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Comment by serf | Hacker News Reader

>I think the „my brain isn’t the same anymore“ sensation is pretty universal.

I disagree with the premise that you're propping up with the exercise example; I disagree that humans are thinking less because of mechanisms available in society.

if anything I think people are thinking more than they ever have, and that has triggered a lot of people into overthinking themselves into a quagmire of inaction , judgement, and group-think.

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Telling codex how to program a feature is a much different, much easier type of thinking than back in the olden days of a year ago, when I had to get everything to work myself. I can't imagine that's going to be great for my long-term brain health.

This only holds when you keep the task fixed and compare with and without AI. But because AI changed expectations the difficulty of work we supervise today is much higher. My theory is that AI runs our brains just as hard as no-AI, maybe harder. That is if you want to have high quality outputs, not for slop.

Certainly, AI is allow us to 10x our code, but also 10x our mental work. Steve Yegge calls this the AI Vampire[0] and it does effect us, more so than TV or old school social media ever did. My father went through a stroke a few years ago, and is now always online. He blames the stroke for his brain fog, but I still feel that the modern day dopamine addiction is a huge factor.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/software-engineer-steve-yegg...

I think it feels that way because there's much more waiting and context switching, which is tiring

But this quagmire of inaction, judgement and group-think is older than technology though. Just because social media wasn't available before didn't mean there weren't "mechanisms" of society to channel those impulses into. So why do you think people are thinking more than before and why this quagmire is a modern invention? Like how are we measuring what people are thinking and what people are not thinking?

I understand its your subjective opinion but I would like to know what basis your claim stands upon. Just like more easy information so people overthink?

I agree with this. We can think of anything and nothing can prevent that at all. I have to go therapy to be told, it's okay to not think 24/7.

Yeah I think this is also true. Maybe "thinking less" is the wrong framing. Whether it's an excess or a deficiency of thinking, there's definitely a lack of straining cognitive activity.

It might be reading books, pondering deep ideas, painting a landscape, doing software engineering, or solving crossword puzzles.

But all of those are happening much less due (in my opinion) to the factors I described.

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