from the it's-harder-to-reverse-engineer-someone-else's-work-than-the-new-stuff-we-just-came-up-with dept.
Here's Why Our Brains Solve Problems by Adding Things, Not Removing:
Have you ever noticed how we usually try and solve problems by adding more, rather than taking away? More meetings, more forms, more buttons, more shelves, more systems, more code, and so on. Now scientists think they might know the reason why.
A study of 1,585 people across 8 different experiments showed that our brains tend to default to addition rather than subtraction when it comes to finding solutions – in many cases, it seems we just don't consider the strategy of taking something away at all.
The researchers found that this preference for adding was noticeable in three scenarios in particular: when people were under higher cognitive load, when there was less time to consider the other options, and when volunteers didn't get a specific reminder that subtracting was an option.
"It happens in engineering design, which is my main interest," says engineer Leidy Klotz, from the University of Virginia. "But it also happens in writing, cooking, and everything else – just think about your own work and you will see it."
"The first thing that comes to our minds is, what can we add to make it better? Our paper shows we do this to our detriment, even when the only right answer is to subtract. Even with financial incentive, we still don't think to take away."
[...] "The more often people rely on additive strategies, the more cognitively accessible they become," says psychologist Gabrielle Adams, from the University of Virginia.
"Over time, the habit of looking for additive ideas may get stronger and stronger, and in the long run, we end up missing out on many opportunities to improve the world by subtraction."
The research has been published in Nature.
Journal Reference:
Gabrielle S. Adams, Benjamin A. Converse, Andrew H. Hales, et al. People systematically overlook subtractive changes, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03380-y)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @02:29PM (8 children)
rm -rf
all bugs go away, except 1
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @02:41PM
sudo !!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 12 2021, @03:09PM
If you forget the slash, it can't be a slasher film.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 12 2021, @03:49PM (1 child)
Hey, you forgot the / at the end!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 12 2021, @03:51PM
Essentially what DannyB said.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:02PM (3 children)
I tried that and my Windows console says "'rm -rf' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:06PM (1 child)
Yet another example of the better security of Windows... by typing in that command a Linux user would have just removed all the systemd files rendering his system unusable. With Windows you're protected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:58PM
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday April 12 2021, @05:13PM
Ah yes, that pesky Windows bug. Install these patches:
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm [sourceforge.net]
and try again.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 12 2021, @02:32PM (2 children)
When unsure how the bigger system operates, it is usually safer to "tack on" a little bit to get what you want than it is to hack out a part you know little about.
Tool users: want to reach in a small hole? add a tool - don't remove fingers from the oversized hand.
Vehicle accessories: the simple ones add on to a vehicle without removing or modifying existing components - when you get into modification or replacement of components the potential market shrinks considerably as people lack the confidence to make such changes themselves.
Software: opening other peoples' code and removing stuff is scary - who knows why that interface is provided? What if this code is reused in multiple scenarios that I don't know about? Safer to just add the functionality I need through existing interfaces than to trim an outdated bloated interface because I don't have all the information to know what I'll break by taking stuff away.
Project management: it may be obvious that certain team members are taking away more productivity than they are adding, but how can you be sure? If you delete Wally from the project, what will it take to replace his small but potentially necessary contributions? Safer to keep Wally on and suffer the known delays than to delete Wally and learn about unknown delays by experience.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @10:46PM
Explains why my Mom has WinRAR and a dozen other shitware zip utilities.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 14 2021, @04:56AM
Thus do we have the holy purpose of /usr/bin/grep. Want to know WTF a function, method, or whatever is used by in a project? grep -rIHn --color=always 'functionOrMethodName' $SRCDIR | less -R
Note: This does not work as well if you're writing a library other people use in their projects rather than an executable.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by srobert on Monday April 12 2021, @02:32PM (15 children)
Might explain the income tax code in the U.S. Every single piece of it was ostensibly added to solve some sort of issue of perceived fairness. Meanwhile the unfairness of it is hidden in its size and complexity. The whole thing should be scrapped and rebuilt to be fair and simple. Accountants and tax attorneys will probably disagree with that. But I guess they could learn to code or something.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 12 2021, @03:32PM (7 children)
In the "even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes" department, I genuinely liked the ignorant, unrealistic, mandate from the stratosphere by DJT in 2017: for every regulation added two must be removed.
