dclayh comments on Fighting Akrasia: Incentivising Action - Less Wrong

8 Post author: gworley 29 April 2009 01:48PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (56)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: MrHen 29 April 2009 06:19:13PM 5 points [-]

Akrasia can strike anywhere, but one place it doesn't seem to strike too often or too severly, assuming you are employed, is in the work place. You may not want to do something, and it might take considerable willpower to perform a task, but unless you want to get fired you can't always play Solitaire.

Akrasia struck all the time back when I was working at (gasp!) Burger King. There were employees and managers that would follow this behavior. "Well, I should do this because it is what my employer wants, but..." The trick is to do as little as possible without getting fired. Lying helps.

This is the biggest issue I have with some of the punishment/penalty systems suggested in the comments is that they teach people not to get caught instead of doing whatever it was they were supposed to be done. The clock Alicorn linked to is a minor example, but the workaround is to turn the clock off and sleep anyway. Most punishment systems have similar problems.

Comment author: dclayh 29 April 2009 07:21:56PM 2 points [-]

In grad school also it's perfectly possible to play solitaire all the time (depending on your particular field/situation, anyway).