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Daniel_Burfoot comments on Proposal: Anti-Akrasia Alliance - Less Wrong
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Comments (34)
How about calling the group "Akrasiacs Anonymous"? It might not be a bad idea to explicitly model the group on AA. They seem to have a pretty powerful set of mind hacks: a 12-step program, group support meetings, and sponsorship (where an experienced member takes a younger member under his/her wing).
Alcoholics Anonymous does no better than placebo. Can't find the original source where I saw this, but http://www.astrocyte-design.com/pseudoscience/ has some links to various sources.
I am skeptical of this, particularly without a definition of "placebo," as I've seen studies breaking down the various significant parts of AA membership (sponsoring someone else was the most significant), so the whole deal being placebo would be odd.
Wikipedia has an article about the efficacy of AA. I gather it's just really hard to pin down because it's so informal and participation is hugely variable. I'm sure it works for the people it works for.
For me, the problem with the AA model, even if it works, is that many of their particular brand of "mind hacks" seem opposed to the rationalist approach, perhaps a bit cultish. Not a good fit for Less Wrong.
Presumably being a sponsor requires you to have had some previous success at not-drinking so that isn't really evidence that AA causes people to keep sober.
Very possible- I don't have the study on hand, so I can't check how careful they were with their statistical analysis. (Ideally, you would have enough information to separate out the successful people who sponsored and the successful people who didn't, then compare them, but assuming a study is ideal is rarely a good idea.)
I do consider it likely that having someone depend on you makes people more likely to stay sober, but causality the other direction is also strongly likely.
"Akratics", I think.
If I read things correctly, "a-krasia", "hypo-crisy", and "demo-cracy" are all etymologically related via some sort of root word that has something to do with "ruling".
The absence of rule (in a person). Weak rule (in a person). Rule (of a polity) by the people. This reading suggests terms like "hyperkrasia" which I guess would cash out to something like obsessive compulsive personality disorder from too much ruling?
It would be funny to name the group "Hypocrites Anonymous" :-P
Your etymology of hypocrisy is false.
Thanks. What is the correct one?
"Akrasia" and "democracy" (etc.) are indeed related through that root, but not "hypocrisy".
In addition to the other replies: do we have any reason to be anonymous? Is there an akrasia equivalent of the drunk airline pilot?
Well, the OP said akrasia was the biggest problem in his life. Some people might be reluctant to talk about their big problems in public without the shroud of anonymity. AA involves people getting up in front of a crowd and telling stories about how alcohol ruined their lives. An analogous akrasia-focussed group might involve, say, a person telling stories about how he spent hours playing WoW instead of writing his master's thesis. Not quite as bad, but still bad.
Having the same abbreviation as AA might be a problem. I'm wary of explicitly associating too closely with AA, because the problems we're tackling don't seem very similar. But I have no personal experience with AA, so would defer to those who do.
Of course we should adopt any good mind hacks whatever the source :-)