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The best kind of parody: the one you almost can’t tell is parody. My sense is that the core issue with people who actually think this way is that they lack emp

The best kind of parody: the one you almost can’t tell is parody. My sense is that the core issue with people who actually think this way is that they lack empathy. They assume that their context is shared by everyone. So if one simple trick worked for them, it surely must work for everyone else.

eulgro 3y ago
Is it really parody though? I haven't read other posts of the author to be able to know. It does make sense to me. When someone tells me they can't do something the problem isn't usually that they can't, but that they don't want to. In particular I like to apply it to acts for reducing one's environmental footprint: - Want to become a vegetarian? Just stop eating meat. - Want to switch to a more environmentally friendly mode of transportation? Just stop using your car. Or just stop putting gas in it so you won't even be able to use it. - Want to reduce your consumption? Just stop buying useless stuff. And whenever I say things like that, I agree it looks like I'm lacking empathy, because they focus on the action. But the real challenge is the "want to" part. Because once you want to, you can often just do it. And if willpower is lacking, that just means you don't want to enough. Of course you can then take my logic and apply to everywhere it doesn't, like telling me that won't help a blind person to see again. That's beside the point.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  It’s basically a take on “it hurts when I do this.” “Have you tried not doing that?” But I guess if trying to sleep helped someone get to sleep… awesome!
- sneak 3y ago
  Literally everyone who stopped smoking cigarettes (whilst continuing to live) stopped using this method. It's underrated.
sneak 3y ago
I think perhaps you synthesized the "surely must work for everyone else" part. The author claims it worked for them, and suggested others try it. That's all.
celdon25 3y ago
That part was obvious enough. The icing on the cake is that they fail to point the reader to in-depth reading material, written by experts. Doing so would serve to acknowledge to the reader the author's own limitations, and to point them in the direction of some better help, since the reader might actually need it if they're reading that. That's all the author had to do to keep this post from being a complete eyesore. But frankly, an eyesore is wishful thinking when you consider that some could actually end up trying this for weeks, failing, and getting epicly discouraged. Though in all likelihood it won't matter either way as the two kinds of people in today's Internet are those that trust everything they read, and those who fall out of the gene pool.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
You're free to disagree. It's a blog post. No need to reach for ad hominem.
rognjen 3y ago
What a comment: asking for empirical evidence on an article that's an anecdote.

eulgro 3y ago

Is it really parody though? I haven't read other posts of the author to be able to know. It does make sense to me. When someone tells me they can't do something the problem isn't usually that they can't, but that they don't want to. In particular I like to apply it to acts for reducing one's environmental footprint: - Want to become a vegetarian? Just stop eating meat. - Want to switch to a more environmentally friendly mode of transportation? Just stop using your car. Or just stop putting gas in it so you won't even be able to use it. - Want to reduce your consumption? Just stop buying useless stuff. And whenever I say things like that, I agree it looks like I'm lacking empathy, because they focus on the action. But the real challenge is the "want to" part. Because once you want to, you can often just do it. And if willpower is lacking, that just means you don't want to enough. Of course you can then take my logic and apply to everywhere it doesn't, like telling me that won't help a blind person to see again. That's beside the point.

Waterluvian 3y ago
It’s basically a take on “it hurts when I do this.” “Have you tried not doing that?” But I guess if trying to sleep helped someone get to sleep… awesome!
sneak 3y ago
Literally everyone who stopped smoking cigarettes (whilst continuing to live) stopped using this method. It's underrated.

sneak 3y ago

I think perhaps you synthesized the "surely must work for everyone else" part. The author claims it worked for them, and suggested others try it. That's all.

celdon25 3y ago

That part was obvious enough. The icing on the cake is that they fail to point the reader to in-depth reading material, written by experts. Doing so would serve to acknowledge to the reader the author's own limitations, and to point them in the direction of some better help, since the reader might actually need it if they're reading that. That's all the author had to do to keep this post from being a complete eyesore. But frankly, an eyesore is wishful thinking when you consider that some could actually end up trying this for weeks, failing, and getting epicly discouraged. Though in all likelihood it won't matter either way as the two kinds of people in today's Internet are those that trust everything they read, and those who fall out of the gene pool.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

You're free to disagree. It's a blog post. No need to reach for ad hominem.

rognjen 3y ago

What a comment: asking for empirical evidence on an article that's an anecdote.