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QuestionTime comments on Open Thread: June 2009 - Less Wrong
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Let me explain that sentence a bit more. As you know, preference utilitarianism comes with quite a bit of bullet-swallowing and while I may be less hard core than some, I swallow bullets she seems very hesitant to. Perhaps equally or more importantly, like most people, she doesn't seem to like to taste the bullets, i.e. ponder uncomfortable thoughts, accept uncertainty, etc. I, on the other hand, seem to take some perverse pleasure in thinking and talking about such topics. From her perspective, I sometimes "analyze things e.g. a poem, a play, the proper emotional response to situation X, to death to the point of being distracted from their inherent value."
For me, any (serious) talk of "overanalyzing" or "overthinking" things would be a huge red flag. But maybe I'm unusual in that.
Using the word "overanalysis" isn't always a red flag for unwillingness to analyze where appropriate. Sometimes it just means recognizing that it is not worth six hours of nutrition research and blind taste tests to decide what cereal is the optimal breakfast. In a pinch, you can just grab the generic crisped rice or a prettily-packaged granola and call it good.
Of course. To clarify a bit, it's obviously possible to give things more thought than they deserve. But someone who habitually makes accusations of overthinking, to my mind, is indicating a contempt for thought itself, which is about the most horrible quality I can think of. (I believe I first came to this conclusion when I read this webcomic, though on looking back at it I'm not sure.)
Some people just aren't very good at getting right answers through deliberate reasoning, but can get by using implicit reasoning. Combine that with the typical mind fallacy and you get someone who sees "overthinking" everywhere they look. But I think the problem here isn't so much about these implicit reasoners, but rather about contemptuous people in general, with contemptuous implicit reasoners as a special case.