Will_Newsome comments on A "Failure to Evaluate Return-on-Time" Fallacy - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (109)
Myself, I don't really have any goals I'm working toward, so I'm not bothered by wasting time.
But is there a way to waste time that is 300X more effective? Perhaps you're playing the wrong video games, surfing the wrong parts of the web, or doing the wrong drugs, and you never took the time to meta-optimize!
What I don't even - what would it look like if there were more and less efficient ways to waste time?
I am reminded of this Anscombe quote:
Haha, good quotation. I take 'efficiently wasting time' to mean 'decreasing the ratio of perceived time to actual time'. Cryopreserving oneself is probably the best method. Doing some drug that messed with your perspective of time in the right way would be an efficient waste of time, but far less so than just entering a coma. If one does not have the necessary drugs or willpower to attain them then I would suggest doing fun things that require little sustained effort like an endless string of pirated computer role playing games punctuated by sleep, hot pockets, a multivitamin, and water. Actually I wouldn't recommend any of those, but for the sake of this thought experiment they seem to be decent suggestions.
I have an exam I'm supposed to be revising for, but unless it contains a lot of questions on Starcraft 2, naked ladies and sandwiches, my study priorities are seriously off-kilter.
Reading this, however, has made me realise that I can become vastly more productive by studying courses with a high Starcraft 2, naked lady and sandwich syllabyus content, and I won't even have to change my behaviour.