Comment by ruthmarx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ruthmarx | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Incorrect. The basis of my claim is that people are often wrong about what will make them happy.

> Addiction is not the basis of my claim, it was just a single example of people choosing wrong.

In this specific instance, of using phones at restaurants, you seemed to think people could not go without them due to addiction. Are you saying that was not your position?

> Do you think phones are an exception to the general argument?

Not so much an exemption, more that when you make an abstract argument it's going to change when you zoom in a few levels down, and it's going to change depending on what is being discussed in.

In this case, I certainly disagree that it's safe to assert that "a lot of people would enjoy their meals better if they didn't have their phones with them" - is that a fair paraphrasing of your point?

> See, I don't know which people are wrong. I'm making a statistical argument.

What are you considering a lot, then? Even 0.1% of the population could be considered a lot, so what's the low end percentage of western phone owners you would suppose your position would apply to?

> I'm also wrong a lot! There are people that know what I want better than I do, sometimes! The trouble is we don't know which ones

In the context of statistics, what do you think the split is between people that think they would know what you want more than you do, and those who actually do? I'd think it's something like 9:1.

> If the group is a subset of those people that I can't identify, then is that direct enough to be an issue? I don't think it's realistic to think 100% are correct.

I guess it depends on how much you consider a lot. I'll grant it is correct for 'some' just on the basis of variations that exist, but I'm not sure I agree with it being true for a lot.

---

Unrelated, what are you using if anything to get reply notifications so fast? Are you just manually refreshing?

> Unrelated, what are you using if anything to get reply notifications so fast? Are you just manually refreshing?

Just luck. I refresh more often right after commenting but otherwise it's erratic between a few refreshes an hour and several hours between refreshes.

If you need to get instant reply notifications and you do not want to refresh manually, you can use KWatch.io: that's a platform that I developed that monitors HN.

https://kwatch.io/monitoring-keywords-hacker-news-kwatch

You can give it the URL of a specific post or comment and it will notify you when new comments are made in the thread.

I hope it is useful.

This looks really cool, thanks for sharing!

> In this specific instance, of using phones at restaurants, you seemed to think people could not go without them due to addiction. Are you saying that was not your position?

Correct. I only brought up addiction after I thought we moved to the general argument, because it's so easy and objective. If we stayed with phones I probably wouldn't have mentioned addiction.

> Not so much an exemption, more that when you make an abstract argument it's going to change when you zoom in a few levels down, and it's going to change depending on what is being discussed in.

It will change some, but if the general idea is that people are bad at knowing what they want and avoiding temptation, that can only change so much. If it's not true for phones at dinner then that sounds like it has to be an exception.

> In this case, I certainly disagree that it's safe to assert that "a lot of people would enjoy their meals better if they didn't have their phones with them" - is that a fair paraphrasing of your point?

I think that's fair, but I'd replace "have their phones with them" with something like "use their phones for more than a minute or so per hour".

> What are you considering a lot, then? Even 0.1% of the population could be considered a lot, so what's the low end percentage of western phone owners you would suppose your position would apply to?

0.1% is still a million people. I think that has a good chance of qualifying?

But I would bet the number is >5%. If it's 5% that's definitely enough for me to count it as a lot of people.

> In the context of statistics, what do you think the split is between people that think they would know what you want more than you do, and those who actually do? I'd think it's something like 9:1.

If those odds work the other way around and 10% of people would be happier without phones, then I would take that as very strong validation of my position.

> It will change some,

I think it can change significantly. The devil is in the details in this case.

> but if the general idea is that people are bad at knowing what they want and avoiding temptation,v

If it's a general idea though, as in you are generalizing, that would mean you are talking about 'most', and not 'some' or 'a lot'.

> If it's a general idea though, as in you are generalizing, that would mean you are talking about 'most', and not 'some' or 'a lot'.

Ah, I can clarify that.

The vast majority of people aren't very good at avoiding temptation.

But when we look at the choices people make, "avoid temptation" is not a universal correct answer. I'm not suggesting people be ascetic monks.

So if we look at people facing some tempting choice, I might estimate that 99% of them are generically bad at resisting, but of the people that give in only 10% of them are actually making a mistake.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com