Hi, just wanted to say I find your writing very prescient and pleasant! You seem to see the world with a great amount of wisdom and humility. Reading your work often feels like little lightbulbs lighting up in my head, making clear things I might’ve noticed but never annealed. It’s all the nicer to get a view into that from your enjoyable writing style. Best wishes and keep posting!
Thinking about why this is so effective as a marketing technique -- they kind of capitalize on the feeling of hope.
If someone has low motivation, then it's hard to be encouraged by messaging like "yeah improving is a long slog, but if you keep doing this class for another year, you'll maybe be 30% better at doing splits." One appeal of snake oil-y claims, as long as they're not too extreme to be unbelievable, is they give enough of a spike in hope to hold motivation in the short term. And even if they don't end up being true in the long term, they helped you stick to the program long enough so that after a while, you're already bought into the long slog.
Everything you said was so spot on, but more than that, I’ve read multiple posts of yours so far and I’m really impressed by your insight and analytical abilities. I think it’s a really rare skill to not only be able to conceptualize something like conversion bias, in this case, but then be able to apply it to so many broader facets of culture, such as the trad wife vs girl boss paradigm you mentioned. I’m looking forward to your next posts!
Great post, it reminds me of https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/k2kzawX5L3Z7aGbov/on-not-pulling-the-ladder-up-behind-you, I think you're both pointing to similar, and very valuable, ideas. It's been a while since I read that post, not sure how similar or different what you're saying is to that one, just adding a signpost to further exploration if others are interested :)
Hi, just wanted to say I find your writing very prescient and pleasant! You seem to see the world with a great amount of wisdom and humility. Reading your work often feels like little lightbulbs lighting up in my head, making clear things I might’ve noticed but never annealed. It’s all the nicer to get a view into that from your enjoyable writing style. Best wishes and keep posting!
omg thank you! well im certainly not feeling very humble after this kind comment!
omg thank you!
Thinking about why this is so effective as a marketing technique -- they kind of capitalize on the feeling of hope.
If someone has low motivation, then it's hard to be encouraged by messaging like "yeah improving is a long slog, but if you keep doing this class for another year, you'll maybe be 30% better at doing splits." One appeal of snake oil-y claims, as long as they're not too extreme to be unbelievable, is they give enough of a spike in hope to hold motivation in the short term. And even if they don't end up being true in the long term, they helped you stick to the program long enough so that after a while, you're already bought into the long slog.
Everything you said was so spot on, but more than that, I’ve read multiple posts of yours so far and I’m really impressed by your insight and analytical abilities. I think it’s a really rare skill to not only be able to conceptualize something like conversion bias, in this case, but then be able to apply it to so many broader facets of culture, such as the trad wife vs girl boss paradigm you mentioned. I’m looking forward to your next posts!
Great post, it reminds me of https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/k2kzawX5L3Z7aGbov/on-not-pulling-the-ladder-up-behind-you, I think you're both pointing to similar, and very valuable, ideas. It's been a while since I read that post, not sure how similar or different what you're saying is to that one, just adding a signpost to further exploration if others are interested :)