[dang]

All true, but we also need to get out of the habit of consuming only the most easily scannable information.

As Kahneman explains in "Thinking Fast and Slow", System 2 (the reflective system, the one we want to be working a little on HN) is lazy and prefers to rely on System 1 (the reflexive one that deals in subsecond responses). I think the protests of HN readers when a title isn't trivially digestible or doesn't quite match expectations are largely the grumbling of System 2 that it needs to get up and move around a bit. And that's actually good for us—not the grumbling, but the working a bit. So the expectation to have titles spell everything out is a mildly bad thing and it's salutary to thwart it a little now and then.

[pvg]

This also reads nicely edited to Alec Baldwin Glengarry monologue voice and style, with the addition of 'System 3 is you're fired'.

[rwbhn]

Hear, hear! Thank you.

[dang]

Btw it was Alan Kay who pointed out the analogy between Kahneman and the reflexive/reflective distinction I've been using to try to understand the dynamics of HN. That was a helpful observation on Alan's part that among other things spurred me to take Kahneman back off the shelf.