In my musings of late I've reached the conclusion that there's one key cognitive error people make, on auto-pilot, which holds us all back from making positive changes to our behaviour. That is that we think our habits and behaviour are, at least approximately, balanced and reasonable. We feel we are rational and wise (ish, at least) and that things are in balance - our behaviours are not errant and irrational, at least for the most part. 

Perhaps we feel it is automatically necessary to think that way in order to have decent self-esteem? I disagree, however, in any case, to put it in colloquial terms: we feel the yin and the yang compliment each other - the forces are balanced. 

The truth of the matter however is that the vast majority of us are desperately all over the place and skewed way off centre on at least several issues. Drugs, alcohol and gambling addiction, laziness/apathy, infidelity, AGW denial, woo belief, gluttony, hygiene neglect, crimes of all kinds...the list goes on and on and on. 

Fuck the yin and yang (thus the red X) - lets all be brave, acknowledge our flaws, accept that our "bad" habits are illogical and break away from them. We do after all secretly KNOW they're errant, toxic, and wrong, but turn a blind eye to that because we believe we are rational, balanced individuals and so there MUST be very good reasons indeed for our errant and toxic bad habits.....afterall we've been doing them for so long! Insidious habits and ethos built up in the ignorance of youth and beyond.


Cool story?

Auto pilot is my excuse for cooking kids in hot cars.

I think most bad habits have good reasons. Meaning, the habits themselves are good, but what they have been applied to is perhaps not. For example, we have bodies that protect against malnutrition, therefore eating habits that might be beneficial in scarcity are problematic in surplus. You mentioned gluttony; I would argue that the habit itself isn't the problem, its the easy access to excess food.

(July 13, 2020 at 1:18 pm)Lawz Wrote: In my musings of late I've reached the conclusion that there's one key cognitive error people make, on auto-pilot, which holds us all back from making positive changes to our behaviour. That is that we think our habits and behaviour are, at least approximately, balanced and reasonable. We feel we are rational and wise (ish, at least) and that things are in balance - our behaviours are not errant and irrational, at least for the most part. 

Perhaps we feel it is automatically necessary to think that way in order to have decent self-esteem? I disagree, however, in any case, to put it in colloquial terms: we feel the yin and the yang compliment each other - the forces are balanced. 

The truth of the matter however is that the vast majority of us are desperately all over the place and skewed way off centre on at least several issues. Drugs, alcohol and gambling addiction, laziness/apathy, infidelity, AGW denial, woo belief, gluttony, hygiene neglect, crimes of all kinds...the list goes on and on and on. 

Fuck the yin and yang (thus the red X) - lets all be brave, acknowledge our flaws, accept that our "bad" habits are illogical and break away from them. We do after all secretly KNOW they're errant, toxic, and wrong, but turn a blind eye to that because we believe we are rational, balanced individuals and so there MUST be very good reasons indeed for our errant and toxic bad habits.....afterall we've been doing them for so long! Insidious habits and ethos built up in the ignorance of youth and beyond.


Cool story?

Needs more dragons.

More than 12 years of living with schizoaffective disorder has utterly demolished my behavioral autopilot. It's all manual thinking and behavior. I envy people that can drive cars without concentrating on steering & maintaining velocity, they just drive. In effect, I'm sensitive to stimuli in my behavior and thought that doesn't correspond with reality, likewise from how people use language and how they behave. This doesn't mean I'm hyper aware or some expert on body language, just that I parse everything while trying to maintain a focus.

So, no more bad posts from you?

(July 13, 2020 at 9:22 pm)Eleven Wrote: So, no more bad posts from you?

The vast majority of my posts are impeccable and excellent  Yes, I make the occasional cock-up and post something stupid, but I'd hardly term that a pernicious and virulent habit. YMMV @Eleven but in any case, discussion in this thread RE my views on unrelated topics would be...off-topic...so let's not go there here.

(July 13, 2020 at 3:07 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: I think most bad habits have good reasons. Meaning, the habits themselves are good, but what they have been applied to is perhaps not. For example, we have bodies that protect against malnutrition, therefore eating habits that might be beneficial in scarcity are problematic in surplus. You mentioned gluttony; I would argue that the habit itself isn't the problem, its the easy access to excess food.

You may well be right in a way RE habits of all kinds having "useful" roots, but I would argue that's basically irrelevant in the here and now due to the fact we live in an environment which modifies and interacts with our biological drives and so to separate the one from the other (innate drives vs environmental influence) on this topic would be unrealistic.

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(July 13, 2020 at 3:32 pm)arewethereyet Wrote:

(July 13, 2020 at 1:18 pm)Lawz Wrote: Cool story?

Needs more dragons.

(July 14, 2020 at 7:45 am)Lawz Wrote: You may well be right in a way RE habits of all kinds having "useful" roots, but I would argue that's basically irrelevant in the here and now due to the fact we live in an environment which modifies and interacts with our biological drives and so to separate the one from the other (innate drives vs environmental influence) on this topic would be unrealistic.

I think that if your position is to accept things as they are that's fine. But if you want to fix the discrepancy it is much more easier to alter the environment than alter our nature.

There is nothing unrealistic about changing the environment to improve our habits. That's what we're best at. To keep with the food example, knowing that satiety is deactivated by availability, you can modify your local environment to prevent overeating. Perhaps you can divide a large bag of chips into smaller bags, so your brain gets the satisfaction of finishing a bag without it being a large family pack. Or simply avoid buying excess food, so that theres less available at your house in the first place.