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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: November 30th, 2023

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  • Yeah, everything I’ve been hearing in the last couple of years has talked about how traditional fact checking methods do not sway beliefs. The few things I’ve heard work are innoculation and ridicule.

    Inoculation (telling someone about conspiracies before they’re encountered) seems like it could be used in favor of whatever ideology, not just the truth.

    And ridicule (couch sex memes and “weird”), seems to work because it specifically targets the “follow the strong man” approach that many fools take to belief building. Like that can’t be applicable generally, can it?

    I am yet to learn of a solid framework + practical methods which work to guide people toward belief based in reality.

    Perhaps it’s multi-faceted. First make them feel like part of a community, which grounds them in experience and removes the most insane conspiracies/fear, then they’ll be grounded enough to accept some media & scientific literacy education?
















  • For most people, big breaks in habits fall apart fast, while more gradual changes stick.

    For example, many make resolutions to get fit, and start a bunch of related things. But since none of it is habitual, it requires mental effort to do consistently. Soon, something else important requires that mental attention, and the plan falls apart.

    The successful ones aren’t special, but they created one, little, achievable metric to hit:

    1. “Subscribe to 2 science-based fitness influencers and watch their content regularly”.

    Because it was easy, it became habit. Then, they chose another simple thing to build on:

    1. “Change evening commute to pass by gym”
    2. “On Tuesdays, go into gym”
    3. “Learn proper form for one excercise”
    4. “Bring a protein shake”
    5. etc.

    Each of these is so small they don’t really feel significant at all. And they’re not. The important thing to understand is we’re all lazy. The real challenge isn’t getting yourself onto a diet or into the gym, it’s designing your habits so that the diet isn’t “a diet”, it’s just what you eat. It’s designing your life so that going to the gym requires less mental effort than not going.

    I could write a lot more about this but it’s already getting long. Atomic Habits is a good book on how to design your habits and habit chains, if you have the time.