are most thoughts useful or useless
 

i've been debating this internally for a while. my opinion is that most thoughts are useless and therefore shouldn't be outputted unless you wanna waste your or other people's time

but i'm often described as someone who is deliberate with their words or actions (unless i'm... unhinged), so i'm not normal, and i don't think my opinion is popularly held.

for argument's sake, let's exclude perfunctory thoughts like "it's time to take a shit" or "my alarm went off"

perhaps thoughts about ideas is a better way to phrase things but words are hard

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

you'd have to define "useful"

at any rate it doesn't seem helpful to make sweeping generalizations when the answers seem to be context-dependent

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

i dunno, like, valuable. will vocalizing/acting out this thought benefit you or others in any way

and i get this is a super broad question, but idk how to ask a more specific q without changing the question

edit: for example that one dude who made that video into the descent into the alt right, i wouldn't have fallen into that rabbit hole because i think a lot of youtube commentators post "useless" content, so i'd just steer clear of that stuff altogether

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

the first problem I see is that we don't really have singular "thoughts" even though we pretend we do
but I think useless anyway

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

vote for my game 2 more times you have 7 min i wanna host the next twg

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

"my opinion is that most thoughts are useless and therefore shouldn't be outputted unless you wanna waste your or other people's time"

ok but then you need to define how useful your or others time is.. id argue saying irrelevant things is useless more because you waste peoples effort to hear and think about them but i feel someone being able to hear something and go "damn thats dumb" is a good skill so if anything by rambling you help other people

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

I think my position on this has less to do with deciding if the thoughts themselves have worth or value, but instead on whether the context in which they are being shared has worth or value.

Just informing people of your thoughts and opinions randomly? Probably a waste of time. They didn't ask for your thoughts, they aren't in a receptive state of mind to be swayed by or even informed by your thoughts.

When they are requested, or in a context where sharing them is welcomed? Then it depends on the thoughts :P

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

The problem is that we don't know what's valuable for others vs what's valuable for us.

You have to figure out what both sides are interested into in order to facilitate saying something valuable.

Someone can say something that at first glance could appear irrelevant and then later on become useful as well.

It's not so clear imo.

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

itt: fg asks a bad question

when was your birthday haku?

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

if we read the minds of the very smartest people in the world the majority of their thoughts would be gibberish. but they are capable of having a lot of them very quickly, come up with questions, and find/reach conclusions faster than most

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

Option A) September 8th
Option B) Just look up Hateandhatred's birthday, it's the same as mine.
Option C) What's the point of your question ?

I guess providing multiple answers is an unorthodox way to approach questions, but I can't tell your intentions here so; it makes sense to me to open up possibilities.

The problem remains that the group don't necessarily care about the above and finding something everyone cares about is unlikely.

I think it's more about where you can go with your thoughts than having thoughts in the first place. You can be wrong and lost for a while, but it's sometimes worth it when there's a purpose.

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

wow im very unobservant. sorry haku. i just didnt notice you turned 30

i get my flaw here is assuming that a thing's value is fixed and contextually independent. but i feel like there has to be a way to discuss this, even if imprecisely (i.e. there should be a generally agreed upon value for some things/thoughts/ideas)

i also agree with haku's response to awein

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

You're ignoring the value of a thought being impacted by the relevance to the situation. Well-researched, clearly articulated facts about good tax theory are useful. Not when somebody is trying to change a car tire.

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

i don't understand. isn't this a part of context?

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

Yes / No

Take your pick, they're both as wrong as the other

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

personally i see decisiveness as its own form of intellect, but aweins onto something there

devonin too.. contextualize the situation and the applicability of the thought vs its repercussions before you go giving it any merit

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

depends which direction of time the thoughts are focuseds too. foresight v hindsight the answers can be completely flipped

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

Thoughts are actually just a piece of the puzzle that fuel your entire daily life.
Thoughts are useful.
Thoughts will waste your and others time.
Thoughts will also help you move forward with everything.

Here's the framework of thoughts if you put all the pieces together:
---
Event -> Observation -> Filter -> Thinking@Thoughts+(Core Values) -> Decision.
---
An Event is something that happens that is considered a fact.
Observation is putting yourself into a context.
Filtering is taking your life experience/beliefs and drawing your own picture of how you perceive what is happening. (this is different depending on who you are because otherwise everyone would think the same thing)
Thinking is simply organizing information based on what you see, what you know and what could be relevant based on your experience in general.
Core values are the fundamental beliefs of a person. It defines how you will take action after you think about something.
Decision is mostly taking action to reflect everything else you did before that point. It can be frustrating if you're not decisive, but you'll get there with practice hopefully. (shoutouts to second guessing)
---
Example:

Funny gets on Flash Flash Revolution. This is an event.
Funny observes the thread "are most thoughts useful or useless"
Funny filters the information given to her by the other users who are posting in the thread.
Funny thinks about what she's going to post.
Funny decides to post something.
---

tl;dr: You guys are overthinking "thinking" because it's just a part of a bigger mechanism which is the entire decision making of a person.

Most thoughts are useful because they help you draw a picture of the current reality which will help you understand what you should do about what's around you to reach your goal.

So, the more you think, research, ask others or even a group about what you want; the more likely you are to get a full understanding of what you're looking for without bias.

I wouldn't be surprised if thinking also had mental health benefits because it may feed creativity and open the door to enjoying your life more by asking yourself the right questions to potentially reach new positive situations.

It's okay, I'm going to pretend you didn't notice that you noticed I turned 30.

A thing's value is fixed.
A thing's value is dependant of the person.
A person's view of the thing is independant and may change over time.

tl;dr overall:

- Thoughts are useful because they are part of a bigger mechanism that is your decision making which is really important in life.
- It can be influenced by yourself, others or both at same time.
- Everything you think about matters because you decided to invest time thinking about it.
- You wouldn't invest time thinking about something that doesn't matter to you because it doesn't matter to you.
- If you invested time thinking about something that doesn't matter to you, it means you decided to place value into it therefore it's no longer something that doesn't matter to you.
- Useless thoughts would be thoughts that you decided to discard because they were no longer relevant to your reality. Every other thoughts would be meaningful/useful.

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

depends on what you do with the thoughts

Re: are most thoughts useful or useless
 

lmao