Your loop example at the top (Decide X is right, Go all in for X, start worrying that Y is actually better than X, switch to Y, repeat) is very close to how I would describe a very healthy process of iteration / pivoting.
I guess it depends on if you’re pivoting based on things that you’ve learned, versus grass-is-greener.
For example, I’ve mentioned that AGI safety was the 5th long-term (i.e. multi-year) intense ambitious hobby of my life, then turned into my job and I’m in it to the end. All the switches made sense, given what I knew at the time. Glad I didn’t “get unstuck” from the “loop” when I was on my 3rd or 4th hobby. :)
I guess it depends on if you’re pivoting based on things that you’ve learned, versus grass-is-greener.
Yeah, I didn’t mean “iterative thoughtful processes”, I meant “compulsion that unfold at the level of days”. If you arbitrarily change your job every couple of days/weeks, not based on new significant information but because you feel this other one is the one, this is bad.
So there is a vibe here that I maybe didn’t convey well, about the time frame and the auto-generated part of the loops I’m pointing at: it happens often enough that your friends and family can notice, and it happens in reaction to events that no one around you agree would lead to such a drastic change (highlighting that the events are not so much the cause as the post-hoc rationalization).
Your loop example at the top (Decide X is right, Go all in for X, start worrying that Y is actually better than X, switch to Y, repeat) is very close to how I would describe a very healthy process of iteration / pivoting.
I guess it depends on if you’re pivoting based on things that you’ve learned, versus grass-is-greener.
For example, I’ve mentioned that AGI safety was the 5th long-term (i.e. multi-year) intense ambitious hobby of my life, then turned into my job and I’m in it to the end. All the switches made sense, given what I knew at the time. Glad I didn’t “get unstuck” from the “loop” when I was on my 3rd or 4th hobby. :)
Yeah, I didn’t mean “iterative thoughtful processes”, I meant “compulsion that unfold at the level of days”. If you arbitrarily change your job every couple of days/weeks, not based on new significant information but because you feel this other one is the one, this is bad.
So there is a vibe here that I maybe didn’t convey well, about the time frame and the auto-generated part of the loops I’m pointing at: it happens often enough that your friends and family can notice, and it happens in reaction to events that no one around you agree would lead to such a drastic change (highlighting that the events are not so much the cause as the post-hoc rationalization).