The tax code should be driving harder than that toward a flat tax. Income tax is income tax, no need to special case it beyond a percentage of net income. What is and isn't allowed as an expense deductible from income should be mercilessly driven toward simplicity.
Couple a flat tax on income with a UBI that covers the basic needs of life to a level where charity is no longer required to maintain the health or safety of citizens who lack other income and we've got a workable system that doesn't dis-incentivize work or income producing activities. Focus charitable giving on improving people's quality of life through arts and education, not keeping them from starvation or exposure.
Want to subsidize something? Go for it, just keep that shit out of the tax code.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by HammeredGlass on Monday April 12 2021, @04:43PM (3 children)
And then you voted for China Joe cuz fat man says mean things.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:24PM
Fat man is literal fascist and fascist == bad
Capisce?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 12 2021, @06:36PM (1 child)
China Joe vs Moscow Mitch and Kremlin Don - such choices we have in our elections these days.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by HammeredGlass on Monday April 12 2021, @10:35PM
The only one to have proven financial ties with authoritarian dictatorships is Joe Biden, you craven lying fool.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 12 2021, @07:02PM (2 children)
To simplify taxes, everyone should pay 30% of income. And, "income" means return on investments, dividends of any sort, as well as pay and wages. I'm half tempted to make it applicable to inheritance - except I really don't like inheritance taxes. The average Joe already pays a helluva "tax" on inheritance when he sees to funeral expenses.
It shouldn't matter how poor, how rich, old money, new money, or no money, you pay 30% on income. To hell with all the excuses and exemptions. Trust funds, foundations, etc pay the same on income. No taxes on the existing capital, just on income.
I wouldn't mind seeing some of the property taxes abolished. Personal property tax means that I pay something on everything I own, each year. Stupid utility trailer cost me $500, and sits idle 99% of the time adds a dollar or two to my annual taxes, which I think is stupid. Real estate taxes . . . sometimes I don't think they are high enough. Too many people "hiding" their wealth in real estate.
But, bottom line, taxes should be simple enough that the average high school grad can understand them. What we have, the average college grad can't understand unless he majored in business administration, with something like a submajor in tax accounting.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Monday April 12 2021, @10:46PM (1 child)
I'm in favor of a 1% yearly wealth tax, no income tax at all. (Maybe add in the option of a primary residence exception, but the tax goes to 2% if you do.)
Taxing income instead of wealth was one of the biggest con jobs ever foisted off on the peasantry by the rich.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:11PM
More popular with the rich than wealth or income tax is consumption tax - true consumption tax applied to all consumption.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday April 12 2021, @06:05PM (4 children)
The tax code is intentionally complicated, because tax filers want job security and can afford lobbyists.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday April 12 2021, @11:37PM (3 children)
It's tax filing software providers [youtu.be], but yeah.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:12AM
Don't forget the Republican preference for tax filing to be complicated and painful [theatlantic.com] to remind people to dislike taxes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:08PM (1 child)
Them too. I remember talking with my dad's tax filer when I was a kid. One guy in an office, shelves full of tax law books, which I remarked about. He said yeah, that's just this year's tax code. I asked why it was so complicated, and he replied that he makes donations to politicians to make it complicated, to preserve his job. At least he was honest.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:54PM
You know, that makes sense about preserving its complexity as a moat [investopedia.com]. Which is probably why it seems like it's full of sewage and alligators.
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Monday April 12 2021, @08:58PM
An (ex-engineer) patent attorney friend explained it to me this way: laws that are passed act like "patches" to the legal code, adding/modifying/deleting parts of it, so it's not as if you can remove and replace a "law" independently as you would a (oblig. analogy) car part. Considering how "laws" passed in Congress are sometimes ~1E3 pages in size, it's hard to say that any of these are clean, auditable sets of changes to anything -- in most cases, anyway [folklore.org].
