I don't want to.
Link | # | #psychology, #mental-model
Maeбичка:
It took me a long time to realize that people simply make up false reasons and justifications for things that may or may not be true, entirely independent of those reasons.
I hate this but also have begun to understand why people (probably including me?) do it, and I am learning how to navigate it.
First, I want to note something crucial: the people giving false reasons, whether they are intelligent or not, often do not even realize the reasons are false. They are not “lying.” Half the time, or perhaps even more, the reasons are there to convince themselves just as much as other people.
A second crucial thing: “False” does not mean untrue. It could even be a valid logical reason for the thing. But it is not the instinctive reason you believe in or want the thing. It is divorced from your needs and reality. So here is what false reason-giving looks like:
I cannot do A, because B.
Oh, good news, B is not true! So you should be able to do A, right?
Well… but also C and D. And also B is true because E and [blah blah blah].
It took me a long time, both with clever and unintelligent versions of this, to realize this person simply does not want to do A, period
This is a good mental model to have. It should be more normalized for people to say 'no, I don't want to' without giving reasons. Reasons are hard for two reasons (yes, I know the meta-reasons):
- it is difficult to figure out the reasons
- it's costly - it takes time and effort to figure out and is the cost worth it?
- reasons keep changing and one must keep rethinking
- continuous chains of 'Why?s' are possible - there has to be an agreement on some base cases where both parties agree to give importance (this is easy enough in sensible cases - but with enough motivation people can question fundamental reasons)
- the reasoning process is a hairy mess of a graph that needs to be traversed - the reason we can usually do this is because we are familiar with some nodes and agree to their leafy-ness
- even if you know the reasons - it's annoying to list them out clearly. No one wants to hear a 30min monologue about why heading out for ice-cream is not something I want to do right now because it boils down to solving for equilibria (and the damned equations are too hard.)
Zvi adds zviness:
If you do not want to do [A], and cannot come up with a legible reason not to do [A], then that is indeed a rather strong reason to consider doing [A], but I agree it is not conclusive. You should look for illegible reasons, the real reasons you don’t want to do [A], and see if there’s something important there. Once you know why you have the desire not to do [A], then you can decide to ignore it if the reason is dumb.
If someone says [B], [C], [D] in turn, the conclusion is not always that they want [~A] period. It means that there is some unknown [X] that is the actual reason. Sometimes [X] could be overcome. Sometimes it couldn’t.
Sometimes they don’t know what [X] is and you have to figure it out.
Sometimes they do know what [X] is, but for social reasons they can’t tell you.
a. Sometimes they want you to figure it out but not tell them, and they will sometimes be dropping rather aggressive hints to tell you this. This can involve things you can’t say out loud, secret information, and so on.
b. Sometimes they want you to figure it out and maybe tell them, but they can’t tell you first, whereas if you go first it makes it okay.
c. Sometimes they want to essentially tell you ‘because of reasons’ and do not want you to figure it out.
d. Sometimes they simply can’t even and don’t have the time to explain, or even to figure out what they’re thinking in the first place. Can be highly valid.
e. They may also be trying to fool you, or they might not.