snek_boi

I’m so glad you like !snakes@lemmy.world.

We have different thoughts and memories with different animals. We end up with them in different ways. Sometimes we hear what people say and they can become our own thoughts. Sometimes we sit and think new thoughts. Other times we live life and it becomes our own emotions.

Sometimes the memories take charge of the ship and we’re in for the ride. Sometimes our thoughts take charge of the ship and we’re in for the ride.

Sometimes this happens without us noticing. Our memories and thoughts assemble underground and are steering the ship without us fully understanding why the ship is going in the wrong direction. When this happens, we haven’t explored and brought into consciousness our thoughts and emotions.

We can bring those thoughts and emotions to consciousness. Mindfulness can help us observe, accept, and choose, regardless of what our emotions or thoughts say or do. Certain therapies, like Coherence Therapy, emphasize digging our thoughts and emotions so that we can transform them. Other therapies like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy seek to continuously build our capacity to observe, accept, and choose.

If I had to choose one book to recommend, maybe check out How Emotions are Made, by Lisa Feldman Barret. Read it and you’ll have clear answers to your questions and more.

Some people understand the history and the opportunities of living in a country without tying their identity to the country. They can contribute to it, accept diversity, and yet have a more trascendental sense of self. They understand the state can be helpful for certain goals, and not for others.

It’s like money. If we all agree that a piece of paper and some metal is valuable, then it is. We don’t have to worship it. We can use it when it’s helpful and not when it’s not.

Turns out, the more educated, wealthy, and connected a whole population is, the more they are able to go from conceptual senses of self like “I am French” to a more trascendental sense of self like “I am a living being like so many others, and I happen to live in France”. This can also be achieved with certain wisdom traditions, like with loving-kindness meditation. More broadly, it can also be achieved with reflection.

You have a good point! It does sound like my suggestions only help for repeated behaviors. For example, Tiny Habits seems to indicate that it'll work for habits but not for novel situations.

You explicitly mention that it's unlikely that research covers situations that are entirely novel and rare. Do you know about schema theory or relational frame theory? I ask because both of those theories explicitly deal with how entirely new information (such as entirely new situations) is processed in the human brain and how, depending on the schemas or relational frames that a person already had, the person will react in different ways.

But we don't have to go into the theoretical weeds. The popular books that I mentioned earlier deal with novelty. For example, Lakoff shows how, inside the head of any person, a small set of beliefs can end up guiding most of the person's moral thinking and therefore their choices. Not only that, but even the book titled Tiny Habits has sections dedicated to one-off behaviors. Heck, the book Drive deals with teams that are at the bleeding edge of knowledge and techniques, technologies and workflows that no human has ever dealt with before, and yet the book is able to show how there is a set of evidence-based principles that consistently motivate (or not) those very teams.

The fundamental issue is whether humans are able to recognize a situation and know what to do about it. Our brains have been endowed with the capacity to derive thoughts, to think up entirely new situations, to imagine scenarios. We can use that to increase the odds of responding effectively to situations we have never been in before.

Sure, recognizing the light when it's eclipsed by plenty of shadow can seem cartoonish. We can decide to close our eyes and be left in the darkness. We can decide not to pay attention or learn from something we deem unacceptable.

Is there absolutely nothing that China is doing that the rest of the world could learn from? Do you know how much China is investing in green energy in relation to the west? Do you think I am unable to recognize problems in China while at the same time recognizing that it is the single largest investor in green energy on Earth today? Do you think I'm unable to recognize that the United States has a great elite educational system? Or that I'm unable to recognize that the USA has amazing elite research facilities? Or that during the twentieth century it was a world leader in terms of State investments in strategic technologies?

I understand you're trying to increase the odds that people will intervene and that this horrible kidnapping would not be successful.

However, the fund for rewards is not the way to go.

Psychological research about human motivation shows that expecting external rewards reduces personal motivation (or, as psychologists would say it, extrinsic motivation can hinder intrinsic motivation). When humans do things because they expect external rewards, they stop doing it for the sake of it and expect higher and higher rewards over time.

Pay children to draw and they lose their interest in doodling or drawing for fun. Pay your team members for being kind and they will be less kind overall.

So what can we do? You talk to people. You understand their concerns and wishes, and you have them understand your concerns and wishes. You use frames that they already have in their head so that they can see your point of view. You set implementation intentions.

It's a matter of values and the capacity to do the behavior.

Of course, if you're in a dictatorial regime, stopping a state-approved kidnapping will be illegal and get you in lots of trouble. That's why activism also seeks to change root causes. What kinds of root causes? That will depend on who you are. Some people blame the electoral system in the USA, so maybe changing that could help. Other people will blame other causes and therefore will suggest other changes.

This may be abstract, and I wish I had the time to make it less so. Unfortunately, I don't have time right now, but you can check out sources that talk about this. Check out Drive by Pink to learn about motivation. Check out Don't think of an Elephant by George Lakoff to learn about moral reframing. Check out Rethinking Positive Thinking by Gabriele Oettingen or Tiny Habits to learn about implementation intentions.

If you're going to download it, try the torrent option! That way, you can give back to the community that gives you LibreOffice.