Episode Recap

In this series, I have been building up the argument that other people's internal psychology is much weirder and a lot more alien than it seems on the surface, and that this explains why most humans on this planet fail to make obvious and important inferences. They just don't think right.

Supporting arguments so far:

Human thought has a lot more degrees of freedom than we manage to remember because surface-level conscious thoughts are made up of many little micro-acts of cognition that we don't think about. Elaboration here.
Even when they can theoretically execute the same mental motions (not always), e.g., make a deductive argument, different people (and groups of people) have learned very different patterns of using different mental motions. Elaboration here.

Today's supporting argument is:

Hidden behavior is more varied and surprising than you think

The claim goes like this: when behavior is publicly observed, e.g., how we eat food, or simply how we walk and talk, there is a regularizing and standardizing effect. What mix of conformity instinct, mimicry, and practical convenience causes this, I'm not sure. Restaurants probably like it that they stock knife/fork/spoon, and maybe also chopsticks, and not a [...]

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Outline:

(00:09) Episode Recap

(01:02) Hidden behavior is more varied and surprising than you think

(04:01) What about them shower thoughts?

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:
November 19th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CEexspLWxmSAbv9X9/how-the-aliens-next-door-shower

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

OSI Model diagram showing seven layers with data units and functions for each layer.

Blurry figure seen through rain-covered glass with mathematical diagrams.

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“How the aliens next door shower” by Ruby

LessWrong (30+ Karma)