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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Teachable Rationality Skills - Less Wrong
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Exercise: Say "Ducks" whenever someone sneezes.
(No, this was not my idea. Jasen again.)
Exercise: Say "Greetings" or "Salutations" instead of "Hello" or "How are you", because people don't sneeze often enough. Also note that "How are you" itself is an unusually autopiloted question.
(From Shannon.)
I used to do this, but it got on people's nerves.
I actually got in something of an argument with my aunt several years back, because she felt that it was rude of me to make slight changes to trivial social interactions, because it made people uncomfortable to be forced to think about what they'd just said.
Huh. It seems to me that reactions like that are precisely the reason why you should do something like that. If someone is sufficiently accustomed to acting on autopilot that they feel discomfort and annoyance at a stimulus that requires some thought, then they deserve to be provoked thus.
I think that most people view these social interactions as an attempt to make the other person feel comfortable (ie that you care about their well-being).
Thus if you change them, you're messing with their heads by making them uncomfortable on exactly the very thing that should be making them more comfortable... thus why it's seen as rude.
yes, you can force them to change on this - but a) you're teaching a pig to sing and b) I think there are more important battles.
That's more or less what I argued (not that they deserve it, but that they'd be better off occasionally thinking about activities they usually put on autopilot,) but eventually I decided that it wasn't worth the trouble their discomfort caused me when dealing with them. It wasn't a high utility use of social capital.
Huh. I actually did this a while back (not with those, but with other nonstandard greetings) but I don't think it's made me any more mindful. Maybe if you kept switching every [time period], according to die roll? But then, if it's already part of a larger program of habit-switching/mindfulness, that may be more than necessary...
I've found having environmental switches helps more: I try to use British spellings at home, and US spellings at work, and thus have to constantly think about them. I have spell checking dictionaries set up appropriately in both environments, so I get nice little reminders "you're not spelling it right!" to wake me up, too :)
Because I can't settle in to a routine pattern, it keeps me significantly more aware than previous "develop a new replacement habit" changes have for me.
Or one could carry around a satchel of black pepper.
For historical reasons "Ahoy" would be better since "Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell originally suggested 'ahoy' be adopted as the standard greeting when answering a telephone, before 'Hello' ...became common)
A good idea but a bad implementation, as doing this is a bit of a nerd stereotype (e.g. Martin from The Simpsons, Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory). IIRC, Leil Lowndes suggests in one of her books that the question "How do you spend your time?" usually be substituted for "What do you do?" With a bit of finessing, it seems like it could replace "How are you?" (maybe "What are you doing today?" -- strikes me as similar enough to get the social meaning across, but different enough that you might also get a useful not-automatic response).
Alternatively, again, use another language.
Why "ducks" in particular?
Indeed. If the idea is just to retrain a habitual response, why not pick a sneezing ritual from another culture? Wikipedia has an entire list of responses to sneezing in various languages. Apparently "Sanon" is the correct response in Esperanto. Could lead to some interesting conversations, while remaining plausible.
Because "frogs" would be totally weird?
I nominate "Ducks" to be the Official Secret Greeting of the Bayesian Conspiracy
I've recently taught myself to substitute "__" or "bunnies" when I want to swear at work. The former was pretty trivial. The latter requires improvising an interesting way to work it in to the sentence, and this usually defuses my actual frustration as an added benefit.
It probably helps that I tend to swear rather prolifically to begin with, of course, so I get a lot of practice in :)
Exercise: Use the speech characteristics of some favourite show/character/stereotype of yours that you don't already.
Examples: talk like a pirate, as described by some online guide (MLP) use evrypony/nopony instead of "one", Hay and Horse Apples as expletives, etc. (homestuck) use troll terms for everything, if writing (especially on paper) use a typing quirk Pronounce l33tspeak avoid using words that contain a specific letter try to include a pun on a specific theme in every sentence
(warning; could get very annoying for the environment)
... hmm, after further consideration, these might not actually work very well, it comes up so often (every sentence) that you don't get a chance to forget about them. Might be a good exercise for somehting else thou.
I sneeze quite often. When someone says 'bless you', my usual response is 'and may you also be blessed'. I've heard a number of people who had apparently never wondered before say 'why do we say that?' after receiving that response.
It's funny, but unfortunately it fails the original intent of the response - which is to wish good health (originally of the soul) on the person doing the sneezing.
Unfortunately I cant think of a single-english-word response for "be healthy!" that doesn't sound dumb...
perhaps the foreign-language versions would work: santé (french) or even genki (japanese)
I hear Salud (Spanish) occasionally. A bit easier on the tongue than Gesundheit.
I usually say "Gesundheit", partly because I feel slightly uncomfortable with the connotations of "bless you".
I couldn't agree more. I find it moderately offensive when someone says, "Bless you," when I sneeze. First, because of the religious implications, second, because they certainly haven't thought before speaking, and third, because it's never crossed their minds that I COULD be offended by unthinking, religious invocations.
It doesn't offend me when other people say it. It's true that they aren't thinking -- it's just a social pleasantry, people don't often think about those! -- but it's meant in a nice way. Also, perhaps this is a cultural difference (I'm in the relatively irreligious UK), but I think most people who say it here don't mean it as a religious invocation in the slightest. I just don't particularly like expressing that connotation myself.
Is it really necessary to wish good health on the soul of people who sneeze? I took the 'Ducks!' suggestion to be basically completely indifferent to the existing trigger.
Not necessary, anymore, no. I'd consider the modern-day intention behind saying something seems to be "I noticed you sneezed, I hope you're ok and not coming down with anything".
I could see "ducks" generating hostility and/or confusion, if it's obvious that you're using this in place of "Bless You / Gesundheit". This is more down to just people being weird, though; they also occasionally get upset or confused by me saying "Happy Hanukkah!" at the appropriate time of year.
My personal opinion is to not really care unless I am, say, at work and suspect my boss or co-workers might be offended enough to result in an HR issue, but it's probably worth being aware of.