Comment author: DanielLC 17 February 2015 08:09:48PM 1 point [-]

I think it might be better to remove the other effects. If you could pick between having fun and remembering having fun, all else being equal, which would you choose?

Comment author: raubaut 23 February 2015 04:20:06PM *  0 points [-]

If that's the case, then I think it depends on how frequently you get to have fun in the present.

The value of remembering having fun greatly exceeds the value of having fun if you don't get to have fun very often -- because memories can continue to bring happiness through reflection. But if you get to have fun all the time, then the memories lose much of their value. If you have fun ALL of the time, then there's very little time to reflect on memories.

Comment author: ChristianKl 23 February 2015 03:23:58PM 1 point [-]

In general I don't consider going to a meditation retreat a dietary strategy, even when it increases your will power because you are more present afterwards.

Comment author: raubaut 23 February 2015 03:42:43PM 3 points [-]

If you went to a meditation retreat for the purpose of improving your diet, then it would be a dietary strategy. In general, any practice that is carried out for the purpose of improving diet, which is based on reducing cognitive load, would be a cognitive load based dietary strategy. I can't imagine most people would use meditation for this purpose, but certainly breathing exercises or mindfulness, or simply eating and preparing meals when one is less cognitively busy.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 18 February 2015 03:48:59PM *  3 points [-]

It seems like whole genome sequencing could be a lower-cost, lower-quality option? (No recurring freezing costs, just a lump sum for the sequencing? But it's less likely to be useful.)

Also, it's not clear to me that it's important than an artificial organ be produced from my cells.

Is this an idea you had yourself? Did you run it by any experts? In any case, this suggests to me that you are generalizing hastily about what you see as this implying about people.

Comment author: raubaut 23 February 2015 03:15:19PM 0 points [-]

Also, it's not clear to me that it's important than an artificial organ be produced from my cells.

That's been my working assumption as well.

Comment author: ChristianKl 23 February 2015 09:57:15AM 1 point [-]

I have come to think as willpower depletion as: "RAM is full. To start new processes that take up cognitive resources, please terminate some of those which are running at the moment before new threads can be started."

It well explains why some people experience willpower depletion and other don't. Those that experience don't release the mental resources but their brain continues analysing the situation to learn from it.

If so, I would be interested in whether this affect has been incorporated into any dieting strategies.

How would you do that? Don't memorize long numbers right before choosing what to eat, doesn't seem very practical advice.

It's encourages grocery lists instead of keeping that information in your head, but that's best practice anyway for commitment reasons if you want to focus on buying healthy food.

Comment author: raubaut 23 February 2015 03:10:10PM 1 point [-]

How would you do that?

Cognitive load is a fairly general phenomenon, not limited to memorizing long numbers. You can experience cognitive load simply by living a busy life where you are constantly thinking about other things, and not able to be "present".

Comment author: Manfred 23 February 2015 09:05:36AM *  7 points [-]

The explanation of this I'd go to first is a system 1 / system 2 explanation (e.g. your intuitive system [system 1] picks the tastier thing, and overriding that requires activity from deliberative decision-making (system 2) that can be tied up with cognitive load), so I'd recommend looking in Thinking Fast and Slow, which I think mentions at least one Kahneman and Tversky experiment on a similar subject.

Comment author: raubaut 23 February 2015 03:08:26PM 1 point [-]

Bingo. There is a large body of literature on the dual-process theory of mind, and the heuristics and biases literature is full of examples where cognitive load interferes with "rational" responding.

Comment author: raubaut 24 March 2012 05:27:57PM *  1 point [-]

How about this:

-6. I buy my clothes from thrift stores (which explains why they don't quite fit, and aren't "in fashion") because I'm more concerned with social/environmental/economic responsibility than I am fashion.

In response to Fight Zero-Sum Bias
Comment author: patrissimo 07 August 2010 01:01:24AM 2 points [-]

See "folk economics" and Bryan Caplan's research for evidence of zero-sum bias. And Robert Wright's Non-Zero for a discussion of how human progress has come from increasingly positive-sum interactions.

This post feels a bit lacking as it just briefly introduces a bias and explains why it is there, but doesn't talk about how to overcome it or the harm that it does. Zero-sum bias results in tons of bad laws, for example. And it can be self-perpetuating - very high marginal tax rates are often justified by assuming the earner just got lucky or took from someone else. If those in the highest tax brackets are the most productive, then the disincentive caused by such punitive taxes is causing the most productive to work less - a huge cost.

Comment author: raubaut 05 October 2011 03:37:13PM 2 points [-]

High marginal tax rates are bad only if you assume that the highest earners are most productive. But are they? Don't forget that wealth is also self-perpetuating. If I earned $1 million - whether by hard work, or by luck - then I could live comfortably off the interest for the rest of my life. In terms of satisfying my basic needs, I would have zero incentive to continue being productive. If I live off the interest, am I somehow being productive by proxy of my investment? That's another question.