The Incredible Overcomplexity of the Shadcn Radio Button, by @paulhebert:
#complexity
🧠⚖️ How our #brain makes #decisions & free will arises 🔍✨
In this #Zoomposium, #DanielDennett explains how #consciousness, #freewill, and decision-making can be understood from a #naturalisticperspective—and how insights from #cognitivescience and #philosophy help us better understand the #complexity of our #mind.
📽 https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk
📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2023/12/25/naturalistic-view/
#PhilosophyOfMind #ArtificialIntelligence #AGI #Naturalism #Materialism
Why Your Productivity Systems Collapse
Sure the Internet is amazing. You can start today with a tool like Obsidian then head to r/ObsidianMD or YouTube and find many creators willing to show you their note system, including myself. Unfortunately this also brings along complexity to the beginner who doesn’t need the solutions being pedalled as they start their note journey.
It’s easy for the beginner to open a tool, then search for a bunch ways others use the tool then overload themselves with complexity that looked cool but serves no purpose in their workflow. They follow others into complexity then everything bogs down under a pile of precariously balanced actions that were added not to solve a problem, but because it looked cool when someone online showed it to them. Then the system collapses and they scrap everything and migrate to a new tool/system because the problem was clearly the tool.
Then they repeat the cycle with a new tool adding complexity they don’t need to solve problems they don’t have because it looked cool and someone in the productivity content creator said it worked for them.
Complexity Curves
The prime example of this is the Midwit curve meme. Applying this to Obsidian we see the new user creating a few folders and then some files inside. They watch some videos and read some posts then add on huge amounts of complexity with extra folders and as many plugins as sound cool. Then they realize they’re not using any of it and they go back to just some folders and some files.
A prime example I came across recently is this question about folder names. Evidently they have so many folders and the users naming scheme is opaque enough that the folder alone isn’t enough to know what the folder is for.
I contend that if the folder name isn’t enough to tell you what the folder is for, you’re way past the point of too much complexity.
Complexity Cycles
The second type of complexity dynamic we see regularly is the circle. We’ve seen this with computing, where it was far too expensive for anyone to afford a computer so the computer was housed at a large institution and you got time on it. Then computing moved into the business and home, we owned our computing. Now AI puts much of the computing in the hands of big corporations again because they can afford1 the computing power needed for AI.
Websites were once hosted on a computer in your home. You moved it to a server you purchased and put in a co-location provider. Then it moved to the cloud, and now people are owning their servers again and self hosting your software is gaining in popularity.
Websites were once just HTML and CSS2 served to the user. Then we had build processes like gulp and grunt which turned into webpack and vite. In theory these build processes saved us time, but when they broke get ready to spend days sorting out dependency trees. Now we’re looking down the barrel of #nobuild, dropping a build process all together.
Those are just a few examples of how a complexity cycle works. Each cycle follows the same pattern: centralize, abstract, collapse under its own weight, simplify again.
The Mastery Curve
There was a time before we were all connected that you built your own system that met the real problems you encountered every day. If you got advice from someone, it was someone closely related that had similar problems. If you were a farmer then you heard from other farmers. Maybe the local dentist heard about your problem and explained a solution that he felt matched from his practice.
You didn’t have the option to search for answers across the whole world spanning many fields unrelated to to yours. This constraint was a forcing function that stopped needless complexity.
The incentives creators have for monetization can see them creating contrived solutions because a title will get clicks, and it’s their job to get clicks. Some of them look to build a system so they can build a business off the back of the system and sell you courses and coaching.
Creators don’t do this to fool you, they have families to feed and businesses to run. To make this happen they need to match their output to the incentives provided by their platform.
Most of the time when you add complexity because it worked for someone else you’re just looking for a quick fix because something doesn’t feel right. You’re looking to alleviate that feeling nagging at the back of your head, that somewhere there is a magic way to take notes that will yield amazing writing with less effort. The reality is that writing is hard and takes time, always.
When you get better at thinking and writing, you find that writing and thinking takes time and is hard. There is no magic, you just have to think and put in the time struggling with terrible ideas to find the ones that are golden beneath all the shit.
The ideal mastery curve only increases in complexity because you’ve identified a problem you’re currently having.
- You’ve spent enough time thinking about the problem that you have a one or two sentence description of it
- Does the solution add or remove friction? Friction can be good
- You understand that changing your tool won’t work in 99% of cases
- You’re willing to spend the time, maybe months, evaluating options to find the one that fits your problems
That’s how I got my Org Mode +Agenda workflow that made meeting topics easy. It’s how I built my Obsidian setup. It’s why I often say that I’m simply showing you what I do. Keep it or don’t, just do what works for you.
This slow methodical approach is why it takes me months to fix an issue in my systems. I’ll write down what the problem is, then maybe spend months watching for a possible solution before I try anything.
Next time you’re trolling productivity or note taking message boards (or YouTube) stop and think about the problem you’re trying to solve. If you can’t write it down in a sentence or two, you don’t understand it. Don’t spend your time looking for something cool that will magically fix your issues. Spend your time identifying the issue at hand so you have a narrow scope to search for your fix.
Try to only add complexity if it directly helps your goals. Mine is to have more time to think and read. If a new tool doesn’t help me turn out better writing with more relationships between my notes then I don’t use it. I watch lots of content on thinking and Obsidian when I’m otherwise occupied riding my indoor bike trainer, and implement little.
