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From an individual-level analysis, I agree that adopting personal responsibility is the way to go. The problem is that it doesn't seem to work en masse.
(I added the following to the main text of this post.)
Research suggests that "~80% of people who shed a significant portion of their body fat will not maintain that degree of weight loss for 12 months" and that "dieters regain, on average, more than half of what they lose within two years."
Obesity and related chronic diseases are systemic issues. They'll likely only be solved through systemic means rather than via the determination of individuals trying to stand against the system that's intent on keeping them fat and sick.
My point is not that individual people shouldn't try to improve their health. It's that, ultimately, people are a reflection of their environment. And the environment we've created over the past 100 years is killing us.
Who generated the hot takes? I'd love to see the full list.
I never give advice. Instead, everything is Socratic Dialogue.
In theorizing why this works, I've come to think of it in terms of inferential distances. The distance between somebody else's net experiences and my own is so vast, that giving advice is futile (and more of an indication that the advice-giver wants to feel self-important).
People are experts on themselves. Given enough space and gentle enough questions from an active listener, they often have the capacity to solve their own problems.
I never ask about the past and I never dig into trauma. I focus on what they’re predicting in the present.
^That's what surprised me about Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. There's not an absolute need to unearth and relive the past---doing so can retraumatize people and make recovery more difficult. (Learning people's stories are so delightful, so I often have to restrain myself from asking prying questions to fulfill my curiosity when I'm intending to help people heal).
Instead, the focus of healing (from many forms of therapy) is more about understanding the present moment and how we relate to it.
Sure! Here are two of my favorites.
(1) From Leil Lowndes' book:
Don't ask what they do. In the US in my experience, the most common question upon meeting someone is "what do you do?" But the problem with this is that while 65% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs, only 20% of Americans are passionate about their work. From Lowndes:
If you instead ask, "How do you enjoy spending most of your time?" It allows people to mention their job or their hobbies. And homemakers are no longer embarrassed to say, "I'm just a mom" to the question of "what do you do?"
(2) From Dale Carnegie's book:
Never disagree and say "you're wrong". I am a naturally disagreeable person. Learning about this technique hasn't made me more agreeable, I just express my disagreement differently now. From Carnegie:
Never announce, "I am going to prove so-and-so to you." That's bad. That's tantamount to saying: "I am smarter than you are and am going to make you change your mind."
"We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance; but if we are told we are wrong, we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with a passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened."—James Harvey Robinson
I've adopted a more indirect way of challenging people's beliefs. Rather than stating my disagreement, I tend to ask questions (à la the Socratic Method) to get to the root of somebody's belief. Sometimes they'll notice contradictions in their own arguments without me having to point them out.
To avoid the interview-style conversation, I don't have to wait for someone to ask me a question. I can just open up and share relatable things (via conversational signposts) about my life. And if they're not biting, like at all, it's possible we may not have much in common. At that point, it's okay to make a polite excuse to exit the conversation.
The other consideration is that some people feel awkward asking personal questions. To those more introverted people, I praise any questions they ask me. Here's an example:
Them: "How's work going?"
Me: "Thanks for asking! It's going well, though, I'm a bit frustrated at the moment with my boss."
Them: "Frustrated in what way?"
Me: "Hmm, good question...[thinking] I guess it's because he doesn't listen to my input."
^I'm demonstrating that I value their input and encouraging them to ask more questions. (See: Don't Shoot the Dog).
(Also, I removed the McKinsey example. I don't think it was adding much to the concept of conversational signposts).
Conversational signposts are just one technique to improve social interactions. For more advanced techniques, I would recommend checking out:
- How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships by Leil Lowndes
- How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
I still struggle with some of my old problems – particularly anxiety, loneliness and occasional depression
I still struggle with these, as well. Another LessWrong user (@Chipmonk) mentioned in a post the book Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation. After taking his recommendation and reading that book, it gave me a new perspective that I don't have to run away from these negative emotions. In fact, not only can I openly accept them, but when I chose to actively love them, it liberated my thought space and allowed me to non-judgmentally witness these emotions.
The book also helped me to finally understand and appreciate author Tara Brach's short story about Buddha and Mara.
Memento mori.
What are your natural reset points?
I have a Type A personality and feel that I need to be doing something productive at all times. But this behavior can lead to excessive mental fatigue. To combat my cumulative fatigue, I wrote for myself a list of "Coping mechanisms for stress and ways to recover energy" and posted it in my apartment.
The list:
- Walk or lay down to process my thoughts
- Journal
- Yoga or meditate
- Sunbathe
- Call a friend
- Play piano or guitar
Rationality begins with the realization that everything you know is wrong.
Hmm, well that makes perfect sense and my mind is changed. As I was reading this post, I was cleaning out some bath water when I noticed a baby in it---I threw it all out.
