80,000 Hours Podcast With Rob Wiblin

Please let us know if we've helped you: Fill out our annual impact survey Ever felt that you were so busy you spent all your time paralysed trying to figure out where to start, and couldn't get much done? Computer scientists have a term for this - thrashing - and it's a common reason our computers freeze up. The solution, for people as well as laptops, is to 'work dumber': pick something at random and finish it, without wasting time thinking about the bigger picture. Bestselling author Brian Christian studied computer science, and in the book Algorithms to Live By he's out to find the lessons it can offer for a better life. He investigates into when to quit your job, when to marry, the best way to sell your house, how long to spend on a difficult decision, and how much randomness to inject into your life. In each case computer science gives us a theoretically optimal solution, and in this episode we think hard about whether its models match our reality. Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. O