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If the only basis for perception of speed is essentially deceit, ``being less annoying'' means it lies to you more --- I don't think I'd call that an intrinsically positive feature.


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I prefer feeling faster than being faster (when they're mutually exclusive, which of course isn't always the case).

Agreed. The illusion of speed gets you some of the benefits of actual speed, user satisfaction in particular.

The speed serves only to gain an informational advantage. That's what the speed is for.

Even your example of faster speed is subjective. Some people may prefer the limitation of less speed. It's subjective.

Thought experiment: two programs take exactly the same time to complete a task but one of them is perceived as slow and the other as fast (for whatever reason). Shouldn't this make the latter the better one of the two programs? At least I would count "being less annoying than the other program" (assuming that perceived slowness is annoying) as a positive feature.

Its not just about speed.

To me just doing something repetitive is annoying, and reducing that annoyance is just a nicer experience, regardless of speed.


Slow enough to notice is slow enough to annoy somebody out there. Yes certainly there are diminishing returns, but if you can be noticeably faster than your competitors, that makes a really good impression.

Uninteresting speeds that allow for us to even exist at all. Maybe not so uninteresting :) (I know what you meant though).

It’s never fast enough until people can’t tell the difference. “Pretty fast” is meaningless in that context. What matters is whether it is perceptibly faster or slower.

Speed is not the only measure of clunkiness.

>Speed also incentivizes corner cutting, nepotism, and all sorts of corrupt behavior.

Slowness is surely even better for nepotism and corrupt behaviour.


You are probably right regarding speed, but the article is definitely not pointless and bad.

Indeed, this is the part of the behavior I was referring to :) It's a good point about the speed though - not the perfect analogy.

I really don't think the speed thing is as clearcut as you let it out to be

I guess I see 'Speed as a Habit' and take the article as culture setting and a negative. It seems like you see the article as a way to avoid poor decision making and planning habits and a positive. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Agreed. He’s unnecessarily conflating “fast” and “bad”. Often times people move quickly because they know what they’re doing, not because they’re mindlessly flailing.

The attempt to characterize the two traits as inseparable is like drawing a picture of a <demographic_x> robbing a store and showing it to people like “See how awful <demographic_x> is?”. There’s no actual evidence, it’s just a baseless assertion.


I would say that "quickly sped" is bad merely because it's redundant. Nobody "slowly speeds".

More than that, speed is vastly overrated in a lot of cases.

That is like comparing cars based on the latency of the door unlock button.

I mean sure, faster is better, but door unlock speed is probably not the problem that makes people think a car is “slow”.

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