“Hard” is just a dormitive principle here. If we observe many people attempting a thing and few succeeding, we call it hard because that is what the word means. It is not an explanation of why most fail, only an observation that they do.
Sort of—the other reasons beside it being hard would be that it’s ineffective as Gwern supposed, or that it’s unpleasant, or that it’s low payoff, or that the current behavior is very pleasant or very high payoff.
All these could effect how hard the effort is, but they could also effect the decision without changing how hard it is to change.
More generally, I assume that LWers are already familiar with things like, willpower depletion, status quo bias, and habit formation that make staying the same easier than changing
“Hard” is just a dormitive principle here. If we observe many people attempting a thing and few succeeding, we call it hard because that is what the word means. It is not an explanation of why most fail, only an observation that they do.
Sort of—the other reasons beside it being hard would be that it’s ineffective as Gwern supposed, or that it’s unpleasant, or that it’s low payoff, or that the current behavior is very pleasant or very high payoff.
All these could effect how hard the effort is, but they could also effect the decision without changing how hard it is to change.
More generally, I assume that LWers are already familiar with things like, willpower depletion, status quo bias, and habit formation that make staying the same easier than changing