I appreciate your comment because it let me know that more focus should be given to the general concept of "hiding something in peanut butter", versus my specific application of it. I edited the post to reflect this. Thanks!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What can I say, that's my peanut butter.
Extrapolating from the general concept, I wonder what other people's "peanut butter" is? Meaning, what's a difficult task that people have successfully hidden between doing things they love?
"Albeit these healthier foods still probably have a higher baseline price."
Maybe in the short-term, but considering the lifetime consequences of unhealthy eating (e.g., atherosclerosis, heart disease, cancer, dementia---Dr. Peter Attia's stated 4 horsemen of death that account for 80% of death in the US---not to mention the emotional damage on your mood and potential productivity), the cost/benefit analysis seems heavily weighted in favor of eating healthier foods.
Statistical problems require systemic solutions.
All memes aside, I loved this post. The graphic of combining options to create a successful plan resonated with me and unlocked something in my brain. I've never thought about it quite like this.
I've had problems with addictive behaviors in the past. The way I overcame them was via your idea of coordinating multiple things all at once. I just kept writing down every trigger or circumstance that promoted relapse. With each new one I wrote down, I'd say, "well, at least this thing won't get me again. It may be a different thing tomorrow, but at least it won't be this thing since I'm keeping an eye on it now."
It depends on what one does with the information they learn.
Some posts I enjoy reading for the hell of them (trivia). Some posts feel like I'm making progress towards something, but I fall short of actually changing (mental masturbation). Whereas my favorites posts (e.g., My Fear Heuristic, Unlocking Solutions) produced measurable and lasting changes in my behavior (effective information).
The specific classification from my framework differs from person-to-person since information affects people differently. Something that is effective information for me may be mental masturbation for another person.
To some extent, writing is like creating long-form memes. Meme being defined as: an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other nongenetic means. Not all memes are dank. But some are and their idea sticks with me.
I’m not a huge fan of television or videos.
Sometimes I consider videos to be effective information, depending on the context.
For example, last week I needed to replace my car’s windshield wipers. Reading the user’s manual was not helpful and more mental masturbation than anything else. Whereas watching some random dude’s one-minute tutorial on YouTube helped me visualize the process and achieve my goal.
yet another 2x2
The examples you chose for this 2x2 made me laugh, thanks!
I concur. The crux, for me, is whether or not I want to do the particular task.
If I want to do the task, say writing, but I'm not feeling motivated, then enough time being bored will eventually create for me the conditions to be more interested in writing than in staying bored.
If I do not want to do the task, say my taxes, then boredom or doing nothing may actually be preferable. In this case, boredom is not a sufficient motivator and I need to cognitively reframe how I'm thinking of the task and how to approach it. I wrote about this in a previous post, Facts vs Interpretations—An Exercise in Cognitive Reframing. Bludgeoning myself with normative "shoulds/oughts" is, in my opinion, a subpar coping mechanism compared to reframing my thoughts to better align with the task so that I'll want to do it.
The snake shrugged
My imagination is not creative enough to envision how this can occur when a snake has neither a neck or arms...
I don't think this was intended to be funny, but I laughed anyway.
Reminds me Parkinson's Law, which states work expands to fill the time given to complete it. So if at your job you manage to improve your efficiency and decrease your workload by 50%, your employer's "reward" for you is to fill that time with more work.
Entrepreneur Naval Ravikant has said previously that one of his favorite employees was this one guy who was more productive than all other employees while only doing 2 hours of work per day. The rest of his 8-hour work day (6 hours) was spent watching cricket matches.
Naval had to constantly tell managers to leave that hyper-productive employee alone because they wanted to fill his day with more work to do. Those managers failed to realize that if the productive employee was forced to work (or pretend to look busy) for a full 8 hours, that he might get burned out and quit.
I see the point all of you are making, thank you. I agree that a last name muddies things--I deleted it from the post.
Your homeless person or professor story made me think of my uncle. He lives in his car, by choice.
He has a computer science degree and worked for a lot of top technology companies in the 80s and 90s. Eventually his disdain for the employee lifestyle inspired him to try his hand at the entrepreneurial route. Turns out he's neither a good employee, nor a good entrepreneur. After a couple bad start-ups, he went broke.
On two separate occasions during my childhood he stayed with my family in our home (with the precondition that he maintains employment somewhere). It lasted...for a while. But he grew bored. He prefers to live in his car and read books in the library than work "for the man".
I see him once a year on Thanksgiving now. Last year we talked about particle physics and blackholes.
I sometimes feel the pressure of making a first draft of a short article perfect (or at least really good). But historically that's never been the case. My first drafts are usually dumpster fires thrown into bigger dumpster fires.
