But, if it is true that we are starting from zero, why not instead try to create emotional attachment, as I did with Climate Change?
As you suggest, it seems to be much harder than just telling ourselves that our behaviour for example will lead to a problem in the future. Maybe if we could connect it with a fear or an imminent threat, but that seems to be most of the time hard because we are in a very cozy and priviledged position.
If you could emotionally attach to an idea or threat of your choosing, why wouldn’t most of us just create an emotional attachment to a more rational lifestyle and to become more of a critical thinker. There should be enough fears we could use in our favor that would help realizing how threatening it is if we dont go this route soon.
I think this is a point largely separate of the one I was making, though reading your post I realize that I haven’t quite thought this true. Nonetheless I definitely think that I am already attached to something which I label as a “rational lifestyle,” and I suspect most of us are. The issue is probably more the part about doing stuff. You can be a rational/critical thinker and correctly identify a lot of problems but don’t bother to do anything against them. In fact, this is a pattern that I see frustratingly often.
As you suggest, it seems to be much harder than just telling ourselves that our behaviour for example will lead to a problem in the future. Maybe if we could connect it with a fear or an imminent threat, but that seems to be most of the time hard because we are in a very cozy and priviledged position.
If you could emotionally attach to an idea or threat of your choosing, why wouldn’t most of us just create an emotional attachment to a more rational lifestyle and to become more of a critical thinker. There should be enough fears we could use in our favor that would help realizing how threatening it is if we dont go this route soon.
I think this is a point largely separate of the one I was making, though reading your post I realize that I haven’t quite thought this true. Nonetheless I definitely think that I am already attached to something which I label as a “rational lifestyle,” and I suspect most of us are. The issue is probably more the part about doing stuff. You can be a rational/critical thinker and correctly identify a lot of problems but don’t bother to do anything against them. In fact, this is a pattern that I see frustratingly often.