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PlaidX comments on Pain and gain motivation - Less Wrong
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Okay, the two "examples" of akrasia that come to mind most easily are procrastination and addiction. If you're procrastinating, then you're failing to do something, and so you need some positive, "gain brain" motivation. If you're addicted, then you're failing to not do something; does this mean that you need some negative, "pain brain" motivation? If I'm addicted to heroin, should I try to visualize all the horrible things that will happen to me if I don't overcome my addiction?
I don't think addiction IS a form of akrasia.
Why, pray tell, not? Surely heroin addicts would rather not be heroin addicts, and yet they are.
Are you sure about that? Beware generalizing from a sample of one.
Heroin addiction is in most cases carefully cultivated by the addict, for a variety of reasons, and stopping is not really difficult.
I recommend Theodore Dalrymple's insightful book Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy for clarification as to why akrasia and heroin addiction are not related.
I'm generalizing from a sample of zero, in fact.
That's the wittiest expression for "I'm reporting my prior" that I've seen in the last five minutes! :D