What's more interesting is since "The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous" (2015)[1] HN thinks they are experts in how AA doesn't work.
These meme bugs that infect people are the on ongoing issue you see a lot here.
They make no sense, but that's why the meme works. AA is free and you talk to people about your issues, it's hard to see why it's wrong, which is why people love the meme.
Throw in some other regulars -
Inefficiencies mean people actually use more because of "Jenkins paradox" so don't make things efficient!
You are supposed to wake up every night in the middle because some researcher in the arts read it in 300 year old documents.
People are more afraid of losses than gains.
Dumb people think they are smart.
People rise to their level of incompetence... Actually this ones true. But it does mean Impostor Syndrome is more complex than people say.
> They make no sense, but that's why the meme works. AA is free and you talk to people about your issues, it's hard to see why it's wrong, which is why people love the meme.
this isn't a very charitable take. there are a lot of legitimate reasons to be skeptical about AA. to an outsider, the tone and content of the twelve steps can seem pretty weird. why abstinence only, and why don't coffee and cigarettes count? why are people prohibited from identifying themselves as a drug addict in some AA meetings (as if alcohol is not itself a drug)? why does AA itself collect essentially no data that could be used to determine the efficacy of the program? why do courts mandate attending AA but not other similar support groups?
the old adage "it's hard to beat free" certainly applies here, but I wouldn't casually discount all the negative stories in this thread from addicts that tried AA.
These meme bugs that infect people are the on ongoing issue you see a lot here.
They make no sense, but that's why the meme works. AA is free and you talk to people about your issues, it's hard to see why it's wrong, which is why people love the meme.
Throw in some other regulars -
Inefficiencies mean people actually use more because of "Jenkins paradox" so don't make things efficient!
You are supposed to wake up every night in the middle because some researcher in the arts read it in 300 year old documents.
People are more afraid of losses than gains.
Dumb people think they are smart.
People rise to their level of incompetence... Actually this ones true. But it does mean Impostor Syndrome is more complex than people say.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr...