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Psychohistorian comments on Defeating Ugh Fields In Practice - Less Wrong
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You have it all wrong. Your "ugh" field should go into their utility function! Whether or not they invest the resources to overcome that "ugh" field and save their life is endogenous to their situation!
You are making the case for rationality, it seems to me. Your suggestion may be that people are emotional, but not that they are irrational! Indeed, this is what the GMU crowd calls "rationally irrational." Which makes perfect sense--think about the perfectly rational decision to get drunk (and therefore be irrational). It has costs and benefits that you evaluate and decide that going with your emotions is preferable.
I see this comment as not understanding the definition of "rational" in economics, which would be simply maximizing utility subject to costs such as incomplete information (and endogeneous amounts of information), emotional constraints and costs, etc.
I appreciate the Devil's Advocacy. The simple issue, though, is that if you use a definition of "rational" that encompasses this behaviour, you've watered the word down to oblivion. If the behaviour I described is rational, then, "People who act always act rationally," is essentially indistinguishable from, "People who act always act." It's generally best to avoid having a core concept with a definition so vacuous it can be neatly excised by Occam's Razor.