Between special interests, partisanship, loopholes, and actual legal theory and application, over time the whole thing looks more like a cluster of accretions than an extension/elaboration of the original plan with clearly-defined abstraction layers, per the title of this webcomic [lawsandsausagescomic.com].
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday April 13 2021, @07:23AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday April 12 2021, @02:45PM (4 children)
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:11PM (1 child)
Sterile cockpit gets you paid of subtracting things.
A pilot will often turn off/tune out things to lower the distraction load to focus on what matters.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday April 12 2021, @05:46PM
By that account the engineer designing all those over-engineered systems is similarly getting paid for subtraction since he's filtering out all the porn, drugs, games and/or marital issues that would otherwise distract him from his job.
But let put the two claims to the test:
1. If the pilot failed to fly the plane, would he get fired? American Airlines says yes.
2. If the pilot failed to avoid distraction, would they get fired? Boeing says no.
More over, pilots both fly and float. As such, I can only conclude the pilot is a witch. Burn the witch!
compiling...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday April 13 2021, @07:29AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:47PM
Aha but take the narrative away from the numbers and what you're left with is 3/4 developers getting fired after failing to deliver new code :D
Jokes aside, it was a problem with most of management and it didn't pass smoothly so I'd call it as the exception that proves the rule.
compiling...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @03:06PM (8 children)
I try to tell people that keeping things that are unnecessary is bad. First of all the space that the object you are keeping has value and you can use that space for something else of more value. Secondly when you have too many things it makes it harder for you to organize everything which makes it more difficult for you to find what you need because now you have more things to look through. This is especially bad for a business that needs to be efficient.
Yet I know people that keep things that they will never use again in their lives. Like old computer parts that aren't even compatible with anything that exists today. They sit on the shelf and do nothing but collect dust taking up valuable space.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @03:09PM
(same poster)
You have to make sure that the object you are keeping is worth the space it consumes. You are paying rent/property taxes on that space and that space also has opportunity cost plus too much clutter makes it harder for you to organize things and find what you need.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 12 2021, @03:13PM (5 children)
Consider this:
I comment out some lines. Add an explanation of why this is subtly wrong and how so. Add lines to do it correctly and/or significantly faster, and in fewer lines of code.
Did I add, or did I subtract?
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @03:26PM (1 child)
Depends on whether you're counting characters, lines or lines of code. It's fewer lines of code which is the appropriate metric here, so you would have subtracted. I believe your being a Java programmer thereIsStillSoMuchMoreToSubtractPleaseCarryOn().
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 12 2021, @04:22PM
That sounds like a good excuse to just add memory. It's all virtual machines anyway. So just dial up how ever many more gigabytes you need. It's just a dial on the screen. No possible effect in the real world.
In fact it is a "virtual data center" (yes, that is an actual thing now, wtf = worse than failure).
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Monday April 12 2021, @03:28PM
Yes.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:21PM
You added cruft. Why just comment out the lines? they'll persist forever in source control, we don't need to keep mementos of old "deleted" lines of code around.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday April 12 2021, @11:38PM
Either way, in the right situation it'll get management to stop tracking it [folklore.org].
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 12 2021, @07:08PM
*sigh*
I wish it were just a shelf. There's mine, there's hers, and then there is all the kid's abandoned stuff. I began to gather everything to load on a trailer, and haul it off to a charity that rebuilds computers for poor and/or elderly people. I got stuck at inventorying stuff. I'd feel like a total jerk if I found that a CPU that I labeled "good and working" cost those people a half day's work, because it doesn't work at all.
There's no other electronic recycling in the area that I can find.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Monday April 12 2021, @03:20PM (9 children)
One of these things is not like the other. You can easily remove poor prose. You can't remove salt from soup, so maybe you add water and more ingredients. Then you add more salt if you over-did that, because while water will be removed as the soup cooks, it might take more time than you want.
If you find that your several quarts of soup progresses to several gallons, perhaps cooking is not your bag.
Anyway, maybe we're biased towards addition because there have historically been a lot more cooks than writers.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @03:30PM (3 children)
> there have historically been a lot more cooks than writers.
Too many cooks spoiled the hogwash?
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Monday April 12 2021, @03:54PM (2 children)
Historical literacy rates in Europe [ourworldindata.org]. Now do you want to come at me for being Eurocentric? Care to gamble on me finding data for other regions?
Now, how many of those people do you think were cooking? Do we even need to bother researching that?
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @04:00PM (1 child)
Someone is sensitive today, come at the joke. [thefreedictionary.com]
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Monday April 12 2021, @04:29PM
If you can actually get a +Funny mod for that, I'll have to re-evaluate; but it didn't look like you were trying to be funny.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 5, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 12 2021, @03:34PM (1 child)
Please forgive the long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:05PM
Long letters...
When I was in college, mom wrote me a note that she would really enjoy a nice long letter.
As if term papers were not time consuming enough.
But I complied. She got a really long letter.
Written on a roll of adding machine tape.
But she was still disappointed.
It was only a one liner.
But it was long.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @04:03PM (2 children)
Another counter example is modern corporate management.
Problem: profits are too small
Solution: subtract costs subtract people. Never "add new products" or "make better stuff" or "sell more"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday April 12 2021, @04:36PM (1 child)
They call it "cutting the fat". But if that were the case, wouldn't they be starting at the top?
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:14AM
As my Uncle used to say, "If you want to cut the fat, why not start with the fat cats?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Monday April 12 2021, @03:32PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 12 2021, @03:36PM
Inaction is usually the best choice, however: when existing systems machinate through complex operations doing harms subtle and gross... the action of reducing those systems harmful operations is far better than adding more operations attempting to compensate.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday April 12 2021, @03:36PM (1 child)
I'm bothered by headlines that promise too much. From TFA:
The findings are interesting and will probably help people step back and consider a wider array of solutions, but the findings are the what and all the why seems to be conjecture. Sort of like "This berry is poisonous, don't eat it." That's the what part, and it is extremely valuable information, but it is by no means the why. The TFA would have been great if the headline lost the first two words. As it stands, it promises far more than it delivers which is not a good way to build credibility with the reading public.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday April 12 2021, @08:39PM
I have an armchair hypothesis as to why. It's because our brains can only grow/learn by adding things, not removing. That's why addictions and habits never really go away; once you've built the neural pathways, they'll always be there even if you overpower it with a new habit.
Evolutionarily, the reason our brains only add things is because removing things is too difficult and way too easy to break "backward compatibility". It's the same reason the Linux kernel and Windows prioritized backward compatibility and are successful. Imagine (not) waking up one day and forgetting how to breathe because your brain trimmed a neural pathway that was an indirect dependency for the breathing feature.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by EJ on Monday April 12 2021, @03:52PM (2 children)
I get annoyed by stories that presume to apply to everyone, even though they do not. Even if the results apply to 95% of people, they still should include qualifiers such as "most" people studied. However, their study only included 1585 out of BILLIONS of people.
My brain does not work like this. I do not look at what I can add to fix a problem. I look at what I can CHANGE to fix a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @04:40PM (1 child)
Yep. What else would you expect from graduates from the University of Vagina?
(Score: 4, Funny) by choose another one on Monday April 12 2021, @05:02PM
First thought on that was that the whole human race graduated from there.
Then I remembered the Caesareans, well, I guess it sucks to be you way down in c-section.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @10:31PM
always adding more entropy. it's not just a good idea, some will do anything to keep it a law ^_^
(Score: 1) by js290 on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:07AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @09:07AM
I know, I haven't read the full study, but I'm going to assert that the researchers didn't measure what they claim. Take a look at the example from their Q&A [virginia.edu] (emphasis mine):
I don't know about you, but to me, "renovate" means you can change the building's internal structure, but you cannot change its overall shape of facade (it's restoration, not alteration). Here's their conclusion:
The subtractive solution in effect removes an entire floor from the building. That's not renovation, that's a redesign.