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Who cares if it's a placebo if it works. We're hackers here. There is no magic behind the scenes.

• natep 16y ago
  I bought the book, but I don't think that it being a placebo is the only danger. What if it has negative effects on your way of thinking? What if it has no effect for most people? What if it has a negative effect (e.g. on people with low self-esteem as another comment points out)? What if there's a better way of achieving the same result? What if we don't even know what the right 'what if' questions to ask are?
  • sudont 16y ago
    The low self-esteem is a very valid point. I've had some very strong negative reactions to people telling me to "get over it" in terms of a couple of personal insecurities and faults, and going over the thoughts makes it worse, at least in terms of dealing with the emotions as valid. In fact, thinking about these faults conventionally leads to a deepening of the unwanted behavior. Having started to meditate in the Vipassana style has started to teach me to accept, but not embrace these emotions. In a less hippy-dippy way, there could be actualization training that helps people get on the right path first, defeating these types of emotions.
• AlexandrB 16y ago
  What is a placebo in this case? I posit that it's something that will make you think it worked (and you'll recommend the book to all your friends), but won't make any actual positive impact on your discipline. Basically if it's a placebo, it would give you self-delusion instead of results.
  • rhizome 16y ago
    Actually, the placebo effect is not a delusion, that's why it's called that and not "the placebo delusion." A better analogy would be something that worked despite not believing that it will. Results despite opinion, as it were. The upshot is that discipline is self-evident. Anything that has an effect on discipline is indistinguishable from placebo. Either you're getting more done or you aren't, there's not a lot of room for "getting stuff done, but in a fake way."
    • AlexandrB 16y ago
      Unless you take time to measure how much you get done (how would you even measure such a thing consistently?) - you might think you're getting more done even though you're not. Kind of like multitasking can feel really productive, even though productivity actually decreases.
• naner 16y ago
  I didn't say we don't know how it works, we don't even know if it works.