I recall Scott Alexander talking about this on one of the SSC posts -- can't remember which -- about the fact that people miss developmental milestones for reasons. And you can ask the question: What developmental milestones am I missing? Or: which cognitive tools do I need for my toolbox?
It's good to teach things that "you should already know", because maybe you're one of today's lucky 10000.
But not all. What is condescending to one is a necessary insight to another. Personally, I am very grateful to people who are willing to say obvious things.
I also occasionally re-listen to the audio of self-help books in order to remember things I learned which are simple yet hard.
So, like the sibling comment about prayers, I’m trying to build a system that collapses those insights into a small enough space that I can review them regularly. Kind of like regression tests for mind function.
> Maybe the purpose of the whole oral tradition
A poem is a text which has been hand-optimized to fit in human memory.
I think this is a fairly general explanation of why smart people do dumb things.
Also of why reading self-help writing can seem like it's revealing important stuff to one person, seem obvious from a different perspective, and not really help anyway.
People can do a very wide variety of things at any given moment, but temperaments or tendencies cannot be changed so easily. Large problems come from a persistent but small or even tiny bias, such as consuming slightly more calories than you burn. A ten pound weight gain in a year is less than 5% over 2000 calories maintenance. 20 years of that and you might be close to 400 lbs. Saying "why can't that person just not eat that..." is denying the problem of balancing something over a lifetime when the homeostatic feedback mechanism people rely on is out of whack.
I don't mean to suggest that weight control is unique, lots of things in life are about the accumulated benefits or harms over time. In management of an organization, not just individual problems, too.
Also, typical how to loose weight advice does not talk about reducing temptations ar all. Instead, it focuses on strong will and self control - blaming people for failure to follow instructions but never giving advice on how to make following easier.
So, even if some know that, a lot of people do not act on it.
Give her the key and ask her to lock all her junk food up. It works.
Life is too short.
On the topic of self-control, I'm actually surprised that the results turned out the way they did. I would have expected the opposite result; that "exercising" your discipline solves the problem once and for all, while reducing temptation is just asking for a relapse when temptation inevitably presents itself again.
If you can't resist purchasing junk food off the shelves, then put a limit on your credit card, or leave your credit card at home and only bring enough money to the store for essentials. And if that's not enough, then limit yourself to only shopping at health food stores where the options are less tempting, and so on.
TBH it was a revelation to me. I did stumble upon it but somehow "be virtuous, exercise self-control" trope keeps reasserting itself. I find myself straining against something then realzing, wait, just throw this thing out and poof, done.
Am I the only one who has, many times, encountered people who say "I don't buy junk food because if I do I'll end up eating it?"
This is one of my gripes with psychology articles/self help books. So so many topics are simple 'revelations' that many of us have figured out by the time we are 20. Can't eat a cookie if you don't have any cookies.
I've read some good psychology books ("Thinking fast and slow" was great), but most of the others I've read I could have have read the one page summary and realized I don't need to read it.