Tim Harford writes about Thomas Schelling, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2005, and his approach to Cold War- he was instrumental in forming the Cold War strategy:-
"His argument was that 'bright lines, slippery slopes and well-defined boundaries' were everything in this debate. In the quest to avoid a full-blown nuclear exchange only one focal point should be emphasises: that nuclear weapons could never be used. There was no such thing as a 'minor' use of nuclear weapons any more than one could become slightly pregnant. The taboo was purely psychological, invisible to a mathematician like Von Neumann, but real and very useful".
It looks like taboos have their use- for Schelling seems to suggest, Hartford discusses this elsewhere, our internal conflicts are a kind of cold war, where our selves battle it out for control. Schelling fought his smoking habit, and won it, using this kind of 'bright lines, slippery slopes and well-defined boundaries' strategy.
What he seems to suggest that you should form a taboo- "I won't smoke before breakfast", "I won't brush my teeth before writing at least hundred words", and so on. When you do that, chances are that you can succeed in doing that.
I am making this post mainly because I thought that taboos were all superstitious, and we should be free to act as the situation demands- any sort of psychological restraint is a denial of freedom. But people who have formed habits, and can't quit their addictive activities are not free- and taboos might be a way to break their chains.
What do you think of this- people who want to do something but can't do it- are they not free, and as such, their idea of freedom is a false one- and if it works, is it right to use taboos?
Before setting yourself a focal point or a taboo or whatever in the quest of changing your habits, dear cold war warrior, please take a look at this post in the blog: Mathematics under the Microscope
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