextual details.
Capping the end with explicit advice would imply that I knew how to fix the pattern in question.
Interesting parable. Not quite sure what the point of it is, though...
I got “Don’t assume that the experts in the field [or the vineyard] are missing something obvious.”
Also, don’t starve yourself for two days immediately before making food-related decisions.
People often suggest not to go to the supermarket when hungry. But I’ve found that it works the other way too: if I go shopping right after a large lunch, little of the food I see ‘inspires’ me, so I buy way too little and I’ll find myself having to go back to the supermarket way sooner than I had planned (well, either that or having to endure hunger for a few hours a day—which one I choose depending on whether my weight is above or below my (moving) target).
Perhaps if you go to the supermarket when you really don’t feel like going to the supermarket you will end up with decisions biased towards not needing to go to the supermarket. ie. Buying lots of food.
That’s what I got as well, and then I downvoted the article because the parable was overly long and confusing, as compared to the clarity of this simple message.
Me too. I didn’t imagine many people would fail to get this or get something else. Indeed I was a bit surprised to read Strange7′s comments on this thread.
LessWrong, you’ve been trolled. Y u no realize that?
I think the site has some very noble aims, but I’m not all that confident in the corresponding ability to realize those aims. My hope is that a bit of roundabout satire now and then might help. “Trolling” implies something more like opportunistic malice.
Well, judging from the post’s karma score, we do realize that. (Personally, I upvoted, because I think I’ve been in similar situations—though I can’t remember any specific one.)
The karma score has been oscillating between −8 and +8. That does not indicate realization. That indicates confusion.
BTW, I’ve noticed that lots of times comments are downvoted in the evening and upvoted in the morning (where I am—Italy, timezone UTC+01:00). I wonder if this mean that people from certain timezones are more liberal with karma than people from other timezones.
It may be Decision Fatigue and the corresponding tendency to form uncharitable judgments.
BTW, what do people here feel about the use of we to denote a group of people which includes myself even though I didn’t personally take part in the action? I don’t do that very often (it reminds me of the days when I was a football (soccer) fan and it was customary to say us and you (pl.) to mean ‘the team I support’ and ‘the team you support’); OTOH I once saw a documentary where the presenter consistently used us and them to mean ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’ and ‘H. sapiens neanderthalensis’ when speaking about events taking place several tens of millennia ago, which kind of jarred me.¹ And I’ve seen a comment in a feminist blog when a female commenter scolded a male commenter because he had said “men” instead of “us”.
¹ Maybe because, as an European, I likely do have a non-negligible fraction of Neanderthal DNA.
It can be jarring when, as in the parent, you attribute to ‘us’ attitudes you don’t agree with.
Foxes are red-green colorblind, and thus cannot distinguish between fresh and brown grapes at a glance.
The parable would have been much more effective if this were hinted at or something. Very few people (I would think) possess this key bit of background knowledge.
Why would it have been more effective? Effective at what?
At not being confusing.
Well, that clears up part of it… but what’s the moral of the story?
It hasn’t got a moral. It’s just a pattern of human activity I’ve noticed, filtered through a metaphor to highlight the relevant parts and remove distracting contextual details.
Capping the end with explicit advice would imply that I knew how to fix the pattern in question.
Your metaphor has unfortunately also obscured the relevant parts and inserted distracting contextual details.
This?
I didn’t get the parable at all until I read this. Thanks for pointing it out.