Charismatic people can motivate others. People sometimes like something because their friends like it. Conditioning.
Now that's slightly better, and I agree. But again, you have to ask yourself what the ultimate purpose is and if it's going to backfire or not.
For example, people from Vienna meetup are going to gym together after the next meetup, so they can convert enjoying a rationalist community into enjoying exercise.
That sounds like an interesting idea, if perhaps slightly naive. I get what the goal is: Channel the enjoyment of a rationality meeting to start exercising, then hope that after a while the enjoyment of exercise will itself act as a positive feedback loop. But then you have to ask the question: Why weren't they already exercising in the first place? And if they hope to achieve something positive by exercising, wasn't that enough to get them start exercising? It's possible that after the initial good feelings wear off ("Yay, the rationality community is exercising together!") the root causes of exercise avoidance will kick in again and dissolve the entire idea. Or worse: get them to do extremely unenjoyable exercises just for the sake of the community, which will ultimately get them to resent exercise even more than before.
Why weren't they already exercising in the first place? And if they hope to achieve something positive by exercising, wasn't that enough to get them start exercising?
I think that humans usually are not strategic goal seekers. That's how an ideal rational being should be, but ordinary humans are not like that. We do have goals, and sometimes even strategies, but most things are decided emotionally or by habit.
So the answer to "why weren't they already exercising" could well be: a) Because they didn't have a habit of exercising. When you are doi...
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