replying to Will at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/18885/#Comment_18885

I've generally found that this is much easier to do when it's an area you tend to specialize in and want to delve ever deeper (or on which you have larger areas within your zettelkasten) versus those subjects which you care less about or don't tend to have as much patience for.

Perhaps it's related to the System 1/System 2 thinking of Kahneman/Tversky? There are only some things that seem worth System 2 thinking/clarifying/citing and for all the rest one relies on System 1 heuristics. I find that the general ease of use of my zettelkasten (with lots of practice) allows me to do a lot more System 2 thinking than I had previously done, even for areas which I don't care as much about.

syndication link: https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/18888/#Comment_18888

1930s Wilson Memindex Co Index Card Organizer Pre Rolodex Ad Price List Brochure

archived page: https://web.archive.org/web/20230310010450/https://www.ebay.com/itm/165910049390

Includes price lists

List of cards includes: - Dated tab cards for a year from any desired. - Blank tab cards for jottings arranged by subject. - These were sold in 1/2 or 1/3 cut formats - Pocket Alphabets for jottings arranged by letter. - Cash Account Cards [without tabs]. - Extra Record Cards for permanent memoranda. - Monthly Guides for quick reference to future dates. - Blank Guides for filing records by subject.. - Alphabet Guides for filing alphabetically.

Memindex sales brochures recommended the 3 x 5" cards (which had apparently been standardized by 1930 compared to the 5 1/2" width from earlier versions around 1906) because they could be used with other 3 x 5" index card systems.

In the 1930s Wilson Memindex Company sold more of their vest pocket sized 2 1/4 x 4 1/2" systems than 3 x 5" systems.

Some of the difference between the vest sized and regular sized systems choice was based on the size of the particular user's handwriting. It was recommended that those with larger handwriting use the larger cards.

By the 1930's at least the Memindex tag line "An Automatic Memory" was being used, which also gave an indication of the ubiquity of automatization of industrialized life.

The Memindex has proved its success in more than one hundred kinds of business. Highly recommended by men in executive positions, merchants, manufacturers, managers, .... etc.

Notice the gendering of users specifically as men here.

Features: - Sunday cards were sold separately and by my reading were full length tabs rather than 1/6 tabs like the other six days of the week - Lids were custom fit to the bases and needed to be ordered together - The Memindex Jr. held 400 cards versus the larger 9 inch standard trays which had space for 800 cards and block (presumably a block to hold them up or at an angle when partially empty).

The Memindex Jr., according to a price sheet in the 1930s, was used "extensively as an advertising gift".

The Memindex system had cards available in bundles of 100 that were labeled with the heading "Things to Keep in Sight".

There's something here that's akin to the idea of bikeshedding? Online communities flock to the low lying ideas upon which they can proffer an opinion and play at the idea of debate. If they really cared, wouldn't they instead delve into the research and topics themselves? Do they really want Taibbi's specific take? Do they want or need his opinion on the topic? What do they really want?

Compare and cross reference this with the ideas presented by Ibram X. Kendi's article There Is No Debate Over Critical Race Theory.

Are people looking for the social equivalent of a simple "system one" conversation or are they ready, willing, and able to delve into a "system two" presentation?

Compare this also with the modern day version of the Sunday morning news (analysis) shows? They would seem to be interested in substantive policy and debate, but they also require a lot of prior context to participate. In essence, most speakers don't actually engage, but spew out talking points instead and rely on gut reactions and fear, uncertainty and doubt to make their presentations. What happened to the actual discourse? Has there been a shift in how these shows work and present since the rise of the Hard Copy sensationalist presentation? Is the competition for eyeballs weakening these analysis shows?

How might this all relate to low level mansplaining as well? What are men really trying to communicate in demonstrating this behavior? What do they gain in the long run? What is the evolutionary benefit?

All these topics seem related somehow within the spectrum of communication and what people look for and choose in what and how they consume content.

Bellesi, S., Metafuni, E., Hohaus, S., Maiolo, E., Marchionni, F., D’Innocenzo, S., La Sorda, M., Ferraironi, M., Ramundo, F., Fantoni, M., Murri, R., Cingolani, A., Sica, S., Gasbarrini, A., Sanguinetti, M., Chiusolo, P., & De Stefano, V. (2020). Increased CD95 (Fas) and PD-1 expression in peripheral blood T lymphocytes in COVID-19 patients. British Journal of Haematology, 191(2), 207–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjh.17034

I like the differentiation that Jared has made here on his homepage with categories for "fast" and "slow".

It's reminiscent of the system 1 (fast) and system2 (slow) ideas behind Kahneman and Tversky's work in behavioral economics. (See Thinking, Fast and Slow)

It's also interesting in light of this tweet which came up recently:

I very much miss the back and forth with blog posts responding to blog posts, a slow moving argument where we had time to think.

— Rachel Andrew (@rachelandrew) August 22, 2017

Because the Tweet was shared out of context several years later, someone (accidentally?) replied to it as if it were contemporaneous. When called out for not watching the date of the post, their reply was "you do slow web your way…" #

This gets one thinking. Perhaps it would help more people's contextual thinking if more sites specifically labeled their posts as fast and slow (or gave a 1-10 rating?). Sometimes the length of a response is an indicator of the thought put into it, thought not always as there's also the oft-quoted aphorism: "If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter".

The ease of use of the UI on Twitter seems to broadly make it a platform for "fast" posting which can often cause ruffled feathers, sour feelings, anger, and poor communication.

What if there were posting UIs (or micropub clients) that would hold onto your responses for a few hours, days, or even a week and then remind you about them after that time had past to see if they were still worth posting? This is a feature based on Abraham Lincoln's idea of a "hot letter" or angry letter, which he advised people to write often, but never send.

Where is the social media service for hot posts that save all your vituperation, but don't show them to anyone? Or which maybe posts them anonymously?

The opposite of some of this are the partially baked or even fully thought out posts that one hears about anecdotally, but which the authors say they felt weren't finish and thus didn't publish them. Wouldn't it be better to hit publish on these than those nasty quick replies? How can we create UI for this?

I saw a sitcom a few years ago where a girl admonished her friend (an oblivious boy) for liking really old Instagram posts of a girl he was interested in. She said that deep-liking old photos was an obvious and overt sign of flirting.

If this is the case then there's obviously a social standard of sorts for this, so why not hold your tongue in the meanwhile, and come up with something more thought out to send your digital love to someone instead of providing a (knee-)jerk reaction?

Of course now I can't help but think of the annotations I've been making in my copy of Lucretius' On the Nature of Things. Do you suppose that Lucretius knows I'm in love?

Most murders are system 1-based and spur-of-the-moment.

System 2-based murders are even more deplorable because in most ethical systems it means the person actively spent time and planning to carry the murder out. The second category includes pre-meditated murder, murder-for-hire as well as all forms of capital punishment.

This looks like a good mechanism or process to protect ourselves against priming, intuitive heuristics, and other mischiefs from our System 1 (Thinking, Fast and Slow)