Lumifer comments on Marketing Rationality - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Viliam 18 November 2015 01:43PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2015 04:14:24PM -1 points [-]

what's wrong with promoting it as 'one weird trick to effortlessly lose fat'?

What's wrong is that you are reinforcing the "grab the shiniest thing which promises you the most" mentality and as soon as the Stuff-Your-Face-With-Cookies diet promises you losing fat TWICE AS FAST!!eleven! the Shangri-La diet will get defenestrated as not good enough.

Comment author: bogus 18 November 2015 04:28:24PM *  0 points [-]

the Shangri-La diet will get defenestrated as not good enough.

See, the difference is that the Shangri-La diet has some scientific backing, which the Stuff-Your-Face-With-Cookies diet conspicuously lacks. So, the former will win in any real contest, at least among people who are sufficiently rationally-minded[1]. Except that it won't, if you can't promote your message effectively. This is where your initial pitch matters.

[1] (People who aren't rationally-minded won't care about 'rationality', of course, so there's little hope for them anyway.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 November 2015 07:38:02PM 0 points [-]

Shangri-La diet has some scientific backing

I do believe that it works, but "scientific backing"? Did I miss some new study on the Shangri-La diet, or what are you talking about?

Comment author: Vaniver 18 November 2015 10:11:19PM 1 point [-]

People often use "scientific backing" to mean "this extrapolates reasonably from evidence" rather than "this has been tested directly."

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 November 2015 10:49:55PM *  3 points [-]

If you use the word scientific that way I think you lose a quite valuable word. I consider NLP to be extrapolated from evidence. I even have seen it tested directly a variety of times. At the same time I don't consider it to be scientific in the popular usage of 'scientific'.

For discussion on LW I think Keith Stanovich criteria's for science are good:

Three of the most important [criteria of science] are that (1) science employs methods of systematic empiricism; (2) it aims for knowledge that is publicly verifiable; and (3) it seeks problems that are empirically solvable and that yield testable theories.

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 19 November 2015 01:00:39AM 3 points [-]

Agreed, good definition of science-backed.