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ciphergoth comments on The Unfinished Mystery of the Shangri-La Diet - Less Wrong
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This touches on a general issue about free will.
In a world where everyone is sort of a jerk and says "Just shut up and exercise, you fatso!" there may be such a strong drive to avoid condemnation and low social status that you actually do shut up and exercise.
In the alternate world where everyone understands that it's not really your fault and you can't shout people into having more willpower and willpower is a sketchy concept anyway and accepts you for who you are - you will have no incentive to get better.
So occasionally I do tell people the equivalent of "shut up and exercise" for certain things, even though I know it doesn't work directly. It's a case by case basis, depending on how many opportunities the person is missing and how likely I think my advice is to seriously affect them.
You have it completely backward. In my experience, to a first approximation we already live in the "everyone is a jerk" world, and the steaming piles of moralism serve to make it very hard for people to even think about this issue because of the waves of low self-esteem it brings on.