“Dominance: The Standard Everyday Solution To Akrasia” by johnswentworth
Description
Here's the LessWrong tag page on Akrasia:
Akrasia is the state of acting against one's better judgment. A canonical example is procrastination.
Increasing willpower is seen by some as a solution to akrasia. On the other hand, many favor using tools such as Internal Double Crux to resolve internal mental conflicts until one wants to perform the reflectively endorsed task. The "resolve internal conflicts" approach is often related to viewing the mind in terms of parts that disagree with each other.
It's a topic which has been talked about a fair bit on LessWrong (though admittedly more so in years past). Yet looking at both the above description and the list of posts on the topic, I am surprised that nobody has emphasized the standard way in which most of the world solves akrasia most of the time: having a boss tell you what to do.
Left to their own devices, tons of people struggle to get into physical shape; akrasia makes it hard to keep up exercise. You know what works pretty reliably? Joining the military.
Left to their own devices, tons of people struggle to formally study topics they’d like to learn. What's the standard solution? A [...]
The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.
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First published:
November 20th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
United States
