Now it would certainly be tempting to define rationality as something like “only taking actions that you endorse in the long term”, but I’d be cautious of that.
Indeed, and there’s another big reason for that—trying to always override your short-term “monkey brain” impulses just doesn’t work that well for most people. That’s the root of akrasia, which certainly isn’t a problem that self-identified rationalists are immune to. What seems to be a better approach is to find compromises, where you develop workable long-term strategies which involve neither unlimited amounts of proverbial ice cream, nor total abstinence.
But I think that quite a few people who care about “health” actually care about not appearing low status by doing things that everyone knows are unhealthy.
Which is a good thing, in this particular case, yes? That’s cultural evolution properly doing its job, as far as I’m concerned.
Indeed, and there’s another big reason for that—trying to always override your short-term “monkey brain” impulses just doesn’t work that well for most people.
+1.
Which is a good thing, in this particular case, yes?
Less smoking does seem better than more smoking. Though generally it doesn’t seem to me like social stigma would be a very effective way of reducing unhealthy behaviors—lots of those behaviors are ubiquitous despite being somewhat low-status. I think the problem is at least threefold:
As already mentioned, social stigma tends to cause optimization to avoid having the appearance of doing the low-status thing, instead of optimization to avoid doing the low-status thing. (To be clear, it does cause the latter too, but it doesn’t cause the latter anywhere near exclusively.)
Social stigma easily causes counter-reactions where people turn the stigmatized thing into an outright virtue, or at least start aggressively holding that it’s not actually that bad.
Shame makes things wonky in various ways. E.g. someone who feels they’re out of shape may feel so much shame about the thought of doing badly if they try to exercise, they don’t even try. For compulsive habits like smoking, there’s often a loop where someone feels bad, turns to smoking to feel momentarily better, then feels even worse for having smoked, then because they feel even worse they are drawn even more strongly into smoking to feel momentarily better, etc.
I think generally people can maintain healthy habits much more consistently if their motivation comes from genuinely believing in the health benefits and wanting to feel better. But of course that’s harder to spread on a mass scale, especially since not everyone actually feels better from healthy habits (e.g. some people feel better from exercise but some don’t).
Then again, for the specific example of smoking in particular, stigma does seem to have reduced the amount of it (in part due to mechanisms like indoor smoking bans), so sometimes it does work anyway.
Though generally it doesn’t seem to me like social stigma would be a very effective way of reducing unhealthy behaviors
I agree, as far as it goes, but surely we shouldn’t be quick to dismiss stigma, as uncouth as it might seem, if our social technology isn’t developed enough yet to actually provide any very effective approaches instead? Humans are wired to care about status a great deal, so it’s no surprise that traditional enforcement mechanisms tend to lean heavily into that.
I think generally people can maintain healthy habits much more consistently if their motivation comes from genuinely believing in the health benefits and wanting to feel better.
Humans are also wired with hyperbolic discounting, which doesn’t simply go away when you brand it as an irrational bias. (I do in general feel that this community is too quick to dismiss “biases” as “irrational”, they clearly were plenty useful in the evolutionary environment, and I’d guess still aren’t quite as obsolete as the local consensus would have it, but that’s a different discussion.)
Indeed, and there’s another big reason for that—trying to always override your short-term “monkey brain” impulses just doesn’t work that well for most people. That’s the root of akrasia, which certainly isn’t a problem that self-identified rationalists are immune to. What seems to be a better approach is to find compromises, where you develop workable long-term strategies which involve neither unlimited amounts of proverbial ice cream, nor total abstinence.
Which is a good thing, in this particular case, yes? That’s cultural evolution properly doing its job, as far as I’m concerned.
+1.
Less smoking does seem better than more smoking. Though generally it doesn’t seem to me like social stigma would be a very effective way of reducing unhealthy behaviors—lots of those behaviors are ubiquitous despite being somewhat low-status. I think the problem is at least threefold:
As already mentioned, social stigma tends to cause optimization to avoid having the appearance of doing the low-status thing, instead of optimization to avoid doing the low-status thing. (To be clear, it does cause the latter too, but it doesn’t cause the latter anywhere near exclusively.)
Social stigma easily causes counter-reactions where people turn the stigmatized thing into an outright virtue, or at least start aggressively holding that it’s not actually that bad.
Shame makes things wonky in various ways. E.g. someone who feels they’re out of shape may feel so much shame about the thought of doing badly if they try to exercise, they don’t even try. For compulsive habits like smoking, there’s often a loop where someone feels bad, turns to smoking to feel momentarily better, then feels even worse for having smoked, then because they feel even worse they are drawn even more strongly into smoking to feel momentarily better, etc.
I think generally people can maintain healthy habits much more consistently if their motivation comes from genuinely believing in the health benefits and wanting to feel better. But of course that’s harder to spread on a mass scale, especially since not everyone actually feels better from healthy habits (e.g. some people feel better from exercise but some don’t).
Then again, for the specific example of smoking in particular, stigma does seem to have reduced the amount of it (in part due to mechanisms like indoor smoking bans), so sometimes it does work anyway.
I agree, as far as it goes, but surely we shouldn’t be quick to dismiss stigma, as uncouth as it might seem, if our social technology isn’t developed enough yet to actually provide any very effective approaches instead? Humans are wired to care about status a great deal, so it’s no surprise that traditional enforcement mechanisms tend to lean heavily into that.
Humans are also wired with hyperbolic discounting, which doesn’t simply go away when you brand it as an irrational bias. (I do in general feel that this community is too quick to dismiss “biases” as “irrational”, they clearly were plenty useful in the evolutionary environment, and I’d guess still aren’t quite as obsolete as the local consensus would have it, but that’s a different discussion.)