- Let’s be real, they can’t afford it. Rich people that think they can 10x their money can afford to burn it on the off chance they’ll get that 10x ↩︎
- Yes I’m aware they were just HTML/Tables and fire gifs at one point too ↩︎
Why Your Productivity Systems Collapse
Sure the Internet is amazing. You can start today with a tool like Obsidian then head to r/ObsidianMD or YouTube and find many creators willing to show you their note system, including myself. Unfortunately this also brings along complexity to the beginner who doesn't need the solutions being pedalled as they start their no
https://curtismchale.ca/2026/01/24/why-your-productivity-systems-collapse/
#3Threads #complexity #emacs #Obsidian #productivity
We're living in an age of audacity. George Bush communicates in terms of audacity. Democrats communicate in terms of complexity.
-- Eric Dezenhall
⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #EricDezenhall #Audacity #Communication #Complexity
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Pictographs #RockArt #NativeAmerican #Utah
We often treat decision-making as a purely cognitive exercise. But bodies, context, and relationships are doing quiet work in the background.
Some of our worst decisions come from our "best" analysis, so here's how a more embodied approach can help:
https://blog.dougbelshaw.com/decision-making/
#DecisionMaking #SystemsThinking #CriticalThinking #Complexity
New blog post: How I came to know John Cage in the mountains of Western NC and regularly stumble on ways his thinking has helped me navigate complexity.
https://www.sounding.com/2026/01/20/scale-is-step-by-step/
#JohnCage #BlackMountain #Complexity #Riak #SaltStack #DistributedDatabases #DistributedSystems #ComplexSystems #SystemsThinking
Ah, #wxpath, because using #XPath was just too easy before 🙄. Now with extra layers of #complexity, just in case you weren't already confused enough by web crawling! 🕸️😵💫
https://github.com/rodricios/wxpath #webcrawling #technews #developerhumor #HackerNews #ngated
Does anyone know if there's a term for a complex adaptive system going off the rails due to internal dynamics? YouTube rabbit-hole style? Where "on the rails" might mean "the intended state" in a social system, or it might mean "sustainable" in an ecological system.
#complexity #complexAdaptiveSystems #comlexityScience #systemsThinking
why should you give a fuck about this niche ass, inaccessible sophistry?
because that is the way to go on about understanding phenomena in #complexsystems. it is by far not the only way to think about it, systems science is wast and diverse. but it is a good start to wrap your head around things like #overshoot and hysteresis, things happening in the complex world around us which are hard to grasp and often get misunderstood. it is #complexity literacy.
and disclaimer: #doomers will say: isn't it good then when trumps breaks down the #complexity. to those i can only say: you have no fucking idea what that might all cause. complexity, a rich network of feedbacks is also what makes systems adaptable. real smart people say it is what makes life. #trump is breaking that down, also. we might live in a simpler world bc of #trump, yeah. but it will still be a world on the brink. that has not changed from a #climatechange perspective, #limitstogrowth perspective, #peakoil perspective - you name it. we might be a lot less capable of doing anything about it.
🚀 Introducing ChunkHound: the revolutionary way to pretend you understand your massive #codebase by adding more complexity! 🤯 Because who wouldn't want a local-first tool to navigate a labyrinthine mess, when your real problem is that you can't even find the "print 'Hello, World!'" line? 😅
https://github.com/chunkhound/chunkhound #ChunkHound #Complexity #LocalFirst #Navigation #HackerNews #ngated
https://johntinker.substack.com/p/the-human-soul-and-its-machinery Looking into our relationship to complex systems. #human #soul #machine #complexity #economics #politics #democracy #freedom #liberation
Giochi matemagici: chaos, farfalle, strani attrattori
Coding con java in Processing IDE
Il sistema di equazioni che genera il famoso "attrattore di Lorenz" (Edward N. Lorenz, 1963) mi ha sempre affascinato. Queste curve occupano densamente lo spazio. I valori generati dal sistema ruotando intorno a due punti di attrazione (in questo caso), ma non si ripetono mai esattamente dunque la curva che li rappresenta finisce per occupare densamente uno spazio danzando tra i due attrattori senza mai passare per il medesimo punto.
Per evidenziare questa dinamica ho aggiunto la funzione di zooming per verificare visivamente la distanza tra i tratti di curva apparentemente sovrapposti.
Una curva che rinnova continuamente sé stessa muovendosi incessantemente tra i due punti di equilibrio dinamico... una ispirazione su come muoversi tra i due "attrattori" delle scienze positive e di quelle umanistiche.
#twilight hour #clouds #sky #photpgraphy #layers of #complexity
What is the best simple explanation that the complex systems are complex?
#ComplexSystems #Complexity #Systems
Sarah Firth. Dancing With Complexity. https://sarahthefirth.substack.com/p/dancing-with-complexity .
John Gall. Systems Bible. https://www.generalsystemantics.com/product/the-systems-bible/ .
Nobody Knows How Large Software Products Work, by @seangoedecke.bsky.social:
https://www.seangoedecke.com/nobody-knows-how-software-products-work/
🥳 Oh, joy! Another "revolutionary" way to debug your GitHub Actions with enough #complexity and buzzwords to launch a 🚀. Who knew that what the world really needed was yet another #WebRTC hack to make our lives "easier"? 🙄
https://blog.gripdev.xyz/2026/01/10/actions-terminal-on-failure-for-debugging/ #GitHubActions #Debugging #Innovation #TechBuzz #HackerNews #ngated
🔥 Wow, #pyinfra does what every #sysadmin dreams of: turning #Python into shell commands. Because who doesn't love more layers of abstraction and complexity? 😅 Now you can automate the chaos of managing your servers with a tool that is definitely not over-complicating things! 🚀
https://github.com/pyinfra-dev/pyinfra #automation #shellcommands #servermanagement #complexity #HackerNews #ngated
The Blueprint for System Change | Ash Sarkar Meets Extinction Rebellion Founder Roger Hallam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC2VT3RkiYo #Strategy #Change #Complexity #Politics
https://benjamin.parry.is/collecting/links/2026/01/the-blueprint-for-system-change/
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