Kaj_Sotala comments on Procedural Knowledge Gaps - Less Wrong

126 Post author: Alicorn 08 February 2011 03:17AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (1477)
Tags: cooperation instrumental

Comments (1477)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 08 February 2011 02:43:01PM *  2 points [-]

Judging from the comments, cooking seems to be a big area where Less Wrongers feel tentative. I'm really surprised

I don't find it surprising at all. At least for myself, my brain tags cooking under the category of "boring housework chores", giving me negative motivation to actually learn it. The "pay attention to recipes and follow directions carefully and it's easy" part may actually be making it worse, since it strengthens the image of a dull, uninteresting task.

Intellectual types often find basic household chores as the kind of things that aren't worth wasting their time and smarts on, not when there are more interesting / important things to do. I can certainly admit being guilty of this.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 February 2011 05:08:21PM 4 points [-]

Intellectual types often find basic household chores as the kind of things that aren't worth wasting their time and smarts on, not when there are more interesting / important things to do.

Cooking is applied chemistry, and at the higher levels, it's art.

Comment author: Alicorn 08 February 2011 05:30:30PM 1 point [-]

I categorize cooking as an organizational skill - I have some ingredients, and I'm going to arrange them in a way that suits me. The algorithms I engage aren't that different from the ones that come into play when I organize the junk on my desk.

Comment author: Blueberry 10 February 2011 09:56:16PM 0 points [-]

The algorithms I engage aren't that different from the ones that come into play when I organize the junk on my desk.

A task many people also find boring and painful, sadly.

Comment author: MartinB 08 February 2011 05:33:48PM 0 points [-]

I see it as a process. The few things I can cook and cook regularly I tend to optimize to their absolute minimum effort needed.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 08 February 2011 06:45:34PM 0 points [-]

I don't dispute that. Nonetheless it easily gets emotionally tagged as "boring chore", even if it could be made interesting once you overcame that emotional tag.

Comment author: Mystfan 10 February 2011 06:47:05PM 1 point [-]

I definitely used to have the same attitude towards cooking, back when my dad and I were first learning to cook. There's a few things I did to alter my perceptions (in no particular order):

  1. Start thinking of cooking as nifty biology/chemistry. There's a lot of books out there that go in-depth on this, but I think my favorite is "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" (Harold McGee 2004), which covers pretty much every foodstuff I've ever used.

  2. Think of the last time you went out to a nice restaurant to eat, specifically of the best portion of food you got. Imagine being able to eat food of close to this quality multiple times a week, at much lower cost (I generally pay as much to make an 8-serving dish as a restaurant charges for 2). This probably only helps if you're big on food and/or eating fairly low-quality food now, but I found it a big motivator when I was learning.

  3. If you're one of the many people posting in the dating advice comments above, consider the fact that cooking is an attractive skill in a romantic partner, so the time taken to learn it could be a useful investment.

  4. Try starting with recipes you don't need to pay much attention to, such as stews; this helps to minimize the feeling of wasting time, as you just combine the ingredients and leave.

As always, your mileage may vary, especially if you don't think with your stomach like I do.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit