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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, 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?
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(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).
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(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.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.