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by dahart 3172 days ago
All of these biases certainly exist. What I want to see is some evidence of how often these actually occur, how much damage each one does, and what ways exist to mitigate them.

I would agree it helps to become aware, but I honestly don't know how to mitigate any of them. It seems like all of them involve predicting the future. I don't know what payoff I'm going to get if I learn vim's wacky and hidden keyboard commands, and the payoff isn't likely to be large if I avoid using vim whenever possible.

Hyperbolic discounting seems like a generally good bias to have - unless I have a very specific bet in mind or the big payoff is an obvious benefit to me or a requirement of some kind, then choosing quick wins is probably the right choice more often than not.

Premature optimization seems like almost the exact opposite of hyperbolic discounting, and avoiding premature optimization feels like the right decision the majority of the time.

But I never know for sure which one was actually the right choice until long after the decision has been made. I've certainly optimized things that didn't need to be, and I've certainly gone for quick wins and regretted not planning for a bigger payoff.