The way I'm able to approach writing a first draft is through the use of two mental tricks. (1) I pretend it's just another journal entry I'm writing---that takes the pressure off and I don't take myself too seriously. (2) I recognize that the majority of what I write in a first draft never makes it to the final draft. The first draft is merely an exercise in structured thinking. The refinement comes later through editing.
It's probably in part generational, with younger people more influenced by this tech culture. One of my inspirations to write this post was this other LW post: Notifications Received in 30 Minutes of Class.
I say often that the fundamental unit of human experience is the story. We love stories. And the best stories are the ones with a sprinkle of drama in them. A story about a rich kid who never struggled? Boring! A story of riches-to-rags-to-riches? Sign me up!
Why? Because stories are a form of Supernormal Stimuli. We like to live vicariously through the lives of more interesting people. And it just so happens that the lives of interesting people are usually filled with some amount of suffering that they're able to transcend. That's why people like superhero movies. We relate to the struggle and rejoice when the hero wins the battle (for maybe we, too, can overcome our struggles).
other than was it is
*other than what it is
I worked from short sits up to longer sits
Remove the word "up" for clarity?
My original intent was in talking about how I shouldn't use information I found online about the other person to try to impress them (e.g., I find out they used to play volleyball, then slip into conversation that I like volleyball). It makes things messy.
What you're talking about is whether one should try to impress their date in general. In this case, my dating heuristic on what an emotionally healthy person would do is up for narrow interpretation. I say 'narrow' because lying to impress someone would be out of scope for the heuristic. But your interpretation (trying to authentically impress and attract someone), I think most people would agree, would be within scope.
Personally, I try to live a diverse lifestyle and let the other person decide on their own if they find me impressive.
An unintended consequence: While writing this post, I realized that adopting this heuristic for my dating life led to it bleeding into other parts of my life. In conversations with friends, family, bosses, I found myself asking what an emotionally healthy person would do in this context and it improved those interactions, as well.
To make an analogy to diet, you essentially replaced a sugar fix from eating Snickers bars with eating strawberries. Gradation matters!
I had a similar slide with my technologies, as I explained in the post. I eventually landed on reading books. But even that became a form of intellectual procrastination as I wrote in my latest LW post.
Another example of Mental Masturbation I decided to exclude from the main text:
- While playing a piano piece I already know fairly well but am lacking in one specific spot, my brain will say, “Hey, rather than painstakingly drill the 1-2 measures that are tricky, you should play the entire song through to get a balanced perspective of the piece!” To fix this, I put a sticky note on my music stand that says: “Stop Mental Masturbation and practice the hard part!”
The person totally understands the point I'm trying to make, and is then surprised by something I assumed they already understood.
Reminds me of Expecting Short Inferential Distances.
When I watched "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" in theaters last year, the animations were amazing but I left two hours later with a headache. Maybe it's a sign that I'm getting older, but it was just too much for my brain.
Good point. The question I use to identify perceptual blindspots is best suited to ask people who are interested in your genuine well-being. Asking a toxic ex-girlfriend is probably not going to be a productive conversation...
It was outside the scope of the original post and cut for space, but I'll add that these types of conversations operate best when they are a collaboration. Even when I'm the one receiving constructive criticism, I try to help them make the best argument. Then, we can determine together whether it's an accurate assessment. Regardless of its veracity, you may discover a new way that people perceive you that maybe you weren't aware of before.
Depends on the conversation and application. When applied to engineering, math is the language used to solve problems.
Math is also used, for example, to help explain the principles of physics. And the physical laws help tell the story of our universe.
Huh. When I search using either google or duckduckgo they both show the tweet under Images. I edited the above post to include this image, per your suggestion.
I attempted to find additional sources online while writing this post, but there's nothing out there. Perhaps the Youtuber stumbled across it at the time and wrote it down, but it wasn't covered by any media outlets. And that's part of the point I was trying to make---trolls can take you down with no repercussions. Keisha's left to pick up the pieces of her tarnished reputation.
I think it depends on the motivation. If you're trying to become stronger by following shoulds/oughts (ie: external motivation), you'll most likely burnout and may (incorrectly) assign the blame to yourself.
Example: let's say you're trying to lose weight. If the motivation for doing so is because you feel you ought to be healthy or to try to gain the approval of others, then you'll most likely fail. Try to remember previous times in which you attempted to achieve something with the use of external motivation. Did you succeed then? If not, why not?
Let's compare that example with being internally motivated to lose weight. What first has to be asked genuinely is: why exactly do you want to lose weight? Let's say you love the taste of food and believe only unhealthy food tastes great. Then exposure to a healthy-eating cooking class may help you realize that eating healthy is not a substitute for eating great-tasting food. Finding the right motivation is dependent upon being exposed to the right information that is unique to your situation. If the desire to change is not genuine, then you'll never become stronger. So yes, I agree with you that "depression [is] manifested by doing it the wrong way."