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Realized by Jamie on December 9 2011:

Jamie: Human nature is odd. We crave new things, but simultaneously dislike change.

Phil: Not that odd; we like to choose and hate to have things forced on us. We usually embrace the changes that we have chosen for ourselves.

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6 comments so far

Martin S 09 Dec 11

Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher, 1813 – 1855) said it too: “Everybody wants progress – nobody wants change” Human nature indeed.

Good point by Phil. A sense of control (or lack thereof) will affect our perception of the changes we face.

Jean-Rémy Duboc 09 Dec 11

Hopefully this lecture will make the issue of why we do the things we do clearer for everyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yT477trEMA

David Tolsma 09 Dec 11

People generally love change, they hate learning.

jimmeh2 09 Dec 11

Crows intellectual life can be divided into two periods the first is one of curiosity and novelty seeking and the second part an extreme aversion to anything new. It’s interesting to hypothesise (though as a rule I hate such armchair evolutionary hypothesising because it’s impossible to prove and usually used to argue for a social bias, e.g. social Darwinism) that this was conditioned evolutionary by a need to stake a a territory early and life and having survived tho ordeal into adulthood, not make any changes to what ended up being successful behaviour and conducive envirnment.

Nate 09 Dec 11

Hmm, Phil, as humans I think we hate choosing too :) That’s why people like Rails and 37signals so much after all, you guys don’t give people that hated state of “what do i choose now” very often.

Hamid 13 Dec 11

We love to choose and act on their decisions.

Comments are closed