site banner
greyenlightenment  investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...  6mo ago (greyenlightenment.com)   2069 thread views

Why does advice work so poorly?

greyenlightenment.com
2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The pure example of the Baridan's Ass sort of problem I'm talking about: it's good to have a sacred day of rest each week. The best way to achieve this is to have it as part of a religion, a dictate of said religion, that one does not work on the sabbath. It's really irrelevant whether your religion picks Sunday, Saturday, Friday, or Wednesday for that matter. But society has to commit to it, and not welch on it, or it doesn't really work.

But there's lots of cases where the quality of the advice is much less important that dedication to following the advice. I know a lot of people who are very out of shape who would benefit from doing any exercise, even a stupid program. Who would benefit from implementing any diet, even a bad one, versus eating whatever junk they see. Who would benefit from religion, even if they don't pick the exact type of Catholicism I happen to prefer.

Because not moving also has drawbacks.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats