good idea maximizers.
Or sounds-superfically-good-enough-to-make-you-feel-good idea maximizers?
Most definitely. That's sort of what I meant by conceptual OCD. We internally survey our ideas, they seem a mess, and we feel a compulsion to tidy them up. Once we're tidy internally, we feel ok, and take a nap.
We are good idea maximizers, once all the data is stuffed into our heads. But the application of the ideas to make a change outside ourselves is not something that motivates us. We're model builders, not model appliers.
As you suggest, that probably leaves our ideas half baked. We haven't caught the inconsistencies and inadequacies, because we've ne...
I was wondering if anyone has ever had the feeling, like I get sometimes, that they were addicted to 'meta-level' optimizing rather than low-level acting? As in, I'd rather think about how to encourage myself to brush my teeth more than brush my teeth. I'm guessing there's something about this under the akrasia threads?
The motivations to remain in meta and thinking about things rather than acting on them seems to be that it takes less effort to think about doing things than to do them, and there is potentially more long-term benefit in making an overall improvement than in engaging in a specific action. The drawback is that if you remain thinking about meta all the time, you won't get anything done.