Thinking about a top-level post on FOMO and research taste
Fear of missing out defined as inability to execute on a project cuz there’s a cooler project if you pivot
but it also gestures at more of a strict negative, where you think your project sucks before you finish it, so you never execute
was discussing this with a friend: “yeah I mean lesswrong is pretty egregious cuz it sorta promotes this idea of research taste as the ability to tear things down, which can be done armchair”
I’ve developed strategies to beat this FOMO and gain more depth and detail with projects (too recent to see returns yet, but getting there) but I also suspect it was nutritious of me to develop discernment about what projects are valuable or not valuable for various threat models and theories of change (in such a way that being a phd student off of lesswrong wouldn’t have been as good in crucial ways, tho way better in other ways).
but I think the point is you have to turn off this discernment sometimes, unless you want to specialize in telling people why their plans won’t work, which I’m more dubious on the value of than I used to be
Idk maybe this shortform is most of the value of the top level post
Thinking about a top-level post on FOMO and research taste
Fear of missing out defined as inability to execute on a project cuz there’s a cooler project if you pivot
but it also gestures at more of a strict negative, where you think your project sucks before you finish it, so you never execute
was discussing this with a friend: “yeah I mean lesswrong is pretty egregious cuz it sorta promotes this idea of research taste as the ability to tear things down, which can be done armchair”
I’ve developed strategies to beat this FOMO and gain more depth and detail with projects (too recent to see returns yet, but getting there) but I also suspect it was nutritious of me to develop discernment about what projects are valuable or not valuable for various threat models and theories of change (in such a way that being a phd student off of lesswrong wouldn’t have been as good in crucial ways, tho way better in other ways).
but I think the point is you have to turn off this discernment sometimes, unless you want to specialize in telling people why their plans won’t work, which I’m more dubious on the value of than I used to be
Idk maybe this shortform is most of the value of the top level post