It is very hard to fake scarcity. The scarcity dividend happens because scarcity imposes itself on us, capturing our attention against all else. We saw that this happened in a way that is beyond conscious control—happening in milliseconds. It is why an impending deadline lets us avoid distractions and temptations so readily—it actively pushes them away. Just as we cannot effectively tickle ourselves, it is exceedingly difficult to fool ourselves into working harder by faking a deadline. An imaginary deadline will be just that: imagined. It will never capture our mind the way an actual deadline
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