Fatigue. Large amounts of depressing fatigue.
It's particularly bothersome because I just recently got a very good example of how irrational it makes me. This entire post was originally written before some of the coffee I had kicked in. I was typing up my post, and I read it, and I thought there was a good chance people were going to worry about me being suicidal. And then the caffeine kicked in, and I felt more awake, and I thought "Well, that's not very descriptive. I'm depressed, but I'm not THAT depressed." and then I rewrote everything. And then I realized what I was doing, and then I had to rewrite everything to acknowledge both states.
Basically, the knowledge that "I'm entirely irrational while I'm worn out" and "I'm worn out most of the time." put together, hurts me quite a bit in my Less Wrong parts. Of course, it might just be the availability heuristic. I might actually be less worn out then I remember. But then that brings up "A substantial majority of my recent memories seem to be of me being worn out/irrational." as it's own separate problem.
Using your tool analogy, it would best be described as "My tools are dull. Sometimes, they are VERY dull, to the point where I feel like I'm about to snap them. I would like to sharpen my tools, but I don't usually have the time, because people keep needing those tools NOW, and not later, so I apply chemicals which make them feel sharper, but also feel like they are weakening the blade." I do have a 10 day long vacation coming up for my birthday, which I am looking forward too substantially. I expect I'll feel substantially sharper afterwards. But in the meantime... I am my dull tools.
Related to this, what kicks me in the Less Wrong Parts is that I can be in a bad mood and thinking irrationally, be aware that I am in a bad mood and thinking irrationally, and helplessly watch myself continue to think irrationally.
Moods, for me, are very sticky, and any strategy I develop for extricating myself from a foul mood ends up only working within the context for which it was designed. I feel like if I got a handle on my moods, my demonstrated rationality would skyrocket.
It might help to mention that I am not depressed or even unusually moody. ...
A month or so ago I stumbled across this. It's a blog piece by one Robert Lanza M.D., a legitimate, respected biologist who has made important contributions to tissue engineering, cloning and stem cell research. In his spare time, he is a crackpot.
I know I shouldn't give any of my time to an online pop-psychology magazine which has "Find a Therapist" as the second option on its navigation bar, but the piece in question could have been *designed* to antagonise a LessWrong reader: horrible misapplication of quantum physics, worshipful treatment of the mysterious, making a big deal over easily dissolvable questions, bold and unsubstantiated claims about physics and consciousness... the list goes on. I'm generally past the point in my life where ranting at people who are wrong on the internet holds any appeal, but this particular item got my goat to the point where I had to go and get my goat back.
If reading LW all these years has done anything, it's trained me to take apart that post without even thinking, so (and I'm not proud of this), I wrote a short seven-point response in the comments lucidly explaining its most obvious problems, and signed it Summer Glau. It got removed, and I learned a valuable lesson about productively channeling my anger.
But this started me thinking about how certain things (either subjects or people) antagonise what I now think of as my LessWrong Parts, or more generally cause me distress on an epistemic level, and what my subjective experience of that distress is like so I can recognise and deal with it in future.
I've seen a few other people make comments describing this kind of distress, (this description of "being forced to use your nicely sharpened tools on a task that would destroy them" seems particularly accurate). Common culprits seem to be critical theory, postmodernism and bad philosophy. I've also noticed some people distress me in this fashion, in a way I'm still struggling to characterise.
Who else has this experience? Do you have any choice examples? What hurts you in your LessWrong Parts?