This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for March 16-31.
It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
- Established a useful new habit
- Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief
- Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations
- Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior
- Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something
- Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life
- Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you
- Tried doing any of the above and failed
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.
Immediate past diary: March 1-15
Next diary: April 1-15
I've had similar objections in the past. What helped me overcome that was to think about it like I was "going undercover" and "behind enemy lines" to steal their secrets and techniques to use against them. I was going to get strong, yes -- but I was going to do awesome stuff with my strength, not lame stuff.
As Nornagest put, I totally had the geek mentality of "Physicality is for jocks/oppressors!!" Eventually I realized that they were winning on a lot of important levels, and I was avoiding successful methodologies because they were being used by The Enemy. This was needlessly sabotaging my own success.
Even now, the weight lifting communities tend to be extremely irrational, misogynistic, homophobic, and otherwise problematic, and for that reason I'm not totally OK with identifying as a weightlifter, since that's how most people associate it. However, there are groups of non-problematic weightlifters, and I find that identifying with that crowd is pretty cool.